m 
 
 I 
 
A COLLECTION 
 
 OF 
 
 SPEECHES 
 
 SPOKEN BY 
 
 DANIEL O'CONNELL, ESQ. 
 
 AND 
 
 RICHARD SHEIL, ESQ. 
 
 ON SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH THE 
 
 CATHOLIC QUESTION, 
 
 DUBLIN : 
 
 JOHN CUM MING, 
 
 16, LOWER ORMOND-QUAY, 
 AND 
 
 THOMAS TEGG, 73, CHEAPSIDE, LONDON. 
 
 COUNTRY OF ORIGIN, 
 
 1828. ^ 
 
O 18 
 
 & X O 
 
 18 
 
 CHESTNUT ^CJSgp 
 
 R, BEERE & CO. PRINTER* 
 28, L. STRAND-STREET. 
 
THIS collection of Speeches is published, 
 in a cheap form, with a view to it's circulation 
 among all classes of the Irish people. It is not 
 the object of the Editor to furnish specimens 
 of eloquence — the book is not literary, but po- 
 litical. 
 
 It is right that the reader should be apprised, 
 that with the exception of that upon Church- 
 rates, none of Mr. O'Connell's Speeches, were 
 ever furnished to the Press by himself. The 
 Speech delivered by him at Waterford, was 
 reported by a gentleman sent from the Morning 
 Herald, for the purpose ; and w r as revised by 
 Mr. O'Connell. The rest of his Speeches are 
 extracted from the Public Journals, and were 
 untouched by him. His professional and pub- 
 lic occupations precluded the possibility of cor- 
 rections by his own hand. 
 
 Some of Mr. O'Connell's Addresses are in- 
 serted, on account of the admirable matter 
 
iv 
 
 which they contain. This departure from the 
 title and original design of the book, will be 
 justified by their great usefulness : of those 
 compositions, the Address to the Dissenters, 
 which appeals so strongly to the feelings, and 
 so powerfully to the reason of that body, and 
 is a masterpiece of argument, of narration, and 
 of eloquence, closes the volume. 
 
 Mr. Sheil's Speeches are extracted from the 
 newspapers. 
 
SPEECH, 
 
 DELIVERED B V 
 
 Mr. O'CONNELL, at theMunsterProvincial Meeting, 
 
 HELD IN WATERFORD, 
 ON THE SOth of august, 1826. 
 
 I RISE in order to direct the attention of the people, 
 and if possible, the consideration of the government to the 
 multifarious evils by which this country is afflicted. 
 
 The chief and master grievance is the enormity and mis- 
 application of the Revenues of the Established Church. 
 In these revenues the poor have a right to find their first and 
 best resources. It was evidently the intention of the origi- 
 nal donor, that three distinct functions should be performed 
 by the Ecclesiastical Revenues ; first, the rewas one-third in- 
 tended to support the Clergyman : secondly, one-third 
 was applicable to the building and keeping in repair the 
 Churches ; and the remaining third, which was what Irish- 
 men called the biggest third, was intended, and, in Catho- 
 lic times, applied to support the indigent and helpless, to 
 nourish the weary, to console the sick, and alleviate every 
 affliction. How changed from Catholic times ! Now a 
 proud and haughty parson consumes the whole, and riots 
 in that consumption, whilst he outrages and insults the peo- 
 ple whom he consigns with contempt to beggary and star- 
 vation. His charity begins at home, and it is of so domes- 
 tic a nature that it never goes abroad. And not only does 
 he refuse to build or repair the parish churches, but he in- 
 flicts a heavy perpetual cess on wretched Catholic inhabi- 
 tant^ and with money w rung from their poverty erects for 
 himself those unseemly buildings which disfigure the coun- 
 try — those large barns with steeples growing out of them — 
 erected at the expense of many Catholics to accommodate 
 occasionally, at an idle hour, three, four, or five nominal 
 Protestants. This of all our oppression is perhaps the most 
 vexatious :— -it perpetually recurs ; the statesmen are so ab- 
 surd as to imagine that the Catholics of Ireland can conti- 
 tinue to endure the deprivation of their civil rights, aggra- 
 vated by the plunder of their property to maintain those who 
 calumniate and insult them. 
 
 It will be said, for I am calumniated on every p^int, ani 
 B 
 
2 
 
 I love to cause that calumny — it will be said that my object 
 is to wrest from the Established Clergy their temporalities 
 in ordet to bestow them on the clergy of the Catholic 
 Church. I laugh to scorn the idle accusation. It is impos- 
 sible that I should desire to see my clergy possessed of the 
 wealth of the Protestant Church ; and although I think the 
 State ought to furnish a moderate provision for the Catholic 
 Clergy, yet my opinion is fixed and unaltered, that wealth 
 ruins the utility of the ministers of Christ, and turns that 
 self-devotedness and purity of intention which ought to be- 
 long to the clerical character, into the sordid speculation of 
 a vile traffic. It degrades the ministry and pollutes the al- 
 tar, and converts the apostles of the meek, humble, and 
 charitable Redeemer into fiery partizans and tyrannical 
 lordlings. For one, therefore, I never will consent to see 
 worldly wealth tarnish the Catholic priesthood. To the ma- 
 jority of the Clergy, especially the Prelates of the Estab- 
 lished Church, my hostility is open and avowed. The con- 
 duct of the Bishops in the House of Lords has created and 
 justifies the feelings of deep resentment. Nor is that re- 
 sentment unmixed in some instances with well merited con- 
 tempt. Yes, we ourselves have heard one of the lights of 
 the English Episcopal bench, not merely content with vent- 
 ing his virulent misrepresentation, but actually lying like a 
 misplaced mile-stone, false as an un-wound clock. That Bi- 
 shop in order to continue the base injustice done to the Ca- 
 tholics of Ireland, stated as an historical fact, that the late 
 Dr. Dromgoole had made a bigoted speech at the Catholic 
 Board, That such speech was not only applauded, but that a 
 distinct vote of thanks had been passed to him, thanking him 
 for that speech. Gracious Heaven, of what material be these 
 Protestant Bishops made? Here was a solemn statement in 
 a legislative assembly, made by a right Reverend Pre- 
 late — and what was not only untrue, but directly the 
 reverse of the fact. There was indeed a vote passed by 
 the Catholic Board, on the subject of that speech — a vote of 
 approbation ? No ; a vote of direct and harsh reprobation 
 and condemnation : and here stands my friend, Mr. O'Gor- 
 man, the person who actually moved that vote. Let Eng- 
 land learn from this single example, how flippant is the 
 tongue of calumny againt the Catholic religion. How cau- 
 tious they should be to believe men of minor character, 
 when the lofty tone and the sacred station is used to give 
 greater circulation to vile falsehood. If a Catholic Bishop 
 had thus misrepresented the fact, how soon would the Orange 
 Press exclaim the miscreant Bishop. 
 
 I only condemn the ingredients of their own vile chalice 
 
3 
 
 to their viler lips. Ireland has suffered much— and long 
 centuries of oppression have rolled over, of English oppres- 
 sion—the varying tide of time has given her but a variega- 
 tion of woe. The miseries of one period differ only in cha- 
 racter from the wretchedness of former times— distress, dis- 
 sentions, poverty, and turbulence, oppression and insur- 
 rection, stain her annals. Our fertile soil is almost a de- 
 sert—our noble harbours a solitude — our powerful streams 
 roll undisturbed by machinery to the ocean. An active, a 
 cheerful, generous, and a brave people, linger out lives of 
 penury and distress. The tithe collector, the cess gatherer, 
 the law driver, the grand jury extortioner, haunt every re- 
 cess, and seize upon all the means of livelihood — while the 
 absentee squanders in foreign climes, and encourages fo- 
 reign industry with the spoils of our impoverished land. 
 Amid the dreariness of our wretched country, the most 
 hideous of earthly monsters, religious dissension, rears its 
 horrid head, and " affrights the isle from her propriety." 
 To England I attribute all these evils — to England I justly 
 attribute them. All the crime, and some of the punish- 
 ment, thank Heaven, belongs to England. Man cannot be 
 unjust with impunity. To countenance and support a fac- 
 tion — to enable a greedy and unemployed clergy to bloat 
 with wealth, and live in luxury— to crush the sacred prin- 
 ciple of liberty of conscience, and to extinguish the hope 
 of rational freedom, is the game England has long played 
 in this country. She has succeeded to her heart's content, 
 but I rejoice that she is obliged to pay out of her own trea- 
 sure for that vicious success. Ireland cannot be oppressed 
 and productive. Next to tyranny, they love money. Well, 
 let them have the comfort of knowing that to continue the 
 present system costs England more than two millions ster- 
 ling by the year, over and above all that the revenues of 
 Ireland produce. Listen to that, John Bull— shake your 
 sapient ears, and understand that the pleasure of making 
 the Irish miserable, costs you more than two millions per 
 annum. Is the game worth it, honest John? If you think 
 it so, continue it in the name of all that is mischievous, as 
 long as you can, or as you dare. For my part, I do expect 
 that the system will soon end. It is impossible it should 
 dontinue, but what are my hopes ? Where are my expec- 
 tation of relief? Not from the present ministry — certainly 
 not. The ministers of the present day form a strange 
 and heterogeneous knot of discordant statesmen. How can 
 they tranquil ize the country when they are not agreed 
 among themselves. Eldon, the tactless Eldon, presides 
 B 2 
 
4 
 
 over the group — perhaps I should say the gang. He, 
 forsooth, is the mighty Judge of Equity. What equity 
 does he do to Ireland ? I am told, and I am certainly 
 inclined to believe it, except on State occasions, he has not 
 been five times within the walls of a Church, and yet he is 
 religious — all religious, forsooth. Yes, he is of that religion 
 which brings him money, and continues him in power; yes, 
 religion is of value to him, because he converts it into the 
 instruments of increasing his wealth, and continuing his 
 domination. How my soul burns with indignation when I 
 think of the extreme meanness and depravity of converting the 
 sacred law of Christianity into a kind of draw-farm for riches, 
 into a machine for continuing domination and authority, and 
 Unfortunate suitors await in misery the vacillation of his 
 judgments, and the multiplication of his doubt; but when 
 his own interests are concerned ; oh, no man can be more 
 active, prompt, and decided. And he has the ready deter- 
 mination of the late French emperor, when the question 
 merely is to ameliorate the lot of seven millions of Irish 
 Catholics. From him we have nothing to expect, nor from 
 those who support him ; we have no means to gratify his 
 avarice, or to sustain his unworthy ambition. Next is the 
 vacillating, uncertain, timid Liverpool — a child of corruption 
 from his youth — nurtured in Court sycophancy— incapable 
 of one manly or dignified association of the human mind ; 
 demonstrating the truth of the old adage, that it is surpris- 
 ing how little common sense is necessary in order to rule the 
 destinies of a great empire. Floating on that stream of cor- 
 ruption, which is turning into rottenness the base on which 
 stands British power ; and, while England looks on, acqui- 
 escent or applauding, the foundation may be sapped, and 
 the power and glory of England extinguished for ever. — i 
 From us they will then have no sympathy to expect, because 
 to us they have refused justice, and have preferred to the 
 heart and affection of Ireland, the rule of a timid minion 
 who has not dared to be honest, if he were bid to be an 
 oppressor by any voice coming from near the throne. The 
 next is Mr. Peel, a kind of scriptural statue — half useful 
 metal, half painted clay — his utility derived from the lower 
 classes, from which he has recently sprung • his useless 
 china ware, badly cemented by the aristocratic mixture into 
 which he has latterly emerged, with too much of common 
 sense not to desire to be honest, but with too much of 
 grovelling ambition to have the firmness to be virtuous ; 
 from him Ireland may expect some missionary of incendiary 
 strife, but can hope for nothing of godliness, kindness or 
 
5 
 
 benevolence. Neither can Canning afford us any consola- 
 tion — Mr. Huskisson, Mr. Robinson, Mr. Wynne, nor all 
 the Grenvilles. There is a weakness and a wickedness in 
 this discordant combination with the jarring elements of 
 Eldon, Liverpool, and Peel, that stamp both parties as 
 unqualified with the name of statesmen. Who can deny 
 that the question of Catholic Emancipation is one of great 
 importance ? It is one of paramount, of vital importance. 
 Those who are ready to concede, and those who refuse 
 concession, both join in admitting that importance. The 
 destinies of Ireland, probably of the empire, depend upon 
 it ; and yet, upon this most important measure the present 
 Ministry is divided — almost equally divided. What, then, 
 should be thought of a set of men who agree to share 
 amongst themselves the spoils of office, without agreeing 
 upon this vital subject ? One division of them only can be 
 right — one detachment of them must be wrong. I stop not 
 now to inquire which — but there they are, right and wrong. 
 No, they have not even that chance of obtaining public 
 respect — they are all wrong. They are wrong in concerting 
 to act together to form a portion of the same Ministry. 
 They demonstrate that principle cannot rule their councils. 
 What is it then ? The love of place — the lust of power — 
 the vulgar ambition of dispensing the emoluments and offices 
 of the State. From this Ministry we can have no hope. 
 From such a Ministry, branded as it is, by its own confession, 
 with worthlessness — from such a Ministry it would be in 
 vain to expect high-minded justice ; whilst they continue 
 in power Ireland is consigned to despair. But I do not 
 despair — I never will despair. I look abroad and I do not 
 despair — I look at home and I no not despair. Abroad, I 
 behold America is multiplying her Republic — extending 
 the principles of civil and religious liberty — warring against 
 despotism, and rendering the rights of humanity triumphant. 
 From the multitudinous nations, tribes, and people — from 
 the boundary line on the Canadian frontier to where Cape 
 Horn beholds the waves of the great ocean commingle, 
 despotism and injustice must be affrighted by the trium- 
 phant voices of the sons of liberty. The winds of the west 
 bear the sounds of freedom to the shores of Europe ; it is 
 heard above the winter's storm — it comes sweetly on the 
 summer's breeze, and, like magic music in the heavens, 
 gladdens the ear of seven millions of Irishmen. In Catholic 
 Portugal free institutions are already rearing their infant 
 heads. France is strong, and mighty, and powerful. Spain, 
 like the compressed volcano, may pour its lava when and 
 where no one can tell. The frightful fever of the Gi n 
 
 B 3 
 
6 
 
 struggle which now shakes the minarets and mosques of 
 Constantinople may, no one knows how soon, cause a trepi- 
 dation amid the ginger-bread castles and school-boy palaces 
 of Regent-street. The arch- Autocrat who rules, instead of 
 his brother, the myriads of northern semi-savages, seem, 
 just like the winds of iEolus in his cave, ready to burst forth 
 and rend all the features of European civilization ; there is 
 nothing, therefore, in the aspect of foreign affairs to make 
 us despair of seeing Ireland become necessary for the well- 
 being of England. There are many signs and circumstances 
 of the times that call upon us to hope that our vacillating 
 and unestimable Ministry may be compelled to yield the 
 helm to men who would know how to form a new Holy 
 Alliance with the People of Ireland — a Holy Alliance 
 to raise England — to smile with contempt at any attempt at 
 domestic dissatisfaction, or any menaces of foreign force. 
 When I look at home the encouragement of my hope 
 increases. England is suffering through all the channels of 
 her manufacturing population — agricultural distress presses 
 hard upon commercial ruin. The boasted paper prosperity 
 of the Ministry has faded before the fatal policy of endea- 
 vouring to pay the interest of eight hundred millions of" 
 debt, and the expences of the State, with a gold currency. 
 The dreamers who had dreamt a dream, that they could 
 collect sixty millions of revenue in pure gold, or in paper of 
 equal value, may be placed in St. James's, but they ought 
 to be at St. Luke's. They may be in palaces — they ought 
 to be in mad-houses. And yet the experiment is continued — 
 they act like the Frenchman who, in bringing his horse to live 
 without food, almost succeeded when the animal died. The 
 very frame of civil society in England may burst in the pro- 
 gress of the equally ludicrous, but more melancholy policy 
 of our disjointed, but still adhesive Ministry. 
 
 I rejoice not, nor am I capable of rejoicing at individual mi- 
 sery; but I know that it was in the midst of England's distress 
 that any portion of justice was doled out to Ireland, and there- 
 fore my political hopes are not clouded by the unsettled 
 state of our British neighbour. But my hopes are at home. 
 I behold the increasing combination of Protestant, Presby- 
 terian, and Catholic, throughout Ireland. I see the daily 
 increasing harmony among all who are not under the 
 influence of the fomenters of bad passions ; but, above all, 
 I perceive the accumulating strength of the oppressed 
 themselves. Whatever may be the effect of the present 
 system, it certainly tends to diminish the number of the 
 Catholics. Our numbers give us Constitutional strength. 
 When we were less than one million it was that, that atrocious 
 
7 
 
 aet of perfidy and injustice, the violation of the treaty of 
 Limerick, was consummated. When we grew to two mil- 
 lions, it was still safe to oppress us, and the iron hand of 
 the fellest oppression lay heavy upon us. Statutes written, 
 as Montesquieu has said, in letters of blood, continued to 
 press upon the preceding statutes of iniquity. When we 
 came to be about three millions, oppression ceased to increase, 
 but still found it safe to continue her proud system. At 
 four millions the mere clanking of our chains affrighted our 
 enemies ; and in the apprehension, a considerable portion of 
 this weight was taken off. W r e are now seven millions 
 admitted; nay, the census now carrying into effect will 
 show our numbers far beyond even seven millions. I say 
 it not in menace, but 1 ask it in the tone of firmness, was it 
 ever deemed safe to oppress seven millions ? Let the ques- 
 tion be ruminated upon. I put it not in menace, but I put in 
 sober solemnity to the British Ministry, and the British 
 people. Let them not say that Irish misery can be traced 
 to Irish causes. Let them not say that the evils of the land 
 are to be attributed to Irishmen. They might say so, 
 indeed, if the Parliament were Irish, and if the Government 
 of the country was in the hands of Irishmen. If the Irish 
 governed themselves then, indeed, would it be just to attri- 
 bute to them the evils that pervade this country ; but it is 
 equally just, at first, to attribute to England those miseries 
 which affright the people of Ireland. It is just to do so, 
 because England, for more than six hundred years, has 
 governed and ruled the destinies of Ireland. For six 
 hundred years she has misgoverned Ireland. It is enough 
 to make the hardest heart weep tears of blood to think of 
 the wretchedness of our native land, and to behold the 
 determination on the part of England to continue the present 
 system. May, Sir, I be permitted, in melancholy solemnity, 
 to ask the reason why this system should be continued ? 
 Can they say we refuse to be conciliated ? Can they pretend 
 to assert that we have shown no disposition to meet in a 
 cordial and conciliatory spirit, British kindness ? Every 
 such pretext is vain. I myself was one of those who last 
 year quitted our homes and occupations to prostrate ourselves 
 and our country before the bar of British justice. We 
 offered all that we could offer — we offered more than I would 
 now offer ; or would now consent to accept emancipation 
 upon the terms of giving : and how were we received ? 
 Why, we were treated with insult and scorn, and blasphemous 
 derision. Then issued a voice from the very footsteps of the 
 throne, and it attested the Deity, that the Irish should forever 
 continue slaves. The pliant Peel readily bowed before that 
 
8 
 
 voice^-the vacillating Liverpool cringed beneath its sound, 
 whilst the money-loving Eldon chinked his bags of gold, 
 and rejoiced that bigotry could be still discounted into more 
 pelf. There was a period of similar importance in the 
 history of England — Franklin, Benjamin Franklin, with 
 more of talent than any of us could boast, but with an 
 equally sincere desire of combining America with England, 
 and perpetuating the connection — the virtuous Franklin 
 proffered the dutiful submission of the hearts and hands of 
 America to be devoted to the service of England — and what 
 did he require ? A mere act of justice. How was he re- 
 ceived? With derision, contempt, and insult. England 
 refused to be just. She laughed to scorn the force of Ame- 
 rica. She even boasted, that by the night watch of a single 
 parish, all the armed power of America could be put down. 
 It was deemed safe to oppress, and oppression was therefore 
 continued. The Americans forgot their feuds, banished 
 their domestic dissensions, combined in patriotic determina- 
 tion, rushed to arms, and, oh ! may Heaven be thanked for 
 it, prostrated the proud standard of proud England in the 
 dust, and discomfited her with all her chivalry. Our depu- 
 tation last year was blamed for our over readiness to conci- 
 liate, but what did that prove ? Our earnest anxiety to pro- 
 mote the security and happiness of both countries, even by 
 sacrificing ourselves. 
 
 Popularity is said to be my idol. It is true I do love po- 
 pularity, but I was ready to sacrifice it when I saw a pros- 
 pect that by making that sacrifice I could combine Ireland 
 and England into one common interest, and lay what I deem- 
 ed a sure foundation for securing the happiness of both. 
 But we too were rejected — we too were scorned. The blas- 
 phemous oath was interposed between Ireland and her 
 rights. Is this a safe course to pursue > I ask is it pru- 
 dent? Is it wise ? They speculate upon the weakness of 
 Ireland, We are more than seven millions. They specu- 
 late upon our attachment to British connection, and that 
 speculation is not vain, so far as it refers to us who have 
 grown into maturer years, under impressions and with opi- 
 nions favourable to that connection. They speculate upon 
 our horror of blood and anarchy, of rebellion and crime. 
 And they are right in that speculation. But let them not 
 mistake our constitutional and conscientious submission to 
 legal authority into any unwillingness and unfitness to exert 
 alL our faculties mental and corporeal upon any fitting and 
 constitutional occasion in the vindication of our natural 
 rights as men, and our just privileges as subjects. The con- 
 flict in his country's cause has in itself no terror for the 
 
9 
 
 Irishman. The maturity of life has reached me in the strug- 
 gle, but yet my step is firm, and my arm too is not unnerved. 
 So that I should not feel any personal deficiency to deter 
 me from joining in the battle's roar in the cause of my 
 country. But I have been bred in the doctrines of dutiful 
 submission to the constitution, and those who have acted 
 with me and have grown into age around me, have partici- 
 pated in the same sentiments. The speculation is therefore 
 so far safe which reckons on our submission. But I am not 
 without my perception of passing events and instigating 
 causes. Yes, coming events do cast their shadows, and I 
 behold many circumstances which enable me to anticipate 
 the future history of Ireland. The rising generation is not 
 as submissive as their fathers were. It may not be equally 
 safe to treat us ill, as it is to ill treat them. The rising youth 
 of Ireland appear to have their pulses beating with better 
 blood, and I have remarked more than once that while I 
 myself was tranquil, the eye of youth scarce reached be- 
 yond childhood, was glistening with indignation at the his- 
 tory of the six centuries of misgovernment which this coun- 
 try has endured. This fiery youth, with hotter blood boil- 
 ing in their veins, is accumulating fast around us. Whilst 
 we of the old day live, we can and will restrain them. But 
 when the grave has closed upon those who have been nur- 
 tured in submission, and trained in the toils of patient en- 
 treaty and constitutional prayer ; when we are removed, 
 oh ! may England for her own sake, for the sake of huma- 
 nity, and above all, to turn off the evils which even a suc- 
 cessful struggle must inflict upon Ireland — may she learn to 
 be wise in time, and to be just while she may be so with 
 dignity and pride. May she never force, for she cannot 
 otherwise do it, Ireland to imitate America. 
 
 But may the concession of equal rights in fit time and 
 season produce equal interests and render the combination 
 and connection of the two countries a perpetual source of 
 blessings to each, and of strength and security to both. 
 What is it after all we require of England ? Nothing but 
 an act of justice — a mere act of justice — a thing that would 
 in nought impoverish her, while it would make us rich in- 
 deed. Nay, it would be a double blessing — it would bless 
 those who receive, and infinitely more it would bless and 
 serve those who gave. Ought it not to provoke us almost 
 to madness, to think that the system of exclusion and op- 
 pression is continued by England without one plausible rea- 
 son, or one sensible pretext for its continuance. It has, 
 indeed, been said— oh ! how foolishly said, that conciliation 
 towards Ireland would be in vain ; that our disturbances 
 
10 
 
 would continue although the system were changed, and that 
 tranquillity would not be insured, even by abolishing mis- 
 government. Sir, I am a lawyer, we of the bar are in the 
 habit of establishing our assertion by calling witnesses and 
 citing cases, as much as by argumentation and reason.-— 
 I assert that Ireland would be tranquillized by concession 
 — that our disturbances would be terminated by a single act 
 of justice. I submit to every rational man that it ought to 
 be so in point of theory. Every reasonable being loves 
 tranquillity. It is the interest, and must be the wish of 
 every people to be at peace ; and in the history of the world 
 no man can point out an instance where a country was 
 disgraced by popular commotion, except when acted on by the 
 powerful stimulants of injustice and oppression : but I will 
 not be content with theoretic reasoning ; I am Counsel for 
 all Ireland ; I am Counsel for Ireland, and as such I will 
 proceed to cite cases, and deduce precedents, and call 
 witnesses to prove this assertion, that when England has 
 been oppressive and unjust to her provinces, she has pro- 
 duced misery, disturbances, and continued outrage, and that 
 the moment she has conceded equal rights and Constitutional 
 protection, that instant, as if by magic, tranquillity, prospe- 
 rity, and utility to the empire have infallibly ensued. My 
 first witness I summon from the region of the dead ; I 
 invoke the name of Edmund Burke — his spirit and 
 genius again live in the pages that were produced by his 
 immortal genius ; I refer to his speech on conciliation with 
 America. At page 84, in the third volume of the edition 
 of his works, printed in 1808, I find a case that powerfully 
 illustrates the truth of my argument. Perhaps it is not 
 generally known, indeed I believe it is almost entirely 
 forgotten, that Wales was once the Ireland of the English 
 Government. Listen to what the evil was, and how simple 
 and efficacious was the remedy ; I read the words of Burke— 
 * f My next example is Wales. This country was said to be 
 reduced by Henry the Third — it was said more truly to be 
 so by Edward the First, but though then conquered it was 
 not looked upon as any part of the realm of England. The 
 old Constitution, whatever that might have been, was 
 destroyed, and no good one was substituted in its place — 
 {' Oh, how like Ireland !') The care of that tract was put 
 into the hands of Lords Marchers. Primate Boulter says 
 that in Ireland they were called Lords Adventurers. A 
 form of government of a very singular kind — a strange 
 heterogeneous monster, something between hostility and 
 government/' Here Mr. O'C. laid down the book jor a few 
 moments. 
 
11 
 
 I differ from Mr. Burke in many political opinions, 
 but how sincerely do I thank him for the characteristic force 
 of his language. Here, indeed, is the true description of 
 the Irish Government. Here is an epitome of Irish history. 
 We have it in one short sentence. I love to repeat it— " A 
 strange heterogeneous monster — somethingbetween hostility 
 and government I resume my quotation — " The manners 
 of the Welch nation followed the genius of the government 
 — the people were ferocious" — (they say we are so) ; " res- 
 tive" — (we certainly are so) ; " savage" — (they accuse us of 
 being so ; they treat us like brutes, and they are astonished, 
 forsooth, that we do not meet that treatment with the grace 
 of French dancing masters) ; " and uncultivated unculti- 
 vated ! why they have passed Acts of Parliament to make it 
 a felony to educate Catholics at home, and a premunire for 
 Catholics to be educated abroad ; and then there have been 
 beings found among the English base enough to accuse us 
 of being uncultivated ; who — but I have interrupted myself 
 — KB read the paragraph without breach or stop — " The 
 manners of the Welch nation followed the genius of the 
 Government ; the people were ferocious, restive, savage 
 and uncultivated — sometimes composed, never pacified. — 
 Wales within itself was in perpetual disorder, and it kept 
 the frontier of England in perpetual alarm. Benefits from 
 it to the State there were none. Wales was only known to 
 England by incursion and invasion." (Substitute turbulence 
 and insurrection, and what have you but the sometimes 
 composed, never pacified state of Ireland.) I resume Burke's 
 speech — " Sir, during that state of things Parliament was 
 not idle — they attempted to subdue the fierce spirit of the 
 Welch by all sorts of vigorous laws." (See what servile 
 imitators the Peels, Eldons, and Liverpools of the present 
 day are.) — " They prohibited, by Statute, the sending all 
 sorts of arms into Wales." (Liverpool has done the same 
 over and over again to Ireland.) " They disarmed the 
 Welch by Statute." — (Peel has done the same with equal 
 virulence to Ireland.) " They made an act to drag offenders 
 into England, from Wales, for trial." (Judge Johnson's 
 case proves that Lord Eldon has sanctioned an act of similar 
 atrocity. Mark, I pray you, the next paragraph ) " By 
 another Act, where one of the parties was an Englishman, 
 they ordained that his trial should be always by English." 
 (There is an instance of horrible English injustice for you !) 
 But observe, such another Act, and if possible, an act of 
 greater atrocity, is in force to this hour in Ireland. For it 
 is a law to this moment, that in all issues under the Popery 
 Laws, and nine-tenths of all the landed property in Ireland, 
 
12 
 
 as at this very hour, — I repeat it, (and I say it delibe- 
 rately, as a lawyer,) that nine parts, out of ten, are still 
 affected, by the Popery Laws— it is enacted, that in all 
 such issues, the juries shall be composed solely of known 
 Protestants. It is not enough that the Protestants take the 
 oath, and swear that the sacrifice of the Mass is impious and 
 idolatrous. That will not do. — The Protestant, to be a juror, 
 must be free of all possible submission to Popery. He must 
 be, in the words of the law, a known, that is, an undoubted — 
 aye, that is, an Orange Protestant. Mr. Peel's glory, is his 
 Jury Bill — what a mockery in the man who opposes any 
 relaxation of the law. I return to Burke — " To find what 
 the effect of these prohibitory Statutes was, and to those 
 precedents — all this while, Wales rid this kingdom like an 
 incubus ; that it was an unprofitable and oppressive 
 burden, and that an Englishman travelling in that country, 
 could not get six yards from the road without being mur- 
 dered. The march of the human mind is slow, Sir, it was 
 not until after two hundred years discovered, that by an 
 eternal law, Providence has decreed vexation to violence, 
 and poverty to rapine." El don, Liverpool, and Peel, have 
 not discovered it to the present hour ; but it was discovered 
 in England in the reign of Henry the Eighth. Accordingly, 
 in the 27th year of Henry the Eighth, a Statute was passed 
 giving Wales all we ask — a share in the British Constitution. 
 I read from Burke the result: would that all England 
 would listen. u From the moment, as by a charm, the tu- 
 mult subsided ; obedience was restored ; peace, order, and 
 civilization followed in the train of liberty ; when the day- 
 star of the English Constitution had arisen in their hearts, 
 all was harmony within and without." Such is the first 
 case I cite — such is the first fact I adduce to establish my 
 assertion, that tranquility can be produced by a mere act of 
 justice. The next instance is also given by Burke ; it is the 
 county Palatine of Chester. There the same evils existed, 
 while the inhabitants were kept out of the pale of the 
 British Constitution. There the same remedy, an act of 
 justice, was applied ; and the same tranquility and good 
 order ensued. 
 
 The next instance given by Burke, is the County Pala- 
 tine of Durham. That county had also long lain out of 
 the pale of free legislation ; and it was, during all that 
 time, a scene of turbulence, disorder, and crime. The 
 same identical remedy was applied, the privileges of the 
 British Constitution, were participated by the people of 
 Durham, and all was peace and harmony, and tranquility. 
 Having cited these cases from Burke, 1 proceed to the well 
 
13 
 
 known story of Scotland. For a century the English Go- 
 vernment endeavoured to subdue the stubborn attachment 
 of the Scotch to Presbyterianism, and with the point of the 
 bayonet to enforce, as they have attempted in Ireland, the 
 English Act of Parliament to fashion Christianity. They 
 enacted pains and penalties, and enforced confiscations ; 
 erected gibbets and made the scaffold flow with human 
 blood ; but did they convert the Scotch Presbyterians ? No, 
 they were just as unsuccessful with them as they then were, 
 and have been since with the Irish Catholics, and like the 
 Irish, the Scotch only clung the more firmly to their re- 
 ligion, because it was persecuted by English injustice. The 
 Scotch, indeed, did not put up with the system of persecu- 
 tion as patiently as the Irish had done. They broke out 
 often into open and avowed rebellion. They brought into the 
 field horse and foot, and when they could get it, some artil- 
 lery. They were often defeated, but they were never sub- 
 dued. Scotland was then what Ireland is now, the weak- 
 ness of England. Domestic dissension in England did all 
 the time look to the aid of Scottish mal-contents, as perhaps 
 some turbulent agitators in England, at this moment, may 
 cast an eye upon Irish dissatisfaction ; and, certainly, at 
 that period the foreign foes of the British Government 
 availed themselves of the weakness induced by the unsettled 
 state of Scotland, as they now speculate upon the ap- 
 parently composed, but unpacified state of Ireland. At 
 length, however, the proper remedy was applied to Scot- 
 land. The persecution ceased. The Scotch attained, not 
 mere toleration for their creed (what we require) but its actual 
 establishment in the state, which we disclaim. Bnt what 
 were the ffects of justice and conciliation to Scotland ? 
 She became tranquil, and peaceable, and industrious ; an 
 ornament to British literature — the best strength of the 
 British Throne, and a main pillar of British power and 
 independence. There remains another example of the 
 effects of conciliation. It is the case of Canada. The Ca- 
 nadians were naturally attached to France, their parent 
 Country , but Britain, as soon as she conquered, wisely 
 communicated to that province the benefit of the British 
 law, and adjourned to Ireland her horror of Pope and 
 popery — she gave perfect freedom of conscience to the Ca- 
 nadian Catholics. The consequence has been, that the 
 Catholic Canadians became, and have continued amongst 
 the most orderly, as well as the most faithful subjects of the 
 British crown, and the most steady adherents to British con- 
 nexion. Have I by these instances proved my esse? Have 
 C 
 
li 
 
 I shown from the evidence of history that oppression has 
 produced discontent and disorder, and justice has been 
 followed by peace and tranquility ? If I have not, there 
 remains one case more to be cited, differing in result, but to 
 my judgment, more powerfully establishing my principle — ■ 
 it is the case of America. — The iron hand of British pride 
 pressed strong upon her ; she petitioned for justice ; her 
 petitions were rejected with contempt. She supplicated ; 
 she wept; she entreated even at the feet of British monopoly. 
 Her prayers were scoffed at ; her entreaties were rejected ; 
 her tears were derided. In drawling speeches, or in good 
 phrases, the Eldons, Peels, and Liverpools of the day, 
 (whilst they raised their eyes to Heaven) declared that in- 
 justice was to be continued to man, They advised George 
 the Third to refuse conciliation. George the Third un- 
 fortunately adopted the mischievous and malignant council ; 
 one of the brightest jewels fell from his crown, and America 
 became free and independent. Thus the friends of con- 
 ciliation pacified and preserved, Wales, and Chester, and 
 Durham, and Scotland, and Canada. Thus the enemies of 
 conciliation and justice lost America. Oh ! may their suc- 
 cessors, in the fatuity and folly of refusing conciliation, be 
 soon scouted from the offices they are so unworthy to fill. 
 May Ireland, like America, not be lost ; but may she, like 
 Scotland, be preserved to British connection, by sharing in 
 British rights and British advantages. 
 
 Shall it be said that my cases do not apply ; that Wales 
 and Chester, and Durham, were of the same religion with 
 their oppressors, and, therefore, more easily conciliated? 
 The answer would be flimsy and idle : but the case of 
 Scotland does not even afford that paltry excuse. The 
 Scotch differed as much from the Episcopalian English as 
 we do from either one or the other. But it may be said they 
 were Protestants — even so; but have I not Catholic Canada 
 to drive away even the shadow of resistance to my argu- 
 ment? Aye, Catholic Canada, which observe, alone remain- 
 ed faithful to British connection, when all that was Pro- 
 testant in America, broke the chain, and effected a per- 
 petual separation from England. Here I might rest my 
 case; but some interested councillor may be heard to allege, 
 that if the Irish Catholics stand in political power, they 
 would become persecutors. He who says so, judges only 
 from the depravity of his own heart, and is utterly ignorant 
 of Irish history ; for I tell him that it is not matter of 
 theory or speculation, but that history proves that the 
 Irish persecuted Catholic may be entrusted with power, 
 
15 
 
 without his entertaining any idea of retaliating persecu- 
 tion. Fortunately the Irish Catholics have twice since the 
 Reformation been in possession of all the political power of 
 this country ; and I say it with truth undoubted — proudly 
 and triumphantly do I say it, that upon both these occasions 
 they evinced the genuine spirit of Christian charity. The 
 first was in the reign of Queen Mary; during the entire reign 
 of Edward VI. and in the closing year of that of Henry 
 VIII. the Catholics of Ireland suffered a dreadful persecu- 
 tion. They were subject to pains and penalties, and priva- 
 tions ; their property was spoliated, their persons were out- 
 raged, their altars overturned, their worship proscribed ; 
 the sacred edifices dedicated to religion despoiled and de- 
 vastated, presenting, even to this hour, the perpetual re- 
 cord of the malignant barbarity of the reformers, and of 
 the splendid and creative genius of the pious adherents to 
 the Catholic faith in former ages. The mantling ruins that 
 surround us, proclaim the tale of that day. Well ! amidst 
 this scene of persecution, Edward died and Mary succeed- 
 ed. This sovereign was not one who will be accused by 
 Protestants of mitigating the disposition of her Irish sub- 
 jects to persecute on account of religion. But the Irish Ca- 
 tholics required no person to mitigate their hostility, for 
 they took no revenge — they retaliated upon nobody— -they 
 seized upon no Protestant's property— they imprisoned no 
 Protestant's person — they spilled not one single drop of Pro- 
 testant blood. In short, they exhibited the rare example of 
 pardoning, even the living perpetrators of recent persecu- 
 tion. This, this it is that makes me love the name of Irish- 
 man. Here w T as an instance where recent aggresssion might 
 well have animated hostility ; but no, the Catholics of Ire- 
 land forgot all, save that it was a sacred duty not to tarnish 
 their sacred faith by any persecution. So much for the 
 reign of Queen Mary. She died, and the virgin Queen 
 who succeeded her has erected a monument of woe in Ire- 
 land. During her r^ign, and the consecutive reigns till 
 James II. the Catholics were persecuted. The sanguinary 
 monster Cromwell, the ferocious Ireton, the bloody Lud- 
 low, strewed our fields with the dead, and deluged our 
 cities with gore ; their holy biblical soldiery turning the 
 
 pages of the Book of God with those stained hands with 
 
 texts of Scripture overflowing from their savage lips— with 
 the Bible in one hand, and the sword in the other, they ra- 
 vaged cities, they despoiled the country, they slaughter- 
 ed the inhabitants— the young by the side of the aged— - 
 the mothers survived not their infants — the infants were 
 C 2 
 
16 
 
 slaughtered on the lifeless corpses of their mothers. Oh I 
 Biblical Saints, how Ireland ought to abhor you ! How 
 your pestilent presence ought to be avoided ! To this mo- 
 ment you inherit the spirit of your murderous predecessors. 
 You calumniate now where you slaughtered before, and 
 your every word and action demonstrates that you want not 
 the inclination but the power to bring back the bloody days 
 of Ludlow, of Ireton, and of Cromwell. The Irish Ca- 
 tholics endured the scenes I have fairly sketched. The sur- 
 vivors of these horrors, or at least the children of these 
 survivors, again obtained political power. In the reign of 
 James the Second, the dominion of Ireland was in the hands 
 of Catholics. Nine-tenths of the Parliament were Catho- 
 lics. The Army was almost exclusively Catholic. For 
 three years they had the almost undisturbed dominion of the 
 land. The horrors they had passed through might have pal- 
 liated — to some, indeed, might appear to justify, a perse- 
 cution on their part. But did they persecute ? No ; thank 
 Heaven, I can say, distinctly and proudly say, that they 
 did not persecute. They exacted no penalties—they created 
 no exclusions — they left the Protestant unharmed — they al- 
 lowed perfect freedom of conscience to all — and standing 
 upon the graves of the Catholics of that period, we can 
 bless their memories for enabling us to proclaim that the 
 Irish Catholics were twice in power ; that exasperated in 
 recent wrongs and religious animosities, they twice attained 
 power, in order to bequeath this legacy to ^their children, 
 the precious fact that the Irish Catholics twice could, but 
 did not persecute. 
 
 Protestants of England, turn from our calumniators to 
 the truth of our history, and if you cannot refuse to ad- 
 mire, at least, for your own sakes, as well as ours, imi- 
 tate the glorious example of the Irish Catholics in the 
 reign of Mary and of James. But I confine not myself to 
 the limits of this island, or the details of our history. 
 There is one rivalry to which I would invite my Protestant 
 friends. It is the rivalry of good feeling. It is the emula- 
 tion of generous sentiment. Long have the rival vota- 
 ries of different persuasions been engaged in a controversy 
 of calumny and hate. Let us reverse the scene. Let us 
 enter into a controversy of generous sentiments and bene- 
 volent actions. Let us enter into an emulous detail of 
 acts of liberality and justice. The Protestants of England 
 have been educated in the grossest prejudice against their 
 Catholic fellow-christians. They arrogated to themselves 
 the boast of almost exclusive liberality. This arrogance was 
 
17 
 
 the result of gross ignorance. For my part, I am ready to 
 demonstrate that the Catholics have been the first in libera- 
 lity — have been, and are, the most liberal towards dissen- 
 tients from their faith. This is not mere assertion. I am 
 ready with the proof. The first instance of liberality after 
 the Reformation, was that which occurred in Maryland. 
 Lord Baltimore, who planted that colony, had been a Pro- 
 testant. He was a wise, a learned, and a most moral man. 
 In spite of every human interest, he became a Catholic, from 
 profound conviction. He was subsequently obliged to fly 
 from his native land — the proud and boastful England, and 
 seek for liberty of conscience amid the then wilderness of 
 America. I have lately perused a speech pronounced in the 
 State Legislature of Maryland, by a Presbyterian Gentle- 
 man, a Mr. Kennedy, made to support a Bill to naturalise 
 the Jews. He details the progress of religious liberty in 
 America. From him, as well as from other sources, 1 can 
 give some interesting dates and particulars. Virginia was 
 planted by Church of England men, who persecuted the 
 Presbyterians and other Protestant dissenters, even unto 
 death. New England was peopled by rigid Presbyterians, 
 who persecuted in return the Church of England-men also 
 to death. In one thing, the New Englanders and Virgini- 
 ans agreed, and in one thing only. It was in persecuting 
 the Catholics with the usual rigorous hostility. Such was 
 the state of religious persecution before and in the year 
 IS49. In that year the Catholic State of Maryland, instead 
 cf retaliating upon Virginia or New England — upon Pres- 
 byterian or upon Protestant — did what ? Why, they pas- 
 sed an Act of Legislature, giving expressly, to Chris- 
 tians of all denominations, equal terms and equal rights. 
 This Act continued in force only five years, because, alas ! 
 in 16.54, the Calvinistic party obtained the dominion, 
 aided as they were by the Cromwellian power at home. 
 They repealed the Act of I649 — they passed a law, 
 entitled, " An Act concerning Religion/' by which they 
 gave freedom of conscience to all Protestant Dissenters, but 
 expressly excluded all Papists and Prelatists. Evil times fol- 
 lowed, and although the Catholics continued the most nu- 
 merous party, yet they never were able to constitute a ma- 
 jority of that State's Legislature until 1676, and the first 
 moment they obtained such majority, they immediately re- 
 pealed the Cromwellian law of 1654, and re-enacted civil 
 liberty, by confirming and making perpetual the law of 
 1649. They were able to preserve that religious freedom 
 for all persuasions, from 1676 to 1692, when King William 
 C 3 
 
18 
 
 the Third, of glorious, pious, and immortal memory—who 
 saved us " from Pope and Popery, brass money, and wooden 
 shoes M — sent over a sufficient force to controul the State's 
 Legislature, to expel the Catholic majority, and to exclude 
 Catholics from power or authority, which was intitled— 
 blasphemously intitled, " An Act for the service of God 
 and the establishment of the Church of England." This 
 law was one perfectly congenial to the ruling spirit of the 
 Established Church ; but it went further— it provided a 
 tax upon the people for the support of that Church ; it pro- 
 vided that every white man should pay to the Protestant 
 clergyman an annual tribute of forty pounds weight of to- 
 bacco. This is what the shovel-hat gentry like ; the tax— 
 the tax is always the thing for your Law Church Divines. 
 And in 1702, they increased the tax to seventy pounds 
 weight for each individual, and continued to exact that tax 
 with a rigour to be equalled only by their fellow -labourers 
 in Ireland, until the American Revolution. 
 
 The essence of the Established Church being to collect 
 as much money as possible for its Clergy, revenue is all they 
 desire. Be it meal or malt, hot or heavy, this noble appe- 
 tite is sufficient for all. In England they take it in pigs and 
 poultry ; in Ireland, they lay their rapacious paws upon po- 
 tatoes and wool, wheat and barley, oats and green grass. 
 In America, they could not get it otherwise, they took it in 
 stout rapparee tobacco. But behold the epitome of the his- 
 tory of Maryland ; when the Presbyterians had power 
 then they persecuted Papists and Prelatists ; when the Pre- 
 latists were in power, they than persecuted Presbyterians 
 and Papists ; when the Catholics were in power, they 
 persecuted neither Presbyterian nor Prelatist, nor any 
 sect, but gave perfect freedom of conscience to christians 
 of all denominations. There is one fact untold respecting 
 Catholic liberality in Maryland, which I wish I had a trum- 
 pet loud enough to call on all England to hear. Who was 
 it advised the liberal law of 1 649 ? Who was it wrote every 
 letter, word, and line of that Statute ? Is England prepared 
 to hear the answer? It was one of that class who have 
 been persecuted, and are still calumniated, but who, in my 
 judgment, deserved to be placed among the benefactors of the 
 human race. It was — hear it, calumny ! — it was a Jesuit. 
 I should detain you all day if I were to continue to cite 
 instances of Catholic liberality. Oh, that I were speaking 
 to the people of England, But I say, that that English 
 Journal which takes so deep an interest in Irish affairs, I 
 mean the Morning Herald, has in this assembly some of its 
 
19 
 
 accurate reporters. Perhaps through them the people of 
 England may hear much — if it be worth preserving, of 
 -what I have said. If so, let them add, that the Cortes which 
 met at Cadiz, composed though it was, of more than three- 
 fourths actual Priests, decreed the abolition and destruction 
 of the Inquisition, and that salt and ashes should be strewed 
 over the spots where its prisons stood — spots consecrated to 
 the eternal detestation of every liberal and free-minded 
 Catholic. Let it also be recorded, that in Catholic France 
 Protestants enjoy not a nominal, but a real equalization of 
 civil rights — their persons respected — their Churches pro- 
 tected — their Clergy paid, more amply paid than the 
 Catholic Clergy by this Catholic State. Let it be remem- 
 bered, too, that the Catholic Diet of Hungary, in the year 
 1 792^ gave the most perfect religious freedom to their 
 Protestant fellow-countrymen ; and although the Protestants 
 of Hungary did not constitute one-fourth of the population 
 pf that country, yet they obtained one-half of the Churches, 
 and one-half of the tithes. And lastly, that the Catholic 
 king of Bavaria has recently emancipated — perfectly and 
 unconditionally emancipated his Protestant subjects; and 
 not only bestowed free Institutions on all his subjects, but 
 has raised the Protestants from a state of exclusion to a 
 complete participation in all the rights, advantages, powers, 
 and offices in their native land. I have spoken distinctly, 
 and, I hope, boldly. I have uttered that which many 
 think, but few have the resolution to express. My motives 
 will be maligned, and my views calumniated. Oh ! be it so, 
 Those objects, however, I deem just and honourable ; and 
 even more useful to England than to Ireland. I call for 
 conciliation, that Ireland may be tranquil, and England 
 strong ; that Ireland may be in prosperity, and England 
 secure. I call for justice, that mutual interests may render 
 the connection between these countries indissoluble, and 
 identify the Government of both with the people of each. 
 It is more foolish than it is wicked to refuse our humble 
 prayer. 
 
 Chance has furnished us with an excellent illustration of 
 the system. Accident has brought amongst us the venera- 
 ble Earl of Fitzwilliam. About thirty-two years ago he came 
 here the harbinger of that wise policy which I now humbly 
 implore. He came to make Ireland part and parcel of 
 Britain — to consolidate the strength, and increase the 
 resources of the empire. But his projects were marred, and 
 his virtuous intentions rendered fruitless. The Established 
 Church, with the bloody Beresfords at their head, drove him 
 
20 
 
 from our shores. This system has worked its dreary way 
 — the lash has been applied — the torture has been inflicted 
 — bad passions have been kept alive, and goaded and insti- 
 gated. One bloody rebellion has been succeeded by another 
 — insurrection has responded to disturbance, and one public 
 atrocity has been exceeded by that which followed. We 
 tread a volcanic land ; the combustible materials ferment, 
 and boil, and bubble beneath us ; bursts of smoke, and 
 lighter flashes of uprising flame denote the mighty mischief 
 within ; and he is a /bold prophet] who can tell at what 
 period the earthquake shall shake the mountains. 
 
Mr. SHEIL'S 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF A 
 
 ROTUNDA MEETING OF "THE ELECT," 
 
 IN A SPEECH AT THE CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL — I rise to second the resolution, " That we 
 have read with indignation the calumnies of Mr. Butter worth 
 upon the Catholic Clergy/' His assertion, that the Priests 
 gave a signal to the people at Carlow to drive their oppo- 
 nents from the field, is destitute of foundation. Enough of 
 this canting bibliopolist, who would bind up the gospel of 
 Christ and the statutes of Queen Anne together. Thank 
 God his efforts, and those of the party whom he so fitly 
 represents, are frustrated. A wiser spirit has begun to 
 manifest itself in the House of Commons with regard to the 
 education of the Irish people. Evidence has been afforded 
 in the recent debates, and especially in the late discussion 
 which was originated by Mr. Smith, that the Kildare-street 
 Association will speedily be divested of that national 
 trust, against the abuse of which we have so frequently, so 
 vehemently, so justly, and, I may now add, we have so 
 successfully complained. Our remonstrances have been 
 heard — a system of instruction, compatible with the ancient 
 religion of the country, will, in all likelihood, be speedily 
 introduced. The account of the proceedings in the House 
 of Commons, upon the presenting of a petition against the 
 misfeasances of the Kildare-street Society, were calculated 
 to afford a higher satisfaction in consequence of the mani- 
 festation of inveterate fanaticism, which, within these few 
 days, has taken place in this city. I allude to the convoca- 
 tions which were held during the last week at the Rotunda. 
 One would be at first disposed to think that there was 
 something inappropriate in the localities selected for those 
 fantastic exhibitions ; but the truth is, that no spot could 
 have been more felicitously chosen for the assemblage of the 
 fair enthusiasts, who were called together for the purpose 
 of imbibing the holy spirit of the powerful " teachers 
 
22 
 
 of the Word/' than the very useful asylum which is dedi- 
 cated to Lucina, and sacred to the ministry of the obstetric 
 art. How apparently distinct, but how substantially coin- 
 cident, are the uses to which the Rotunda is converted ! — 
 Alternately a ball-room and a conventicle — at night the 
 scene of waltzes, and at noon the theatre of prayers, it 
 presents ostensibly different pictures to the imagination; 
 but, after all, the occupations to which it is devoted, gene- 
 rally lead to the same result, Mr, Bankes, the pious and 
 moral representative of the University of Cambridge, intend- 
 ing to say that he was favourable to a particular system of 
 religion, because it led to an intercourse between the diffe- 
 rent sects, happened to speak the truth by mistake, and 
 adopted a form of phrase which excited the risible disposi- 
 tions of the House. He unconsciously did no more than 
 give utterance to an opinion which David Hume has happily 
 expressed in speaking of " the passions which so naturally 
 insinuate themselves in the warm intimacies that arise 
 between the devotees of the different sexes," In this view* 
 of the matter there is nothing very incongruous between the 
 purposes to which the Rotunda is alternately devoted. The 
 sigh at a quadrille is not more impassioned than the suspira- 
 tion at a homily — the whisper of Lothario is not more 
 perilous than the cadences of Cantwell — and the field- 
 preacher has fully as much unction as the dragoon. While 
 I am free to confess my belief, that many of the persons who 
 frequent the assemblies to which I have been alluding, are 
 influenced by genuine and unadulterated enthusiasm, yet I 
 could not help feeling, at one of the Biblical convocations 
 held last week at the Rotunda, which a somewhat malicious 
 curiosity induced me to attend, that there is as much real 
 worldliness, under the disguise of spirituality, at these Scrip- 
 tural gatherings, as is usually exhibited in places which are 
 openly and avowedly dedicated to " Satan and his works." 
 There was at the late assemblies a more numerous muster of 
 "The Elect" than has for some time taken place. The 
 pious of both sexes flocked together from all parts of the 
 country. An ordinary observer must have been struck by 
 the increase of puritanical visages in the streets. I was 
 tempted, by no very sympathetic feeling, to attend at one 
 of their discussions ; and if I saw much matter for disgust 
 in the acrimonious, malevolent, and unrelenting spirit which 
 was manifested towards the religion of the people, I could 
 not, at the same time, help being amused at the solemn 
 foppery, the serious vanity, the spiritual coquetry, the pious 
 ogling, and the demure flirtation which were exhibited on 
 
23 
 
 the occasion. Upon entering the assembly, I found a gentle- 
 man delivering himself of certain conceptions, the purport 
 of which I could not distinctly collect, except that occasion- 
 ally the words " darkness and idolatry," with some references 
 to Babylon, Anti- Christ, and the Pope, gave a tolerable 
 intimation of the tendency of his discourse. He was not 
 sufficiently frantic to be amusing — but seemed to be some 
 dull impostor, without any other qualification than a disas- 
 trous physiognomy for his melancholy trade, My attention 
 lot being roused by the dismal mediocrity of the orator, I 
 ;urned to survey the congregation. It exhibited a great 
 diversity of character. The majority of the male part of 
 ;he audience had that lurid expression — that church-yard 
 ook, which belongs to sectarian fanaticism, and is so distinct 
 xom the cheerful enthusiasm of the Catholic religion. The 
 ;lass I am describing appeared to me to belong to the lower 
 >rder of Protestants. There was a fierceness about them 
 ;hat indicated that they had never been softened by the 
 nfluences of education ; for they exhibited an odious con- 
 unction of the original savageness of their nature, with the 
 irtificial ferocity of a fanatical religion. The contrast 
 )etween them and another class was striking. I allude to 
 he glossy-faced, downy-cheeked, and ample-bellied of " the 
 ilect," who invest their lips with a perpetual simper, and 
 over their faces with an expression of elaborate meekness 
 nd ostentatious humility. These are your prosperous 
 raders in the commodities of this world and of the next — 
 ellows w r ho are free of Dublin and of " the new Jerusalem" 
 —drapers in linen and religion — tailors who will cut you out 
 nth the same facility a creed and a surtout — vendors of 
 Sibles and of pasquinades, and all that tribe of canting, 
 mirking, ejaculating citizens, to whose counters the devout 
 vm pathetically resort. Intermingled with them, and with 
 3me affinity of aspect, I observed divers preachers of the 
 ospel, of inferior note, who wisely realize the blessings of 
 le Old Testament, by enforcing the precepts of the New, 
 Iany of them had passed the meridian of life, and seemed 
 ) think it wiser to addict themselves to some ancient maiden 
 dth " a call," than to any other more interesting, but less 
 opeful speculation. But a more striking, and, let me add, 
 iviable class, w T ere the young, the graceful, and sweet- 
 )irited lispers of the gospel, who teach the rigid doctrines 
 f Calvin, with the impassioned tenderness of Abelard ; 
 lough they were attired in sables of the most studied 
 mplicity of fashion, there was still a lurking foppery about 
 lem. Every proportion was brought as if carelessly and 
 
24 
 
 undesignedly out, and attaining the excellence of art by its 
 disguise, they exhibited their healthful forms to the opulent 
 and beautiful devotees, beside whom they were placed in a 
 close and interesting contact. Whether the blush upon the 
 faces of certain of those pious damsels arose from the heat 
 which was produced by the compactness of the crowd, or 
 had its origin in the holy whispers which were occasionally 
 breathed into their ears, I will not take upon myself to aver, 
 but I cannot avoid thinking, that many of the ardent incuU 
 cators of "gospel truth" who sat beside them, seemed to 
 have fallen into the errors of Popery, and to be zealously 
 and successfully engaged in the Invocation of Saints, It 
 must be acknowledged, that many of the objects of their 
 spiritual admiration would have afforded models of celestial 
 loveliness to a painter, and assisted his conceptions of the 
 " beau ideal" of heaven. At all events he could not have 
 been at a loss for a Magdalen amongst them. The ecstatic 
 look of devotion is a great heightener of expression, and a 
 woman's eyes are never so beautiful as when they are raised 
 to heaven. When sublunary affections intermingle themselves 
 with devotion, the compound produces a fine physical effect, 
 and realizes the panygeric of a Protestant Bishop upon a 
 lady, when he exclaimed, "that she was the connecting link 
 between the female and the angelic nature." The fair 
 votaries at the Rotunda appeared to have apportioned their 
 attachment between thelove of God andofhis creatures, Their 
 eyes were occasionally lifted in adoration, but at intervals 
 were tenderly and surreptitiously directed to their compa- 
 nions of the other sex, whose exhortations were, I presume, 
 tinctured with the phraseology of the divine pastoral of 
 Solomon, and redolent with the spirit of high and holy 
 love. Far be it from me to insinuate that any impurity of 
 sentiment was mingled with those pious interchanges of the 
 heart. True it is, that I did observe certain celebrated 
 dames, who have occasioned "much joy in heaven," and 
 whose charity is entitled to the full extent of Scriptural 
 panegyric. The "Fair Penitents "—the Calistas of sixty, 
 held a prominent place at the meeting. I do not, however, 
 mean to impute any remnant of their youthful addictions to 
 those pious matrons, in whom time has approved himself 
 a corrector of the passions ; and with respect to the 
 younger portion of the congregation, without disputing that 
 excitement of the temperament which ill-directed enthusiasm 
 is calculated to produce, 1 should be disposed to say, that 
 no immoral results arise from the pious sympathies of the 
 devout, and that their holy intimacies generally terminate lit 
 
 - 
 
25 
 
 a permanent co-partnership of the heart. I have expatiated 
 so much upon the fairer and more interesting portion of the 
 congregation, that I shall not at present attempt any descrip- 
 tion of the other features in the assembly deserving of note. 
 The lugubrious oratory of the speakers, and the spirit of 
 Pharisaical imposture which characterised the declamation 
 of the day, would furnish ample materials for comment. 
 One word upon the Chairman — Lord Roden presided. We 
 have his own authority for stating, that, like the Apostle of 
 the Gentiles, he received a special summons from the Lord. 
 Whether what he takes for a ray from heaven may not be 
 some stray moon-beam that has fallen upon his mind — 
 whether his heart has been touched, or that pulp, of which 
 the brain is compounded, has become diseased, I shall not 
 stop to enquire. His religion, if it were unconnected with 
 his politics, would merely excite derision ; but when we 
 find him infusing Orangeism into Christianity, we require 
 a large portion of that charity, of which he is so ostentatious 
 a professor, not to look at him w T ith a feeling of a very 
 acrimonious kind. The hatred which is manifested in this 
 country to the propagators of the Scriptures, arises, in a 
 great measure, from political causes. Is it wonderful that 
 they should become the objects of our antipathy, and that 
 our detestation for their politics should extend itself to their 
 religion, when we find them arrayed in a systematic opposi- 
 tion to the liberties of our country ? — the same sentiment 
 prevails through every gradation of rank, and from Rcden 
 to Butterworth they are the foes of Ireland. How can it be 
 matter of surprise, that when the spirit of tyranny and of 
 fanaticism are allied, we should hate the fanatic when v, e 
 cannot but detest the tyrant ? Can we avoid looking with 
 abhorrence upon the propagators of the Scriptures, who 
 come to us with the Bible in one hand and with the penal 
 code in the other ? 
 
MR. SHEIL's SPEECH 
 
 IN REPLY TO 
 
 MR. M'CLINTOCK. 
 
 Mr. M'CLINTOCK, a Protestant Gentleman of rank 
 and fortune in the county of Louth, having attended a Ro- 
 man Catholic Meeting, held in the chapel of Dundalk, and 
 delivered a speech, containing strictures on the Catholic re- 
 ligion. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL rose immediately after Mr. M'Cliritock 
 had concluded, and said, The speech of Mr. M'Clintock 
 (and a more singular exhibition of gratuitous eloquence 
 I have never heard) call for a prompt and immediate ex- 
 pression of gratitude. He has had the goodness to advise 
 us (for he has our interests at heart) to depute cer- 
 tain emissaries from the new Order of Liberators to his Ho- 
 liness at Rome, for the purpose of procuring a repeal of 
 eertain obnoxious canons of the Council of Latern. If Mr. 
 M'Clintock had not assured us that he was serious, aed 
 and was not actuated by an anxiety to throw ridicule upon 
 the religion and proceedings of those whom he has taken 
 under his spiritual tutelage, I should have been disposed to 
 consider him an insidious fanatic, who, under the hypocri- 
 tical pretence of giving us a salutary admonition, had come 
 here with no other end than to fling vilification upon our 
 creed, and to throw contumely upon the persons who take 
 the most active part in the conduct of our cause. But know- 
 ing him to be a person of high rank and large fortune, and 
 believing him to possess the feelings as well as the station of 
 a gentleman, I am willing to acquit him of any such unwor- 
 thy purpose, and do not believe that his object in address- 
 ing us, was to offer a deliberate and premeditated insult. 
 He did not, I am sure, (for it would be inconsistent with 
 the character which I have ascribed to him) enter this 
 meeting for the purpose of venting his bile into our faces, 
 and voiding upon his auditory the foul calumnies against 
 the religion of his countrymen, which furnish the ordinary 
 materials of rhetoric in the Bible Societies, of which he is so 
 renowned a member. He did not come here to talk of the 
 
27 
 
 Pope's golden stirrups to a mass of ignorant and unenlight- 
 ened people, and to turn their belief into ridicule with his 
 lugubrious derision. The topics which he selected were, 
 indeed, singularly chosen, and when he talked of the Order 
 of Liberators, I was disposed to take him for a wag : — But 
 I raised my eyes and looked him in the face, and perceiving 
 a person, whose countenance would furnish Cruikshank 
 with a frontispiece to the Spiritual Quixotte, I at once ac- 
 quitted him of all propensities to humour, and could not 
 bring myself to believe it possible that Mr. M'Clintock had 
 ever intended to be droll. At one moment I confess I was 
 in pain for him, for I was apprehensive that the language 
 in which he expressed himself in regard to our clergy, and 
 and the forms and habitudes of Popery, would be apt to 
 excite the indignation of a portion of this immense audi- 
 tory ; but the spirit of courtesy prevailed over the feelings 
 of the people, and so far from having been treated with dis- 
 respect, he was listened to with more than ordinary indul- 
 gence. He excited less of our anger than of our commis- 
 seration. I am upon this account rejoiced that he should 
 have undertaken an exploit of this kind. We have given 
 him evidence, at all events, that however intolerant the 
 theory of our religion may appear to him, we are prac- 
 tically forbearing and indulgent. We allowed him to in- 
 veigh against the bridle and saddle of the Pope, without a 
 remonstrance ; we permitted him to indulge in his dismal 
 merriment, and his melancholy ridicule, without a mur- 
 mur; he will therefore have derived a useful lesson from 
 his experiment upon the public patience, and when he shall 
 recount to his confederates of the Bible Society his achieve- 
 ments amongst us, he will have an opportunity of telling 
 them that we are far more tolerant of a difference of opinion 
 than the pious auditory which Mr. M'Clintock is in the habit 
 of addressing. I have occasionally attended meetings of 
 the Bible Society, and observed that whoever ventured to 
 remonstrate against the use of the Apocalypse as a Spelling 
 Book, incurred the indignation of the assembly. I remem- 
 ber to have heard it suggested, that the amatory pictures 
 which are offered to the imagination in the Canticle of Can- 
 ticles, were not exactly fitted to the private meditation of 
 young ladies, when the countenances of the fair auditors 
 immediately assumed an expression of beautiful ferocity, 
 and they looked like angels in a passion. Henceforth, 
 however, Mr. M'Clintock may be able to refer to the exam- 
 ple of his Roman Catholic auditors in recommending to his 
 pretty votaries at the Bible Society, that meekness and 
 D 2 
 
28 
 
 forbearance of which the Roman Catholic ladies have this day 
 afforded a model. In this view the exhibition of Mr. 
 M'Clintock may be considered as likely to be productive of 
 some utility. But, after having thus endeavoured to convey 
 to him an expression of the gratitude which we feel for this 
 interposition of his advice, it is right that I should, after 
 giving him every credit for the benevolent sincerity of his 
 motives, examine into the details of his admonition, and 
 endeavour to ascertain how far it is judicious upon our part 
 to follow the course which he has taken on himself to point 
 out ; let me, however, be allowed to make one preliminary 
 remark. On rising he informed us, that he merely obeyed 
 the impulse of the moment, and yielded to the sudden 
 suggestions of the Spirit, in communicating his advice. I 
 was not a little surprised, that he immediately afterwards 
 produced a series of voluminous extracts from the theological 
 history of the Catholic Church, which, together with certain 
 facetious references to the Cardinals, constituted the substance 
 of his discourse. In any other man I should take this ela- 
 borate accumulation of ecclesiastical learning as evidence 
 that he had made some preparation for a somewhat adventu- 
 rous enterprise, and that he had come furnished with a 
 panoply from the armoury of heaven. I should have 
 supposed that he had taken some time in collecting so many 
 weapons of celestial temper. But Mr. M'Clintock is a 
 peculiar favourite above ; he was supplied, no doubt, with 
 these valuable notes by a preternatural means ; some angelic 
 influence must have been exercised in his favour, and a hand 
 invisible to our profaner eyes, furnished him on the instant 
 with those large extracts from the Canons of the Council of 
 Later an. 
 
 [Here Mr. M'CLINTOCK rose with some appearance of 
 displeasure, and said that Mr. Sheil was misrepresenting 
 him. He had stated that he had the notes for some time in 
 his pocket.] 
 
 Mr. SHEIL — I certainly had understood that Mr. M'Clin- 
 tock intimated that he had come without preparation to this 
 meeting. I am now, however, to understand that he is not 
 indebted for his recondite erudition to any sudden irradiation 
 from heaven, but that he previously accumulated this mass 
 of citations against Popery. Indeed, the external aspect of 
 the document sustains his present allegation, for the " Sybil- 
 line leaves" which were produced by him, seemed a little 
 sear and faded. I perceive that Mr. M'Clintock does not 
 take the remarks which I have presumed to make in very 
 good part. In the Evangelical Societies where he makes so 
 
29 
 
 conspicuous a figure, lie has it all his own way. He is not 
 much accustomed to the collisions of intellect which are 
 incident to popular debate ; but he must not expect that a 
 person having so much veneration as I have for the Pope's 
 bridle and saddle, to which he has adverted with such a 
 pleasant unction, should not return his compliment to my 
 religion and give him a few hints upon his own. Mr. 
 M'Clintock is no ordinary person. He is the uncle of Lord 
 Roden, and the near relative of Lord Oriel ; he is, besides, 
 nearly allied to the Archbishop of Tuam, of Biblical 
 renown, and has obtained no little notoriety by his episto- 
 lary controversies with Doctor Curtis. The observations of 
 such a man ought not to be allowed to pass without com- 
 ment; I shall, therefore, proceed. Mr. M'Clintock recom- 
 mends us to procure a repeal of the Canons of the Council 
 of Lateran. I am apprehensive that Mr, M'Clintock has 
 blinded himself with the dust of those ponderous folios 
 which he must needs have studied,, in order to exhibit such 
 a farrago of theology as he has produced to-day. The 
 Councils of Nice, of Constance, of Lateran and of Trent, are 
 as familiar to him as " household words." He has thrown 
 them into what the lawyers call a hotch-potch together. I 
 shall not undertake to follow him through so much dark 
 and mysterious erudition ; but, at the same time, I shall 
 grapple with the principle upon which his reference to the 
 Councils are founded. He tells us that we ought to procure 
 a repeal of the denunciations agaii^t heresy before we can 
 expect emancipation. I beg leave to suggest the propriety 
 of putting Mr. M'Clintock into Parliament in place of his 
 kinsman, Mr. Leslie Foster, in order to enable him to move 
 for a repeal of the laws against witchcraft, passed by a 
 Protestant Legislature in the reign of James I. Thus a 
 three-fold object will be attained. We shall, in the first 
 place, get rid of Mr. Leslie Foster ; in the second place we 
 shall reward Mr. M'Clintock for his well-meant admonitions; 
 and in the third place we shall afford an opportunity to Mr. 
 M'Clintock of giving the same earnest exhortations to his 
 fellow T -legislators to relieve their religion from the odium 
 with which the enactments of superstition ought to be 
 pursued. But let me put the language of mockery aside, 
 and ask Mr. M'Clintock whether it be not as unjust to 
 charge the Catholics of the nineteenth century with edicts 
 passed some centuries ago, as it would be to impute to the 
 Protestant religion the fanatical absurdity which dictated 
 the statute against the '* feeders of evil spirits," It is 
 perfectlv obvious that Mr, M'Clintock has conveyed a charge 
 D 3 
 
30 
 
 of intolerance in the shape of advice. He deserves a serious 
 answer. I shall, in the first place, point out the circum- 
 stances under which any denunciations against heresy were 
 pronounced by the assembled hierarchy of the Christian 
 world. I shall shew, in the second place, that the spirit of 
 Protestantism was, at one period, fully as sanguinary 
 and ferocious as that which Mr. M'Clintock has ascribed 
 to the genius of Popery, in what he might call the night 
 of its darkest domination. And I shall give proof to 
 Mr. M'Clintock, in the third place, that while the faith of 
 Roman Catholics remains unchanged, the principles by 
 which the civil executive enforced an uniformity of creed 
 have been long since abandoned. If, like Mr. M'Clintock, 
 I were a reader of Saint Peter without note or comment, I 
 might refer him to the second chapter, in which he speaks 
 of "false teachers who shall bring in damnable heresies 
 but I know that Mr. M'Ciintock has no great relish for St, 
 Peter, or for his successors. The Roman Catholic divines 
 were sufficiently fluent in quoting the authority of the 
 Scriptures, when the State deemed it expedient to call 
 their sanction in aid of the enactments of civil policy. Good 
 warrant for the writ, c< de haeretico combitrendo" might 
 readily be found in the Testament, both Old and New. 
 But I thank God that it was never a part of the faith of 
 Roman Catholics, that the light of the Gospel ought to be 
 propagated with the faggot, or that the darkness of heresy 
 ought to be dispelled with the flames of an auto defe. There 
 is a manifest distinction between faith, which consists of a 
 belief in certain religious tenets, and the practical measures 
 by which that faith is sought to be enforced. A belief in 
 transubstantiation is a part of our creed, but the punish- 
 ment of heresy is matter not of belief but of regula- 
 tion, and cannot be said to constitute any portion of the 
 Roman Catholic faith. It is perfectly true, that at a 
 period when the Roman Catholic religion was the only form 
 under which Christianity was professed, a system of disci- 
 pline was adopted, of which the object was to repress 
 innovation, and it would be easy to find many plausible 
 arguments among Protestant divines in support of that 
 restraint upon novelties in religion, which, under the pre- 
 tence of preserving the repose of society, were introduced by 
 the lawgivers of a darker age. The intimate connexion 
 between the State and the Church, produced ordinances in 
 the one, which were intended to be the props of the other. 
 By a reciprocity of corruption, they infected each other 
 Statesmen were turned into Divines, and Divines into 
 
31 
 
 Statesmen. This was an unnatural transformation, and 
 produced the worst results. If we enter into a comparison 
 of the enormities committed by the Catholics in opposing, 
 or the Protestants in extending, the doctrines of the Refor- 
 mation, perhaps it would be difficult to strike a balance of 
 atrocity between them. If any excuse could be urged, (but 
 there can be none) it might be suggested on the part of the 
 professors of the old religion, that they were, to use a legal 
 illustration, in possession of the estate, and opposed every 
 casual ejector, who came to trespass on their exclusive 
 property in heaven. The Protestants who throw imputa- 
 tions on our Church, should consider the position from 
 which their projectiles are flung, and should remember that 
 they live in houses of brittle materials. It is notorious that 
 almost, with the single exception of Melancthon, all the 
 earlier Reformers were infuriated persecutors. After hunt- 
 ing Popery down, they turned like mad wolves upon each 
 other. The progress of the Reformation is tracked with 
 fire and blood. It is unnecessary to go through the details 
 of enormity on the Continent, but as Mr. M'Clintock seems 
 to belong to the Calvinistic department of Christianity, ( I 
 should so collect from his aspect) he will pardon me for 
 referring him to Geneva, that metropolis of orthodoxy, for 
 illustrations of the peaceful and forbearing spirit with which 
 the Fathers of the Reformed Religion enforced their Reve- 
 lations. They tortured, they emboweled, they consumed 
 with slow fires whoever presumed to question their delega- 
 tion from heaven. But let us turn to England. It is but a 
 few days since I perused a letter by that martyr of the 
 Reformation, the detestable Crammer, in which he writes, 
 that inasmuch as one Fryth did not think it necessary to 
 believe in the corporal presence of Christ in the Sacrament, 
 and held, in this point, much after the opinion of CEcolam- 
 padius, it was necessary to hand him over to the secular 
 power, " where," as Cranmer says, "he, Fryth, looked every- 
 day to go to the fire." Well might he exclaim, " this guilty 
 hand well might the Patriarch of the Reformation, while 
 he was himself perishing at the stake, utter that terrific cry 5 
 but he should have applied it not to the recantation of his 
 opinions, but to the sanguinary misdeeds to which that hand 
 had given its sanction. If the mother of Fryth had stood 
 beside him, might she not have cried, " Your groans are 
 like the groans of my son, and your screams remember me 
 of his cries," But why refer to Cranmer, when I may resort 
 to the amiable and benevolent Henry, the Father of the 
 English Reformation. Protestants disclaim that celebrated 
 
32 
 
 Prince ; but really they should be held responsible for his 
 barbarities, when they impute to us every delinquency 
 practised by the professors of our creed. Let them deny it 
 as they will ; if we trace the Protestant religion to its foun- 
 tain-head, however it may have been purified in its progress, 
 we shall find its sources stained with blood. But perhaps 
 Mr. M'Clintock will say, that it pleased Providence to 
 choose an unworthy instrument, in the ferocious Henry, for 
 the accomplishment of its sacred purposes ; and that when 
 we find the cradle of their religion rocked in murder, 
 adultery, and incest, we see an exemplification of the teiW 
 dency of Heaven to deduce good from ill. It must be 
 confessed, that Providence displayed a somewhat fantastic 
 and capricious taste in choosing an execrable tyrant for the 
 execution of its holy designs. It may be said, that the light 
 only dawned in the mind of Henry — that the Spirit did not 
 visit him in its fullest illumination — and that although the 
 morning of the Reformation was dark and gloomy, and 
 many a bloody cloud attended the ascending luminary, yet 
 that in sl little while the truth appeared in all its glory, and 
 spread into the full splendour of day. Well, let me pass at 
 once to the 27th of Elizabeth, by which it was enacted, that 
 " every Romish Priest should be hanged until he was half 
 dead, then should have his head taken off, and his body cut 
 in quarters— that his bowels should be drawn out and 
 burned, and his head fixed upon a pole in some public 
 place/' What will Mr. M'Clintock say to this? Does he 
 think the charge of intolerance is justly confined to the ' 
 religion of Rome ? I will not pursue the spirit of persecu- 
 tion through the variety of legislative enactments in which 
 it is exemplified. What need I do more than refer to the 
 Penal Code enacted in this country, by which the son was 
 incited to revolt against the father, and parricide was con- 
 verted into a sort of political duty by the law. It was of 
 this Code that Sir Toby Butler said, " It is enough to make 
 the hardest heart bleed to think on't/' It would be an 
 almost endless labour to go through all the proofs, with 
 which history may be said to teem, of the ferocious spirit by 
 which sectarian power has been almost uniformly displayed. 
 I can readily produce gibbet for gibbet against Mr. M'Clin- 
 tock ; and the only difference between us would be, that 
 Catholics had a larger field for the exercise of that unfortu- 
 nate tendency, which appears to belong to the nature of 
 man. The Protestants, however, made good use of their 
 time. The truth is, that both parties are to blame, and 
 should avoid this recriminating retrospect. How much 
 
33 
 
 more wise it would be of Mr. M'Clintock, instead of refer- 
 ing us to the Council of Lateran, to refer his fellow-believers 
 to the progress of events, to the universal diffusion of intel- 
 ligence, and the material change which the religion both of 
 Catholics and of Protestants has undergone. The sphere of 
 human knowledge has advanced, and the Catholic Church 
 has been carried along in the universal progression. Our 
 faith is the same, but our system of ecclesiastical government 
 is wholly changed. Persecution cannot be considered as 
 an ingredient of a man's creed. It may, indeed, be the 
 result of his principles, but cannot be considered as of the 
 essence of his belief. It were wiser for Mr. M'Clintock to 
 look at the declarations of the Catholic Universities, denying 
 the abominable doctrines imputed to us — to the recent 
 protest of the Catholic Bishops of Ireland, and to the oath 
 which every Roman Catholic takes, than to the moth-eaten 
 volumes with which he has been replenishing his mind. 
 Let him beware of these studies — " the insect takes the 
 colour of the leaf upon which it feeds," and I know of no 
 worse colour than the black letter repertories of theology 
 which have supplied his intellectual nourishment. But let 
 us go beyond protests, and oaths, and declarations, and 
 come to facts. The liberality of Catholics is not confined to 
 mere speculation. Look at Hungary, where, for upwards 
 of forty years, all distinctions between Protestant and 
 Catholic have been abolished. Mr. M'Clintock has, en 
 passant, inveighed against Charles X. and the Jesuits. Poor 
 gentleman, he has the same fear of the Jesuits as Scrub in 
 the play, who rushes out in agony of terror, and exclaims, 
 " murder, robbery, the Pope and the Jesuits/' It is not 
 my office to defend the intellect of Charles X. I believe 
 that if the brains of Protestant and Catholic royalty were to 
 be weighed, the scales would be found in a state of complete 
 equipoise. I hardly think that the Guelphs would weigh 
 the Capets to the beam, and if the head of his Royal High- 
 ness the Duke of York were to be examined by Professor 
 Spurzaim, he would, probably, find in it an equally faithful 
 exemplification of his theory. On the head of the Duke of 
 Cumberland, indeed, some bumps, as they are technically 
 called, might be discovered, which the ghost of Selis should 
 be conjured to explain. But a truce to laughter. Protest- 
 ants complain of the intolerant spirit of the French law. 
 In the first place the Huguenots are provided with Churches 
 at the public expense. In the Rue St. Honore, in Paris, 
 they have a splendid place of worship given them by the 
 State, and their Clergy are not only paid as well, but much 
 
34 
 
 better, than the Roman Catholic Ecclesiastics. They re- 
 ceive one-third more. Let Mr. M'Clintock look to the 
 French charter, and he will find that by the third article, 
 * all Frenchmeu are equally admissible to all civil and mili- 
 tary employments/ and by the fifth, ' each individual is al- 
 lowed to profess his religion with an equal freedom, and 
 obtains for his form of worship, the same protection/ But 
 all these arguments, derived both from reason, and from 
 fact, have no weight, as long as we consider the Pope infal- 
 lible. Mr. M'Clintock informs us, that no human being is 
 exempt from frailty, and refers to King David, and the in- 
 teresting story of Bathsheba. He has also quoted the uxo- 
 rious propensities of his son. 
 
 Mr. M'Clintock seems well versed in the Old Testament, 
 and appear well qualified to make elegant extracts of its 
 more enticing incidents for the mediation of young ladies. 
 They would make a neat volume, especially if adorned with 
 prints ; and some fair devotee well skilled in drawing should 
 be applied to, to throw her imagination into the pencil, and 
 furnish illustrations. A pretty subject that of David and 
 Bathsheba, to which Mr. M'Clintock has adverted. He pas- 
 sed with much rapidity of transition to his Holiness, and I 
 own I expected a few anecdotes of the Borgina family, to 
 beguile the tedium of debate. However, he confined himself 
 to the equestrian habitudes of his Holiness. I beg to ap- 
 prise Mr. M'Clintock, that I for one do not consider the 
 Pope infallible — nor is such an opinion entertained in our 
 church. Roman Catholics indeed believe that truth resides 
 in their church, as most people believe their own to be the 
 best religion. Mr. M'Clintock will allow me to interpret the 
 Scriptures as I think proper. St. Paul and he differ, in- 
 deed r on that head, as St. Paul condemns ' private inter- 
 pretation/ But I meet Mr. M'Clintock on his own ground, 
 and tell him that I find texts in Scripture which, according 
 to my private construction, warrant a belief in the infallibi- 
 lity of the church. 1 may be wrong, but I deduce that po- 
 sition from the Scriptures, and the first use I make of them 
 is, to bow down my judgment to the church. I need notr 
 repeat the text — ' Thou art Peter/ ' Lo, I will be with 
 you to the end of time/ and so forth. I by no means insist 
 on Mr. M'Clintock adopting my construction, but upon his 
 own principles, he must not quarrel with the inference 
 which I draw from the Bible, I have as much right to 
 draw that conclusion from the Bible, as he has to believe in 
 his election from eternity, which he derives from the same 
 source. Why then should 1 be debarred of my civil rights 
 
35 
 
 for believing that truth must reside somewhere, and for 
 chusing to give it a residence in the Catholic Church, in- 
 stead of the bottom of a well. At all events the arguments 
 on my side are plausible enough to have imposed on many 
 great and good men ; and I must be pardoned for following, 
 like Mr. M'Clintock, my own vagary in religion. There is, 
 in my mind, this difference between Mr. M'Clintock and my- 
 self. I believe the church to be infallible, and he believes 
 himself tc be so. 
 Mr. M'Clintock— Not at all. 
 
 Mr. Sheil — I shall shew Mr. M'Clintock that this conclu- 
 sion is the necessary consequence of his premises. If every 
 Protestant is entitled to draw his religion from the Bible, it 
 follows that he must be capable so to do. If he be capable 
 so to do, he must be enlightened by heaven, and if enlight- 
 ened by Heaven, as God does not lead us astray, he must 
 be infallible. A member of the Bible Society gives the 
 Scriptures to his child, and desires him to make out his faith 
 from them,—* Here, (he says,) my sweet little divine, is 
 the Book of Life — do not attend to what the Priests and 
 Cardinals tell you, but study the Trinity by yourself ; 
 investigate the mystery of the Incarnation, and solve the 
 prophetical problems of the Apocalypse— -and, my dear 
 boy, if ever you are in w r ant of amusement, read the 
 pleasant story of David and Bathsheba, and the other 
 instructive anecdotes which you will find interspersed in 
 
 this holy book God will preserve your imagination 
 
 from taint, and fill with his divine grace every little the- 
 ologian of thirteen. And now good bye, and go and play 
 with the Gospel at ' hide and go seek/ So much for df- 
 vinity in its teens. But seriously speaking, if the boy be 
 not infallible, why give the Bible to the boy ? It comes to 
 this— I am for corporate, and Mr. MfClintock for individual 
 infallibility. I prefer the decrees of councils— -he prefers 
 the rhapsodies of conventicles. I like the religion of Pas- 
 cal, and Fen el on, and Bossuet, and Arnaud, while Mr. 
 M'Clintock and the ladies of Dublin have a predilection for 
 the new apostle of the Gentiles— Baron Munchausen Kater- 
 felto Ferdinand Mendez Pinto Wolff, formerly of Mon- 
 mouth-street, London, lately of the Propaganda in Rome, 
 and now Chief Propagator to the Ladies' Auxiliary Bible 
 Society, Dublin. Kir wan used to say, that the teachers of 
 new religions were like the soldiers who tore the seamless 
 garment of our Saviour to pieces. This converted Hebrew, 
 after selling old clothes through Germany, comes hawking 
 some shreds of new-fashioned Christianity in Dublin. The 
 
36 
 
 Fellow's name and aspect reminds me of Dryden's descrip- 
 tion of the fanatics- 
 More haughty than the rest, the Wolffish race — 
 Appear with belly gaunt and famished face- 
 Never was so deformed a beast of grace. 
 
 I commend Mr. M'Clintock to this worthy Missionary 
 from Syria 5 of whose infallibility and fidelity in the com- 
 memoration of his own wonders, I presumes he makes no 
 question, and gives him a decided preferenc to Prince Ho- 
 henioe. Good Heaven ! to what a pitch fanaticism has ar- 
 rived ! An ignorant Israelite arrives in Dublin, defies all 
 the Doctors of the Church of Rome, in the world, to meet 
 him in intellectual combat, directs that answers should be 
 enclosed from all the universe to Mr. ftogan, of York- 
 street, and is forthwith encompassed with all the rank and 
 beauty of Dublin. Warren, with his blacking, is nothing 
 to this ; and Ingleby, " the emperor of conjurors/' who 
 defied every other juggler, sinks into miserable diminution 
 before this master of celestial legerdemain. But, Sir, 
 enough of these topics, which are very foreign from those 
 on which I had intended to address you. Mr. M'Clintock 
 has broken in upon the ordinary course of our discussions, 
 and has, perhaps, enlivened this meeting with some diver- 
 sity of matter. I hope we shall often see him amongst us, 
 and that some of his associates of the Bible Society will do 
 us the favour to accompany him ; for, although we are 
 greatly surpassed by them in the riches of diction, extent of 
 acquirement, grace of elocution, and power of reasoning, 
 yet the truth upon our side almost renders us their match. 
 Having spoken thus much, I shall not enter into any of the 
 subjects suggested by your resolutions, but shall content 
 myself with simply stating, that for the vote of thanks you 
 have given me for my professional exertions at the election, 
 to the success of which you are pleased to say that I con- 
 tributed, I am deeply grateful. 
 
MR. SHEIL'S 
 
 SPEECH AT THE MEATH CATHOLIC MEETING, 
 
 HELD ON THE BANKS OF THE BOYNE, 
 On the 2Sth August, 1825. 
 
 THIS MEETING WAS ATTENDED BY THE EARL OF DARNLEY, 
 AND SEVERAL OTHER NOBLEMEN AND GENTLEMEN 
 OF HIGH RANK. 
 
 UPON the first day of July, in the year 16.Q0, the waters 
 of the river, on whose banks you are assembled, ran reel 
 with blood. Upon the banks of that river James and 
 William met. The combat was long and doubtful. There 
 was a moment when the Irish forces were upon the point 
 of triumph. f€ Spare my English subjects \" exclaimed the 
 wretched Prince, to whom the Irish language has attached 
 his most appropriate designation ; and well might his 
 followers cry out, " Change kings and well fight the battle 
 over again If The Irish were defeated, but not overthrown. 
 The bloody day of Aughrim succeeded. The bail that 
 pierced St. Ruth was lodged in the breast of Ireland. Not- 
 withstanding these disasters the Irish power was not annihi- 
 lated, and the walls of Limerick still afforded the means of 
 a permanent defence. A large body of French and Irish 
 troops were assembled within its gates ; and William, who 
 had been formerly driven from its walls, foresaw that, if the 
 expected succours should arrive from France, the civil war 
 would, at all events, be protracted, and that eventually us 
 fortune might be reversed. Under these circumstances 
 he instructed his Officers to conclude a peace with as much 
 speed as possible. Leland, who affects to discredit the 
 "Secret Proclamation/' (as it was called) by which the 
 Lords Justices tendered much more favourable terms than 
 were subsequently granted, admits that William had directed 
 Ginkle to terminate the war upon any conditions. It appears 
 by a letter, written by the nephew of Lord Tyrccnnell, that, 
 at one period William was willing to secure to the Catholics 
 E 
 
38 
 
 one-half of the churches, one-half of the offices, civil and 
 military, and compensation for the forfeited estates. It was 
 obviously a matter of great importance to that sagacious 
 Prince, to put an end to intestine divisions, at a time when 
 England was engaged in Continental warfare. As long as 
 Limerick held out it was in the power of France to create an 
 alarming diversion. Terms were proposed to the Irish 
 garrison. After some negociation, in which Sir Theobald 
 Butler, who had been Attorney- General to James the Second, 
 took a leading part, it was stipulated, that the Irish Catholics 
 should be secured in the undisturbed possession of their 
 property, in the exercise of their religion, and in the rights 
 and privileges which they had enjoyed in the reign of 
 Charles II. In the reign of that monarch Catholics sat in 
 Parliament, and that right was reserved as fully and effec- 
 tually as if it had been distinctly specified in the contract. 
 On the 3d of October, in the year 1691, the Articles of 
 Capitulation were signed. Immediately after, and before 
 the gates had been thrown open, intelligence arrived that the 
 sails of a foreign fleet were seen off the coast. It may 
 readily be conjectured with what an intense emotion the 
 news was received. Offer to yourselves an image of the 
 scene which the city must have presented. An amnesty is 
 proclaimed ; a few days are allowed to the Irish who pre- 
 ferred exile to ignominy, to embark for France. They 
 continue during that interval in possession of the fortress, 
 whose bastions remained unbattered. The green flag, with 
 the harp woven in gold, yet floated from the citadel. The 
 Irish soldiers stood upon the battlements, and looked, for 
 the last time, upon the fields of their country, upon which 
 so many of their sons, and of their brothers, were lying 
 dead. In the midst of that melancholy scene, in the heavy 
 damp that hung upon their hearts, a rumour is suddenly 
 heard, that a French fleet has been seen off the coast ; a 
 courier arrives — the flag of France has been discerned. — 
 Another messenger appears, and proclaims the arrival of 
 twenty ships of war, under the command of Chateau-Renault, 
 laden with ammunition, and with arms and men. It would 
 require some portion of the powers of the eminent person 
 who has been lately among us, and whose genius has found 
 such admirable materials in the civil wars of his own coun- 
 try, to describe the effects which that intelligence must have 
 produced among those who had but the day before set their 
 hands to the'articles of capitulation. Would he not make 
 us thrill in the delineation of such a scene ? Would he not 
 make our hearts leap within us in painting the effects of this 
 
39 
 
 great but unavailing event, upon the chivalrous and gallant 
 men who had not abandoned their Sovereign when he had de- 
 serted himself. With what a pathetic vividness would he paint 
 the simultaneous impulse with which the weapon that hung 
 loosely to the ground flew into the soldier's hand, as the drum 
 beat along the ramparts, and sent forth its martial and spirit- 
 stirring call. How would he paint the rushing of men toge- 
 ther — the earnest interrogation, the rapid utterance, the 
 precipitous movement, the trembling and anxious lip, and 
 vivid and flashing eye. Should we not behold the brave, 
 the noble, the devoted, the self-immolating Sarsfield kindle 
 with the intelligence, and starting into the warior's attitude 
 again. He did. The generous and gallant Sarsfield sprung 
 up from the earth, on which he had thrown himself with 
 despair, when the sound of France and of succour reached 
 his ears, Every generous instinct of his nature must have 
 been roused within him — his soul must have been at once 
 in arms — his face must have been kindled with revenge and 
 glory — every nerve must have been braced — every sinew 
 must have been strung — his hand must have been 
 placed upon that sword which had unplumed so many a 
 helm. But it was glued to the scabbard. He could but grasp 
 its hilt. The recollection of the treaty must have come 
 upon him, and striking that brow which was furrowed with 
 the casque, he must have exclaimed — " France, thou ait 
 come too late, and Ireland is lost for ever." — You must not 
 chide me, my Lord, for presenting this picture — in these 
 strong, and there are some who, perhaps, will deem them 
 excessive colours. It is a theme to which it is impossible for 
 any Catholic to revert, without emotion, and I confess, for 
 my own part, that I cannot contemplate the event to which 
 I have referred, without sympathising in the feelings of the 
 men who were placed in a juncture so exciting, and who 
 had still power to resist the temptation which the event I 
 have attempted to describe must have held out to their 
 hearts. They did resist it. In despite of the allurement 
 which the landing of a great force had presented, the Irish 
 Catholics, w T ith arms in their hands, with a strong city in 
 their possession, and while William was engaged in a foreign 
 war, replete with embarrassment and peril, remained faith- 
 ful to their compact, and, trusting to a false and perjured 
 enemy, threw the gates open and surrendered. What part 
 did the conquerors act? There is not in the records of man- 
 kind an example of more foul and abominable perfidy than 
 the almost instantaneous violation of the Charter, to which 
 Histice and honor had set their seals. Where was the first 
 E 2 
 
40 
 
 announcement of the detestable purpose made ? Before the 
 Altar of Almighty God ! Dopping, the Bishop of Meath 
 (he ought to have been Archbishop of Dublin) preaching 
 before the Justices in Christ Church, the Sunday after they 
 had returned from the camp, insisted that faith ought not to 
 be kept with Papists. He proclaimed treachery and sacrilege 
 as a part of his sacerdotal ethics, and Parliament soon cried 
 "Amen ! " Before their purpose was carried into execution 
 a little mockery was deemed expedient, and a medal was 
 struck, to use Harris's expression, " to eternise the mercy of 
 the Sovereign !" The Queen was represented, with an olive 
 branch in her hand, as the symbol of peace — a harp was 
 inscribed upon the reverse, with a motto which intimated 
 a cessation of discord, in the words " lam placiclum reditura 
 melos" and it was further specified, that in the year 1691, 
 " Ireland was received to mercy/' A few weeks after some 
 Catholics were deprived of their estates, and outrages were 
 committed upon their homes and persons. These were the 
 preliminaries to an act of more formal oppression, and in 
 1703 it was deemed expedient to regalize atrocity, and to 
 incorporate villainy with the law. An Act of Parliament 
 was introduced, by which the very order of nature was 
 inverted, and parricide was made a precept in the decaloge 
 of the law. The atrocities of the first penal law (for the 
 monster was mature at its birth) are described by Sir Theo- 
 bald Butler with the eloquence of a man whose soul was 
 wrung within him, and who drew his feelings not from the 
 sources of artificial emotion, but from the deep and troubled 
 fountains of the heart. After having conjured the House 
 of Commons in the name of every law, human and divine, 
 not to infringe a treaty which had been rendered sacred by 
 the most solemn obligations by which man can be bound on 
 earth, or should he be in awe of heaven — he that was not 
 only the advocate of a whole people but his own, and was 
 to be himself the victim of this parricidal law, proceeds to 
 describe the consequences of allowing the Protestant son to 
 tear his property from the Catholic father. And do you not, 
 my Lord, think his face must have been suffused with tears 
 of anguish, when he said, "is not this against the laws 
 of God and man; against the. rule of reason and jus- 
 tice, by which all men ought to be governed? Is not 
 this the surest way in the world to make children be- 
 come dutiful, and to bring the grey head of the father to 
 the grave with grief and tears ? It would be hard form any 
 man— but from a son, a child," (his face must have been 
 covered with tears as he spoke) — " the fruit of my body, 
 
41 
 
 whom I have nursed in my bosom, and tendered more dear- 
 ly than my own life, to become my plunderer, to rob me of 
 my estate, and to take away my bread, is much more griev- 
 ous than from any other, and enough to make the most 
 flinty of hearts to bleed to think on it — {alas, he was 
 speaking to the Scots and Jenkinsons of the day.) " For 
 God's sake, will you consider, whether this is according to 
 the golden rule, ■ to do as you should be done unto/ and if 
 not, you will not, nay, surely you cannot, without the most 
 manifest injustice, take from us our birth-rights, and invest 
 them in others before our faces." In such language did Sir 
 Theobald Butler, who was a Catholic Lawyer of the first 
 eminence, and who had himself been a party to the treaty 
 of Limerick, implore the Irish House of Commons to re- 
 spect the law of man and of God ! But it was in vain. — 
 The Bill passed, and was succeeded by other enactments of 
 the same character. Nothing was omitted that could be de- 
 vised by the satanic genius of Penal Legislation, for the op- 
 pression and degradation of the People. Session after Ses- 
 sion new chains were forged until there was not a link left 
 to which a fetter could be attached, and the very power of 
 oppression had been exhausted by its accumulation. It 
 were vain to attempt to describe the measureless villainy of 
 that system. This execrable assemblage of atrocity, in 
 which every crime appeared to have been gathered, baffled 
 the genius of Edmund Burke, and defied his power of ex- 
 pression. Its necessary results upon the national character 
 were speedily produced. The action of servitude is reci- 
 procal. The population was divided into thousands of 
 tyrants and millions of slaves. The Judges of the land 
 declared that a Papist could not breathe without the con- 
 nivance of the Government. The common air was made 
 a matter of indulgence. It was not until the year 1759, 
 that the first gleam of hope began to dawn on the Roman 
 Catholics of Ireland, and that the Government first ma- 
 nifested some attention to the condition of the people. — 
 That first faint dawn of hope rose out of the public danger. 
 The Duke of Bedford (the then Lord Lieutenant) stated in 
 the House of Commons, that Mr. Secretary Pitt had ap- 
 prised him, that France speculated upon the discontent of 
 the people of Ireland. The Catholic merchants, (for like 
 another proscribed people, the Jews, the Catholics had di- 
 rected their views and their energies to commerce,) took 
 advantage of the intimation. They proposed to address the 
 Lord Lieutenant. The Nobility and Gentry, who had ae«. 
 quired habits of timiditv, opposed it. The more democra- 
 
42 
 
 tic party prevailed. The French fleet was on the coast, and 
 a gracious answer was returned. Mr. Mason's motion for 
 allowing Catholics to lend money on mortgages, was lost by 
 a majority of 188 to 151. This was the first motion made 
 in our favour. In 1772, by a great stretch of mercy, Ca- 
 tholics were indulged so far as to be allowed to take leases 
 of bog not exceeding 50 acres. In 1774, America began to 
 raauifest a sense of her injuries and of her power, and the 
 Catholics were indulged so far as to be allowed to testify 
 their allegiance by an oath. This was the first legal recog- 
 nition of their relation as subjects to the State. The air of 
 heaven ceased to be a luxury - and their right to breathe 
 was acknowledged by the law. In 1778, the discontents 
 of America augmented. The Volunteers of Ireland (the 
 dragon's teeth) were already springing up in an iron har- 
 vest. A new argument for relief was supplied, and Mr. 
 Gardiner's bill passed by only a majority of nine in the 
 Commons. By that bill Catholics were allowed to take 
 leases for 999 years, and their property was made deviseable 
 and descendible. In 1782, the resolutions of Dungannon 
 were published. The last was in favour of the Roman Ca- 
 tholics, and five days after, the 21st and 22d of Geo. III. 
 was passed, by which Catholics were allowed to take land 
 without limit, and certain penalties upon their clergy were 
 removed. At length, in 1791* the French Revolution, that 
 great event, which shook the moral world to the centre, 
 extended its influence to Ireland, and on the 11th of Fe- 
 bruary, 1 791 ^ The Catholic Committee were summoned, 
 The Aristocracy were appalled by the incidents which 
 crowded upon mankind. They were so long habituated to 
 a dungeon of light, that they were dazzled by the full and 
 perfect day, and shrunk back for a moment into the obscu- 
 rity to which they were accustomed. The address of the 
 sixty-four seceders was timid, but not, as it has been re- 
 presented, a grovelling acquiescence in their sentence.— 
 They did not dare to petition for the Elective Franchise ; 
 that audacious supplication was reserved for the aspiring 
 spirit of the Catholic Traders of Dublin. Their petition 
 was rejected by a majority of 208 to 23. But the people 
 were not dismayed — a great National Convention was sum- 
 moned, and met on the 2d of December, 1792. Here was 
 the great root of the Catholic Association. Successive 
 branches have been lopped off; but, thank God, the trunk 
 is unwithered still. What was the result ? It was pretend- 
 ed that the Catholic Delegates were the greatest enemies to 
 their own cause: and Mr. Hobart immediately afterwards 
 
43 
 
 moved for liberty to bring in the great Statute of 1793.— 
 On the very same night, he announced a war on the part of 
 the French Republic against England. 
 
 The Act of 1 793 gave us political power, by giving us 
 the Elective Franchise ; it was a moiety of Emancipation. 
 Lord Fitzwiiliam arrived with the residue of the nation's 
 liberty in his gift ; but the evil genius of the country, in the 
 shape of a Beresford, (mark it well, Freeholders of Water- 
 ford!) whispered away the freedom of Ireland, and converted 
 the malady of the Prince into the degradation of the people. 
 In 1791 > the Bill to admit Catholics into Parliament was lost 
 by a majority of 155 to 84, and, on the 7th of February, 
 1797* the question was lost, for the last time in Ireland, by 
 143 to 19. The country was driven into insurrection, and 
 hurried from rebellion to its anticipated results. The Union 
 passed. Here let me for a moment pause, and ask of any 
 man who reviews the progress of the Catholic question up 
 to this great epoch, whether any thing was ever won by 
 pusillanimous proceedings, and whether the portion of 
 liberty that was obtained by the Irish Catholics, was not 
 wrung from the apprehensions of the Minister by the deter- 
 mination of the people ? What produced the Treaty of 
 Limerick ? — the fear of France. What produced its viola- 
 tion? — the base confidence in impunity. What produced 
 the series of relaxations from 1792 to 1793 ? — America, 
 Reform, and France. Was any thing ever won by syco- 
 phantic turpitude, and by crawling servility ? Is it from the 
 past that we should learn to speak in a cc bondsman's key," 
 or ask for liberty in the accents of mendicant supplication ? 
 Are we to listen to the suggestions of those who teach us, 
 that like dogs we should u lick our wounds, and know no 
 other cure V — or is there any thing in the past that should 
 discourage us for the future? In 1792 there were only 
 twenty-three members of the House of Commons in our 
 favour. The Catholic Convention assembled — victory was 
 the vassal of France, and in 1793 a great' measure was 
 carried by an immense majority. But let me proceed, for 
 the time which I have already occupied admonishes me to 
 be brief. In 1801 Mr. Pitt resigned upon the ground of his 
 alleged incapacity to fulfil his pledge. In 1805 our question 
 was first discussed in the Imperial Parliament. It was 
 rejected by a majority of 212. This was appalling, and yet 
 we were not disheartened. Twenty years, (and twenty 
 years, though a vast space in the life of an individual, 
 constitute but a brief period in the history of a nation) have 
 not only melted down that majority, but have produced a 
 
majority of twenty- seven in our favour, and have revolu- 
 tionised the public feeling. Shall we, who were not terri- 
 fied by a majority of 212 in the Commons, allow ourselves 
 to be beaten back by 49 in the Lords ? But mark the steps 
 by which the question advanced: In 1813 there was, for 
 the first time, a majority, on the first reading of the Bill, in 
 our favour. At that period Bonaparte was upon his throne, 
 and the Catholic Committee was in the legal exercise of its 
 functions. Not long after the Bill, opening the Army 
 and Navy, was passed. England was afraid her Irish Offi- 
 cers would be driven, by the law, into the continental service. 
 This concession furnished one argument. Strange, that in 
 a free country the military offices should be thrown open, 
 and the civil should be closed up ! Our own dissensions 
 afterwards impeded our advancement. Had we been united, 
 as we now are, and as I trust we shall long continue to be 
 — -our question would, perhaps, 'ere this have been carried. 
 At length Mr, Plunkett succeeded in bringing the Bill 
 through the House of Commons, although by an inconside- 
 rable majority, and it was rejected in the Lords by only 39* 
 The Catholics were allured into inertness by a false hope. 
 The King arrived, (God knows for what purpose), and we 
 did not even obtrude our wishes upon the Royal ear. We 
 gave our opponents reason to think that we could be recon- 
 ciled to our degradation, and our petition was scouted and 
 flung out of the Commons. We derived a useful instruc- 
 tion from this result of moderation. The Catholic Associa- 
 tion sprung up. O'Connell devised and executed a noble 
 project. A system of voluntary contribution was established. 
 The Catholic Rent, was collected. The proceedings of 
 that great Assembly fixed the attention of the Empire. It 
 was first derided, then dreaded, and afterwards oppressed. 
 But where is the man who will say that it achieved little 
 for Ireland? It gave proof of the power, and the vigor of 
 the Catholics — and shook the mind of the English nation. 
 What was the conseqence? That the prejudices against the 
 measure have sunk among the dregs of the people. A 
 second time it passed the Commons. It was by a great 
 exertion that the opposition in the Lords was produc- 
 ed, and that opposition, be it remembered, rests upon 
 transitory materials. Is the Duke of York immortal? Is 
 Eldon a Tithonus, or is there any fair sorceress, any Medea, 
 of forty who has undertaken to impart new life, heat, and 
 vigour to the Earl of Liverpool ? There is, unfortunately 
 for the Church, no "elixir vita? " to accomplish this renova- 
 tion ; and if we had no other principle of hope than the 
 
45 
 
 calculation of an Insurance-office, we should not despair. 
 I should like to see his Royal Highness making his appear- 
 ance at the Atlas-office to effect a policy, at the instance of 
 his pious and moral associate, the Marquis of Hertford. I 
 should like to observe the eye of inquisitorial inspection with 
 which the appraiser of life would survey, the bulky exhibit 
 of which his Royal Highness should make proffer. But let 
 him pass. The progress of the Catholic question depends 
 upon the confederated energies of the Irish people. It is 
 not enough that we should hold occasional meetings, and 
 that strong sentiments should evaporate in steamy phrase. 
 Something practically great and impressive must be accom- 
 plished. The resolution which was proposed by the eldest 
 Son of my Lord Gormanstown, contains a powerful recom- 
 mendation. A census must be taken. Every parish must meet 
 on the same day— and a great convention must be summoned. 
 Let the Catholic prelates, the chief of the Catholic Clergy, 
 the Nobility, the Gentry, the great Agriculturists, the 
 Merchants, and the members of the liberal professions 
 meet. Let the Peers and leading Catholics be invited 
 to unite themselves with this National Assembly. The 
 eyes of the Empire would be fixed upon its delibera- 
 tions. Its sitting may be continued for fourteen successive 
 days, Can any man question the expediency of such a 
 measure, if it can be accomplished ; and can any man doubt 
 the facility of its achievement who has seen what has been 
 effected ; I, for one, do not } and since I have so far spo- 
 ken of myself, let me be allowed to tell you why I have 
 come this day amongst you. It is because I feel you are 
 engaged in no local concern, but in a cause in which we all 
 bear a participation, and in the promotion of which it is 
 every man's duty to engage. — I knew that your Meeting, from 
 the many persons of rank who attend it, would excite no 
 ordinary attention ; and as I deemed it not improper that I 
 should intermix my sentiments in your proceedings, and 
 give utterance to the strenuous convictions of my mind, I 
 came here to tell you, that I think you must relinquish all 
 hope of achieving the freedom of Ireland, unless you adopt 
 a bold, determined, and energetic system of action. I came 
 here to rescue your proceedings, as far as it lies in me, from 
 the cant of servility, which disguises itself under the name 
 of moderation. A true and genuine moderation, I do most 
 fervently recommend ; but I as devoutly deprecate that spu- 
 rious moderation, which would degenerate into inertness, 
 and which derives its origin from those habits of voluntary 
 servitude which long continued thraldom could not fail to 
 
46 
 
 create. But I thank God that the sluggish and apathetic 
 state of political feeling to which I have averted, has under- 
 gone a most salutary change. Thank God ! there is scarcely 
 a man in the great community to which we belong, that does 
 not feel that existence without liberty is scarcely worth keep- 
 ing. Slavery not only takes away one half of its virtue 
 from the spirit of man, but deprives life of all its value. 
 Who can be such a sceptic in the power of an united and 
 enthusiastic people, and in the progress of truth, of reason, 
 and of justice, as to think it possible that when liberty is 
 spreading its illuminations to the extremities of the world, 
 this country, which Providence appears to have framed 
 with " a peculiar care/' should not catch a reflection of that 
 glorious light; and that while South America is starting 
 into freedom, Ireland should still continue enslaved ? Will 
 England withhold from the Irish Roman Catholics, that 
 freedom which England has conferred upon the Peruvian 
 Creole ? That this great object will be attained I entertain 
 a strong assurance. In all likelihood almost every man that 
 hears me will live to behold the great event which will con- 
 fer peace, and wealth, and happiness upon Ireland ; but if 
 it shall be otherwise — if we are destined to descend into the 
 earth before that great measure shall have been accom- 
 plished, it is some consolation to us to reflect, that we shall 
 not entail our vassalage upon those who are to come after 
 us, that if liberty shall not become vested in us, it will be 
 derived through us ; and that (where is the father who does 
 not feel the power of that appeal ?) the inheritors of our 
 existence shall not be the heirs of our oppression, and that 
 our children shall be free. 
 
MR. O'CONNELL'S 
 
 SPEECH, AT THE CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION 
 
 ON THE 
 
 TREATY OP LIMERICK. 
 
 I RISE to propose a draft of a Petition, containing our 
 solemn protest against the continued violation of the Treaty 
 of Limerick, and calling for relief because that solemn 
 treaty was grossly and perfidiously violated. I have been 
 at some pains to investigate this subject, and I am almost 
 ashamed that I have employed so much diligence upon it. 
 It is so clear, so indisputable, so manifest to the commonest 
 sense, and commonest reason, that the Treaty of Limerick 
 has been shamefully and dishonourably violated ! — that the 
 mere declaration of the fact, the simple reference to the 
 universal sense of enlightened and impartial mankind on the 
 subject, would seem to be sufficient. Yet, when the mind 
 is assailed by the miserable misrepresentations of a Dawson, 
 and the puerile subterfuges of a Peel on the question, and 
 when there are persons who will listen to them with patience, 
 and be almost persuaded that they state history, and enunci- 
 ate good logic — when they falsify the one and outrage the 
 other, it does not seem quite a loss of time to go into the 
 curious detail of their folly and dishonesty. As to Mr. 
 Peel, his attempt at reasoning is so very impotent and ludi- 
 crous, that the understanding cannot really condescend to 
 follow him through the mazes of chicanery further than 
 a very few steps of his progress. He has obtained a cha- 
 racter for honesty. In my profession, when a worthy 
 member can scarcely make himself intelligible to the Court, 
 and can scarcely stammer his way through a page of long- 
 hand, be the characters ever so large and well formed, and 
 be the aid of his magnifying glass ever so ready or potent, 
 he acquires a character for a knowledge of black letter, he 
 is said to be a fine, sound, erudite black-letter lawyer, He 
 is often said to be profound, simply because he is perplexei 1 . 
 
48 
 
 It is, I imagine, on grounds such as these that Mr. Peel is 
 said to be honest. He has nothing that can be called 
 talents — he has nothing that bears the most distant resem- 
 blance to genius— he has no grasp of mind or brilliancy of 
 imagination, and from these premises it is sagaciously con- 
 cluded that he is honest. One would sneer at his folly — 
 one would look with derision on the pettiness of his preten- 
 sions, if he was not placed in a station to give him facilities 
 in upholding the system of persecution to which this unfor- 
 tunate country has been subject, and to attach some degree 
 of weight and credit to his shallowest sophistry, and his 
 grossest misrepresentations. There was, at least, one honest 
 and manly Englishman — Charles Fox. He was no spreader 
 of mischievous delusions. Like Philip of Macedon, his 
 frankness and straightforwardness of purpose impelled him 
 to call a stone a stone, and a traitor a traitor. When he 
 heard any one give as history a rank and pernicious false- 
 hood — when he heard such things uttered as are to be found 
 in the speeches of our Dawsons and our Peels on the viola- 
 tion of the Treaty of Limerick, his customary observation 
 was, u that is a good sound Protestant lie." Without using 
 an epithet quite so strong, the sophistications of these 
 worthies may well be pronounced disgraceful to intellect and 
 moral feeling, and they proved that there are individuals 
 amongst us bearing the name, and exercising the influence 
 of Statesmen, who would have joined, if they had the power 
 to do so, the original destroyers of Irish liberty, in more 
 than they accomplished, or, perhaps, had ever meditated. 
 
 I shall now proceed to describe the relative situation of 
 England when the Treaty of Limerick was signed. I shall 
 demonstrate that Ireland gave full and ample value for what 
 was guaranteed to her. I shall prove that there never was 
 a treaty in which so much was promised, comparing what 
 was engaged to be done with what had actually been per- 
 formed. Were it not for the Treaty of Limerick his 
 Majesty, King George the Fourth, would not at this day be 
 on the throne of England. Instead of being the Sovereign 
 of the first Empire in the world, he would be a petty Elector 
 or Duke in the North of Germany, or, probably, through the 
 bounty of that good-natured man, Napoleon, he might be a 
 King ; for we should recollect that his sister was indebted 
 to the Emperor Napoleon for the title of Queen. Let us 
 look to facts. On the 3d of October, 1691, the Treaty of 
 Limerick was signed. It was in the third year of the war. 
 Dubious success attended the operations of the invaders in 
 some instances, and they sustained actual defeat in others. 
 
49 
 
 If they triumphed at the Boyne, at Auglirim, and ultimately 
 at Athlone, they had once been repulsed from Athlone and 
 driven from Limerick. The Irish army which, in the 
 beginning, was raw and unorganised, had been daily ac- 
 quiring efficiency and discipline.' The invading army 
 was composed of heterogeneous and discordant materials. 
 There were Danes, Brunswickers, Dutch and English, 
 Insubordination was arising in their ranks — they were 
 openly complaining of being badly provisioned, and not 
 being paid at all. They were cemented by no principle — 
 their hearts were not in their cause — they were mere hire- 
 lings. They were not to be depended upon — and there are 
 manifest proofs they had not the confidence of their com- 
 mander. Added to this, an adverse party was forming in 
 England. James, was what would now be called the legi- 
 timate Sovereign of the British Nation. Nine-tenths of the 
 landed interest — both the Universities — and even the greater 
 portion of the clergy, were in his favour. There was an 
 insurrection in Ireland, and Scotland was a slumbering vol- 
 cano. On the continent, William's hereditary dominions 
 were threatened. The Dutch and their confederates, under 
 Waldeck, wes-e overthrown by the Duke of Luxemburgh ; 
 and at sea the combined English and Dutch fleets were de- 
 feated by the French Admiral Tourville. Under these cir- 
 cumstances was Limerick besieged. Even the oppressor of 
 the confiding Irish — even the defender of breaches of nati- 
 onal faith cannot help looking back with admiration at the 
 devotedness of the garrison. Yet it was not the bra- 
 very of the men — the deeds of heroism they performed 
 — the prodigality with which they offered up their lives for 
 their country — it was not the chivalry or skill of Sarsfield, 
 the splendid instance of valorous partizanship displayed on 
 the -memorable night on which he sallied out of the garri- 
 son — a sample of heroism that would adorn the history of 
 any country, but that of unfortunate Ireland — who has do 
 history — this is not what was to be contemplated with the 
 greatest emotion — it is the matchless conduct of the women, 
 the wives, the sisters, and daughters of those patriot war- 
 riors whose lot it was to fight the last battle for Ireland, 
 and who were worthy of that high destiny. And here, Mr. 
 Chairman, I must crave the indulgence of the meeting 
 while I again read what is related of the scenes at Limerick, 
 by an authority which will not be questioned — by no less 
 remarkable a personage than the Rev. Dr. Storey, domestic 
 chaplain to — whom do you think? To King William him- 
 self. He writes as follows : — 
 F 
 
50 
 
 (C Wednesday, the 27th, a breach being made nigh Saint 
 JohnVgate, over the black battery, that was about twelve 
 yards in length and pretty flat, as it appeared to us, the 
 King gave orders that the counterscarp should be attacked 
 that afternoon, to which purpose a great many wool sacks 
 were carried down, and good store of ammunition, with 
 other things suitable for such a work. All the grenadiers 
 in the army were ordered to march down into the trenches, 
 which they did. Those being above five hundred, were 
 commanded, each company, by their respective captains, 
 and were to make the first attack, being supported by one 
 battalion of the Blue Dutch on the right, then Lieutenant 
 General Douglas's regiment, Brigadier Stuart's, my Lord 
 Meath's, and my Lord Lisburn's ; as also, a Brandenburgh 
 regiment. These were all posted towards the breach ; up- 
 on the left of whom were Colonel Cutts, and the Danes. — 
 Lieutenant General Douglas commanded ; and their orders 
 were to possess themselves of the counterscarp, and main- 
 tain it. We had also a body of horse drawn up, to succour 
 the foot upon occasion. About half an hour after three, 
 the signal being given by firing three pieces of cannon, the 
 grenadiers being in the furthest angle of our trenches, leapt 
 over, and ran towards the counterscarp, firing their pieces, 
 and throwing their grenades. This gave the alarm to the 
 Irish, who had their guns all ready, and discharged great 
 and small shot upon us as fast as it was possible. Our men 
 were not behind them in either, so that in less than two 
 minutes the noise was so terrible, that one would have 
 thought the very skies ready to rent in sunder. This was 
 seconded with the dust, smoke, and all the terrors that the 
 art of man could invent, to ruin and undo one another ; 
 and to make it the more uneasy, the day itself was exces- 
 sively hot to the by-standers, and much more so in all re- 
 spects to those upon action. Captain Carlile, of my Lord 
 Drogheda's regiment, run on with his grenadiers to the 
 counterscarp, and though he received two wounds between 
 that and the trenches, yet he went forward, and commanded 
 his men to throw in their grenades ; but in leaping into the 
 dry ditch below the counterscarp, an Irishman below shot 
 him dead. Lieutenant Burton, however, encouraged the 
 men, and they got upon the counterscarp, and all the rest of 
 the grenadiers were as ready as they. By this time the 
 Irish were throwing down their arms, and running as fast 
 as they could into the town ; which, on our men perceiving, 
 entered the breach pell mell with them, and above half the 
 Earl of Drogheda's grenadiers, and some others, were ac- 
 
51 
 
 tually in the town. The regiments that were to second the 
 grenadiers went to the counterscarp, and having no orders 
 to go any further, they stopt. The Irish were all running 
 from the walls, and quite over the bridge, into the English 
 town : but seeing but a few of our men enter, they were, 
 with much ado, persuaded to rally ; and those that were in, 
 seeing themselves not followed, and their ammunition being 
 spent, they designed to retreat, but some were shot, some 
 were taken, and the rest came out again, but very few 
 without being wounded. The Irish then returned upon the 
 breach again, and from the walls, and every place, so pes- 
 tered us upon the counterscarp, that after three hours bul- 
 lets, stones, broken bottles being thrown from the very wo- 
 men who boldly stood in the breach, and were nearer our 
 men than their own, our ammunition being spent, it was 
 judged safest to return to our trenches. When the work 
 was at the hottest, the Brandenburgh regiment (who be- 
 haved themselves very well) were got upon the black bat- 
 tery, where the enemy's powder happened to take fire, and 
 blew up a great many of them — the men, faggots, stones, 
 and what not, flying into tho air with a most terrible noise. 
 Colonel Cutts was commanded, by the Duke of Wurtem- 
 burgh, to march towards the spur at the south gate, and 
 beat in the Irish that appeared there, which he did, though 
 he lost several of his men, and was himself w r ounded ; for 
 he went within half a musket shot of the gate, and all his 
 men open to the enemy's shot, who lay secure within the 
 spur and the walls. The Danes were not idle all this while, 
 but fired upon the enemy with all imaginable fury, and had 
 several killed ; but the mischief was, we had but one 
 breach, and all towards the left it was impossible to get into 
 the town when the gates were shut, if there had been no 
 enemy to oppose us, without a great many scaling ladders, 
 which we had not. From half an hour after three till after 
 seven, there was one continued fire of grape and small shot, 
 without any intermission ; insomuch, that the smoke that 
 went from the town reached, in one continued cloud, to the 
 top of a mountain at least six miles off. When our men 
 drew off, some were brought up dead — (a curious mode of 
 drawing off,) and some without a leg, others wanted arms, 
 and some were blind with powder, especially a great many 
 of the poor Brandenburghers, who looked like furies with 
 the misfortune of gunpowder. One Mr. Upton, getting in 
 among the Irish in town, and seeing no way to escape back, 
 went in the crowd undiscovered, till he came to the gover- 
 
 F 2 
 
52 
 
 nor, and then surrendered himself. (They could not say 
 perfidy was shewn to him.) There was a captain, one Bed- 
 loe, who deserted the enemy the day before, and now went 
 upon the breach, and fought bravely on our side, for which 
 his Majesty gave him a company. The king stood nigh 
 Cromwell's fort all the time, and the business being over, 
 he went to his camp, being very much concerned, as indeed 
 was the whole army ; for you might have seen a mixture of 
 anger and sorrow in every body's countenance. The Irish 
 had two small field pieces planted in the King's Island, 
 which flanked their own counterscarp, and in our attack did 
 us no small damage, as did also two guns more that they 
 had planted within the town, opposite to the breach, and 
 charged with cartridge shot. We lost at least five hundred 
 upon the spot, and had a thousand wounded, as I under- 
 stood by the surgeons of our hospitals, who are the proper- 
 est judges. The Irish lost a great many by our cannon and 
 other ways ; but it cannot be supposed that their loss should 
 be equal to our's, since it is a much easier thing to defend 
 walls, than it is by plain strength to force people from 
 them ; and one man within has the advantage of four with- 
 out." These were the description of persons with whom 
 the army of William, ill paid, ill fed, disunited, and heart- 
 less as they were, had to contend in Ireland, To say no- 
 thing of the condition of things in England and Scotland, 
 or on the continent, a French fleet was hourly expected off 
 the Irish coast. That fleet had actually arrived before the 
 Treaty was signed. Were its terms violated by the Irish ? 
 Had they not performed their part of the contract ? Who 
 will say, that if they were perfidious, (and they had it in 
 ther power to be so,) William would have succeeded ill in 
 establishing himself on the throne of England ? Who will 
 say, that if they were faithless, he could have succeeded ? 
 If he had failed, James the Second assuredly would have 
 died King of England, and the present Sovereign would 
 now be Elector of Hanover, or something of that sort. I 
 arraign England, then, of the basest perfidy. England had 
 enjoyed her " glorious revolution," as she calls it. She es- 
 tablished her liberties. Any social advantages arising from 
 these liberties she has possessed. All these blessings she 
 owes to the honour and trust-worthiness of the Irish. I ar- 
 raign her not only of perfidy but ingratitude. Having, 
 Mr. Chairman, thus sketched the circumstances under 
 which the Treaty was signed, I proceed to examine what 
 were its conditions. There were several articles of a local 
 
53 
 
 and particular nature. The following is the one which bears 
 chiefly upon my argument: — " 1. The Roman Catholics of 
 this Kingdom shall enjoy such privileges in the exercise of 
 their religion, as are consistent with the laws of Ireland ; 
 or as they did enjoy in the reign of King Charles the Second ; 
 and their Majesties, as soon as their affairs will permit them 
 to summon a Parliament in this kingdom, will endeavour to 
 procure the said Roman Catholics such farther security in 
 that particular, as may preserve them from any disturbance 
 upon account of their said religion" Two things were stipu- 
 lated here. It was promised to the Catholics, first of all, 
 that they should continue to enjoy whatever they could have 
 enjoyed consistently w r ith the existing law, and lest any- 
 thing restrictive of their rights might have crept into the 
 existing law, it was added, that they should possess all the 
 rights, privileges, and immunities of Charles the Second's 
 reign, and further, that such additional security "as may 
 preserve them from any disturbance on account of their reli- 
 gion/'should be procured for them. But the garrison were 
 not satisfied with this. It was thought possible, that the 
 perpetrators of this act of perfidy might in after time annoy 
 or prejudice the Catholics, by the introduction of such 
 tests or swearings as now disgrace the statute book. As 
 a guard against this mischief, a form of oath was specially 
 set forth in the articles. It was couched in the follow- 
 ing words : — " I, A. B., do sincerely promise and swear, 
 that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to their Majes- 
 ties, King William and Queen Mary. So help me God/' — 
 And the ninth article specially stipulates , that fC the oath 
 to be adminstered to such Roman Catholics as submit to 
 their Majesties' Government, shall be the oath above said, 
 and no other" This is clear. — This is plain. It was intended 
 to obviate all equivocation, and if it has not effected that 
 purpose, there is no power in language to convey a distinct 
 or definitive idea. Yet Mr. Peel pretends to have disco- 
 vered, that all the immunities guar anted by the Treaty of 
 Limerick are included in a power merely to pray ! What 
 impudent nonsense ! How could that be granted or taken 
 away ? Praying is an effort merely of the mind, which has 
 as much efficacy in silence as if every word was vociferated. 
 Could there be a law to limit or extend w r hat passes within 
 the breast ? What shameless nonsense I — Even Dawson 
 himself throws it overboard, and sneers at it. Even Daw- 
 son admits that the Treaty was between honorable men and 
 honorable men — between soldiers and soldiers ; and that it 
 related to civil rights, and not to the Hail Marvs, or anv other 
 F 3 
 
54 
 
 form of prayer. It guaranteed to Catholics all the rights 
 they then possessed, and all they enjoyed in a preceding 
 reign. It did this in plain, simple, and intelligible lan- 
 guage; and it further stipulated, that in case any doubt 
 should by possibility arise, with regard to any of its provi- 
 sions, all should be interpreted in favour of the Irish nation, 
 and the King should interfere with his Parliament to grant 
 to the Catholics "such further security as may preserve 
 them from any disturbance upon account of their religion." 
 Such are this Treaty and its stipulations. It was solemnly 
 ratified by the signature and seal of this King. The ratifi- 
 cation is enrolled in the national archives, with the great 
 seal appended to it. The event was celebrated by rejoic- 
 ings throughout England. It was announced in accents of 
 gladness in the London Gazette. And are we to be told, that 
 the English people, or the English Parliament, were not 
 parties- to it. The people rejoiced — what was the conduct 
 of Parliament? Did it reprimand De Ginkle for the terms 
 which he granted to the Irish people ? Did it question or 
 impugn any part of his proceedings ? Let its feelings to- 
 wards that Commander be collected from its having confer- 
 red upon him the title of Earl of Athlone shortly after he 
 concluded his labours before Limerick. But did it stop at 
 the mere bestowing of empty dignities ? It appears not, for 
 on the 13th of October, 1693, the somewhat substantial 
 reward of 26,480 green acres in the Counties of Kildare, 
 Dublin, and Carlow, were conferred upon him. Shall we 
 be told, after this, that the English Parliament or Peo- 
 ple, were not parties to this treaty ? And if this was the 
 conduct of both, in what terms are we to express our indig- 
 nation at their perfidy ? They treated with soldiers having 
 arms in their hands, and being the masters of an impregna- 
 ble fortress. These soldiers were vindicating their allegi- 
 ance to their lawful sovereign. Far be it from me to seek 
 to awaken any sympathy for that unhappy Monarch, He 
 deserved his fate. If he did nothing else but heap honours 
 upon the atrocious JefFeries, on his return from Circuit, 
 with his hands steeped in the blood of innocence — for that 
 act alone he deserved to be hurled from the throne. The 
 patron of a Jefferies, who, like legal monsters of other times, 
 was an amateur in the occupation of sending victims to the 
 gallows — who was equally destitute of feeling and of shame 
 — who gibed and sported with the hapless beings whom he 
 consigned to the gibbet — the patron of such a monster i3 
 deserving not of pity but of execration, and to ignominy 
 shall his name, with my consent, be for ever consigned. 
 
55 
 
 But it was not with James, but the brave and unconquered 
 Irish nation, that Britain and its ruler had entered into a 
 compact. — The terms of that contract were fulfilled to the 
 letter by the confiding Catholics. Before the Treaty was 
 actually signed, the French fleet appeared off the coast. 
 " Here," it was said, " is the succour. Drive these inva- 
 ders back to Dublin. The Deed has not yet received seal 
 or signature. Let none of its stipulations be fulfilled." 
 n No," said the Irish Chieftains — " the bond is certainly 
 not executed — but Irish honour is plighted for the perfor- 
 mance of its conditions — that honour has hitherto been un- 
 tarnished ; it shall remain so." Thus ended the negociation, 
 as far as the Irish were concerned. They were satisfied, as 
 their honour had been pledged, with the terms of the ori- 
 ginal agreement. That these terms were such as we under- 
 stand them to be, is proved by the brief but pathetic descrip- 
 tion of them by King William's Court Historian, Bishor) 
 Burnet. In his account of his own times, that worthy Pre- 
 late, after making an actual boast that matters had be^n 
 brought to a most auspicious issue at Limerick, concludes 
 by stating, that in virtue of the Treaty, " Catholics are to 
 possess the same privileges as other subjects, on condition 
 of their taking merely an oath of allegiance, without the 
 oath of supremacy." The terms of this solemn Treaty, 
 however, were grossly and perfidiously violated. Every 
 disability endured until 1793, was a violation of it. Every 
 disability which we suffer at present is a violation of it. It 
 is in violation of the condition of this Treaty that Catho- 
 lics are excluded from the Houses of Parliament. Catho- 
 lics sat in both Houses in the reign of Charles the Second. 
 The rights they then enjoyed were guaranteed by the 
 Treaty. They cannot now sit in Parliament, and, there- 
 fore, the Treaty has been grossly and perfidiously violated ! 
 This, Mr. Chairman, is my assertion on this momentous 
 question. — Mr. Dawson meets it with a plump negative, and 
 in this respect he evinces boldness at least, and takes the 
 bull, to use a common phrase, completely by the horn. Let 
 us see his own words. He quotes the first article and pro- 
 ceeds. — 
 
 " Upon the faith of this article the Catholics say that their 
 exclusion from Parliament is a violation of the terms of the 
 Treaty, and the denial of their right was a gross act of in- 
 justice on the part of the Irish Parliament. Now, if he 
 could prove, that so far from it being the Act of the Irish 
 Parliament and the British Goverment, it was the Act of 
 the British Parliament and the Irish Government; if lie 
 
56 
 
 could prove that Roman Catholics did not sit and vote in the 
 Irish House of Lords; that they did not sit and vote 
 in the Irish House of Commons, he thought they should 
 go a great way in rebutting the allegations of the 
 Petitions/' 
 
 Before I go farther, I may be allowed to recommend to 
 the admiration of my hearers this worthy gentleman's 
 distinction between " the Irish Parliament and the British 
 Government/' and the " British Parliament and Irish 
 Government/' It reminds me of George Faulkner's felici- 
 tous erratum, in which he informed his readers, that for 
 " His Grace the Ditches s of Dorset, they should read Her 
 Grace the Huke of Dorset." British and Irish, or Irish and 
 British, the enormity has been perpetrated between them. 
 We suffer — let the British and Irish, and Irish and British, 
 share the crime and the opprobrium, Mr, Dawson proceeds 
 to argue upon the effects of an enactment of Elizabeth's 
 reign, and it would appear from what he says, that he 
 believes the Catholics were excluded from Parliament at all 
 periods subsequently to that time. In James the First's 
 time a Parliament of all Ireland was, for the first time, 
 assembled, and the Journals accordingly commence with 
 that aera. There was before a Parliament of the Pale, and 
 the Esmonds and the Bellews, who were not Members of 
 the Upper House, constantly took share in its proceedings. 
 The Members at this period consisted of two hundred and 
 thirty-four persons. It was found that too many of the 
 menials of the great English Lords and the underlings of 
 the Government found admission into the House, and there 
 was a purification, in which thirty-four were struck off. 
 Now, of the remaining two hundred, ninety-eight or one 
 hundred were, according to all authentic history, Catholics. 
 And it should be remembered that the Parliament, com- 
 posed so much of Catholics, acted in all instances honestly 
 for both King and People, Fidelity to the Country, and 
 allegiance to the Sovereign, were exemplified in all their 
 acts, In the House of Peers the Catholics had a decided 
 majority. Nothing occurred in the reign of Charles the 
 Second, at least no Act was passed, to alter this state of 
 things. However, Mr. Dawson speaks of a certain Resolu- 
 tion which was passed in 1642 : — 
 
 " He would assert, that Roman Catholics did not sit and 
 vote in the House of Lords and Commons, and if he could 
 prove that there would be an end to the assumption of the 
 Petition ; and what were the proofs? The most incontest- 
 able that could be offered to a House of Commons, namely. 
 
57 
 
 the Journals of their own proceedings," Nothing can be in 
 aspect more fair than this. The worthy gentleman makes 
 an assertion ; he says he has his u proofs." He proceeds to 
 exhibit them as he ought to do, and if they be really 
 " proofs/' there is no question that he has established his 
 case. Now for the " proofs," In the Irish Journals he 
 found the following resolution, dated June 21, 1642: — 
 " The House taking into serious consideration the lament- 
 able condition of the kingdom at this present time, in a 
 manner w T holly wasted, and brought to desolation by the 
 impious and wicked conspiracies of many of the Popish 
 profession— It is ordered and ordained, that all persons who 
 are now Members of this House, or who hereafter shall be 
 elected a Knight, Citizen, or Burgess, shall henceforth, 
 before he entereth the Parliament House, or have any voice 
 there, openly accept and take the oath of supremacy." 
 Dawson here omits the concluding part of the resolution, 
 which pledges the House " to prepare a Bill, to be sent to 
 England for approval, and afterwards to be passed this 
 Sessions into a law, to the effect of this resolution." Here 
 is an admission that it was necessary to pass a Bill to that 
 effect. I accused Mr. Dawson of the suppressio vert — have 
 I not convicted him ? But the Acts of the House of Com- 
 mons, who even passed this resolution, have no authority. 
 Was it fair — was it candid to quote such a resolution ? Was 
 it not a paltry trick to say it was from the Journals of the 
 House ? I have brought with me the Journals of the House 
 of Commons, printed by order of the Irish House of Com- 
 mons, and what do I find ? That the Irish Journals close 
 on the 9th of November, 1641, and open again in the year 
 1647. The Parliament that sat in 1642 is not recognised at 
 all. It consisted of only thirty-four members, who met in 
 Dublin, and who were called a junta, a rump, and arrant 
 traitors. They are treated as usurpers. Oh ! God, what 
 animals we have to rule us, who quote a resolution of that 
 Parliament as a law of the land ! I have shown him guilty 
 of both the suppressio veri and the suggest io falsi. The reso- 
 lution of the Parliament of 1642 was admirable evidence, 
 truly, for Mr. Dawson to cite in support of his argument. 
 There was no entry on the Journals of the acts or proceed- 
 ings of that Parliament. The Journals cease at 1641, and 
 are again continued in 1647. The Acts of the House of 
 Commons of 1642 were not recognised. It was a miserable 
 paltry trick to quote a resolution of that Parliament. Even 
 admitting the force of that resolution it proves nothing. If 
 it had power, the House of Commons which passed it would 
 
58 
 
 not have determined that an A ct of Parliament was necessary 
 to carry it into effect. Could such a resolution be considered 
 law ? We have seen that this Parliament consisted of only 
 thirty- four members. It was a ludicrous assemblage. I 
 shall read you some of their debates. It appears that a 
 member of the name of Johnson, a Welshman, was accused 
 before the Lord Mayor of Dublin, of stealing a door, value 
 four shillings. The following examination took place on 
 the subject, at the Bar of the House, — (Here Mr, O'C. read 
 a portion of the examination.) Such is the Parliament 
 whose resolution is relied upon by Mr. Dawson. It was the 
 resolution of an assembly where fellows were pulling the 
 hair of one another and sputtering Welsh, that Mr. Dawson 
 rests his case, I take up the next resolutions which he has 
 quoted — those of the Parliament of l66l. He says that a 
 resolution was then passed, that every member of the House 
 should be called upon to take the oaths of allegiance and 
 supremacy, and that upon the members being called over 
 they all took the oaths. I shall read to you the two resolu- 
 tions passed on this occasion. On the 14th of May, l66l, 
 the House came to the following resolution: — "Ordered 
 upon the question, nemine contradicente, that the persons 
 hereafter named, or any five or more of them, be, and are 
 hereby appointed a Committee, to consider the manner and 
 way how the oaths of supremacy and allegiance may be take?i, 
 by all that now are, or hereafter shall be members of this 
 House/' &c. &c. Then follow the names of the Committee. 
 That resolution surely does not prove any thing for Mr, Daw- 
 son. If all members, previous to this, had been bound to take 
 the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, they would know 
 where they were to be taken, and in what manner. In the pro- 
 ceedings of the next day, the 15th of May, 1661, we find 
 the following recorded in the Journals : — " Ordered upon 
 question, that the under-named persons, or any six or more 
 of them, be, and are hereby appointed a Committee, to 
 attend the Right Honourable the Lords Justices, and humbly 
 to pray their Lordships from this House, to issue out a 
 warrant to the Right Honourable the Lord Chancellor, to 
 grant a Commission under His Majesty's great seal of this 
 Kingdom unto such persons, as their Lordships shall think 
 fit ; whereby they, or any two or more of them, may be 
 empowered to administer the oath of supremacy, which is 
 established by Act of Parliament in this kingdom, 2° FMza- 
 bcthce, and the oath of allegiance which is established, 3° Ja- 
 cobi in England, unto all and every of the members of this 
 House, that are now, or hereafter shall be, in such manner, 
 
59 
 
 form, and order at large, as in the Acts they are severally 
 expressed and laid down ; and that the said Committee do 
 meet thereupon in this House, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon." 
 That is all that was done. It does not appear that a Com- 
 mission was granted by the Lords Justices. I assert that no 
 such Commission ever was issued by the Lord Chancellor. 
 If the resolution of the usurping Parliament of 1642 is to be 
 considered law, for that Parliament, which was a Cromwel- 
 lian one, passed an Act repealing all the Acts of the preced- 
 ing Parliament; if this doctrine were true, the Act of 
 Settlement is null and void — five millions of acres and four 
 hundred livings, which were transferred, would have been 
 illegally tranferred. If Dawson be right, the Act of Settle- 
 ment becomes a mere nullity. Thank God for the peace 
 and tranquillity of the country, Dawson is wrong, and the 
 Act of Settlement remains in full force. I go now with Mr, 
 Dawson to the House of Lords. The House of Lords, 
 after the Restoration, sat for the first time on the 8th of 
 May, T66l, and their Journal thus commences: — "The 
 Lords who sat before in Parliament, either in person or by 
 proxy, took their places." Now, the majority of the Lords, 
 before the Restoration, were Catholics, and the title by 
 which they now assembled was, their having before sat in 
 person, or by proxy. On the 20th of May, l66l, we find 
 the following entered on the Journals : — " The Lords of the 
 House, who are of the communion of the Church of Eng- 
 land, are desired to be at Christ Church on Whitsun- 
 day, to receive the Holy Communion together." This 
 mind, does not say, " all the Lords," but the Lords 
 ' who are of the communion of the Church of England/ 
 I make Mr. Dawson a present of any argument which he 
 can deduce from this resolution. On the 27th of June, 
 1622, we find the following order entered : "Ordered,— 
 That all Lords w r ho are of the profession of the Church of 
 England, shall pay for every time they are absent from 
 the pravers in the House, one shilling. AND EVERY 
 LORD OF THE ROxMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION 
 that is absent a quarter of an hour after the sitting of the 
 House one shilling." There is for you, Mr. Dawson ! — 
 Those Catholic Lords who did not attend the House after 
 the lapse of a quarter of an hour from its sitting were to be 
 fined a shilling. This exhibits the delicacy of the House 
 towards the Catholic Lords, The Catholics pray for every 
 one, but it is one of their principles only to pray with Ca- 
 tholics. The House paid due regard to that feeling, and it 
 accordingly ordered, that those Catholics who were absent 
 
60 
 
 a quarter of an hour after the sitting of the House, should 
 be fined a shilling. Is it necessary for us to say more in re- 
 futation of Mr. Dawson? He endeavours to illustrate his 
 argument by stating, that the act, to prohibit minors from 
 sitting in Parliament extended to Ireland, — Grattan was, 
 I believe, a minor when he entered Parliament — so was 
 Mr, Fox. And it was only by the 37th of George III. cap. 
 33, that minors are excluded from seats in Parliament. I 
 follow him with his details to show, that he is as incorrect 
 in them as in his general positions. If he be a gentleman 
 of candour or manliness, I now call on him to retract his 
 false, obviously false, assertions. He seems, however, to 
 be tinged with an accommodating love of office. I remem- 
 ber when he met me in the lobby of the House of Com- 
 mons (I will not say that he shook me by the hands, for it 
 seems he disputes that, and to say the truth, I would not 
 dispute it with him,) and, addressing me, seiid, c Mr. 
 O'Connell, you have, by your evidence, removed many 
 and great prejudices from my mind/ Mr. Shiel was pre- 
 sent at the conversation, and can bear me out in what I 
 state. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL— So was Mr. Blake. 
 
 Mr. O'CONNELL— Yes, Mr. Blake, the Chief Remem- 
 brancer, was present also. Why does this Mr. Dawson now 
 advocate the violation of the Treaty of Limerick ? Why 
 does he endeavour to continue this act of perfidy and gross 
 injustice ? Why did he become a miserable missionary to 
 this country, to arose the embers of hatred and animosity 
 in Ireland, and still more to unfurl the Orange standard of 
 intolerance against the Catholics of Ireland ? I should sit 
 down without another assertion, but I shall disprove every 
 thing advanced by Mr. Dawson against the validity of this 
 solemn Treaty. An Act (the 9th William III. cap. 2.) was 
 passed, styled an Act for confirming the Treaty of Lime- 
 rick, and it left out the first and most important clause of 
 that Treaty. This was the play of Llamlet ; the part of 
 Hamlet left out by particular desire. Let not any one dare 
 to calumniate the Catholics after this instance of Protestant 
 perfidy. Mr. Dawson says, that no Catholic petitioned Par- 
 liament against the violation of the Treaty of Limerick, 
 till the Catholic Association thought fit to favour them with 
 this new light upon history. Mr, Dawson proves by this 
 assertion that he is grossly ignorant of history. Let him 
 look into the history of the House of Commons, and he 
 will find himself mistaken. On the 11th of October, lfig8, 
 a petition was presented from Lord Mountgarret, and other 
 
61 
 
 Lords and Commoners, who had been mentioned in the 
 Treaty of Limerick, against a bill then pending, and claim- 
 ing the privileges granted to them by the Treaty of Lime- 
 rick. On the 7th of February, 1703, a petition to a simi- 
 lar effect was presented. The 2d and the 7th of Anne 
 w T ere opposed on the same grounds. In 1723, we find a 
 petition from the Catholics of Limerick, calling for a ful- 
 filment of this Treaty. In 1739, another pettiion on the 
 subject of this Treaty was presented from the Catholics, 
 and in 1778, a petition on the same grounds was presented 
 against a bill against the foreign education of Catholics. If 
 Mr. Dawson were so ignorant of things that have gone be- 
 fore, what business has he to legislate for a nation like this? 
 Did Mr. Dawson forget the address presented to the late 
 King in 1792, by John Keogh and others? Was he so 
 young as not to have read this part of history, and to have 
 known that in the petition then presented, and on which 
 the Parliament acted in 1793, when it granted, amongst 
 other things, the Elective Franchise, a distinct complaint 
 was made on the violation of the Treaty of Limerick, and 
 the Parliament virtually admitted the justice of the com- 
 plaint, by granting redress to a certain extent. Who were 
 the men who now defended the violation of that solemn 
 Treaty ? The descendants of the Enniskilliners and the 
 Londonderry Regiments, whom Schomberg, in a letter to 
 King William, in February, I69O, says, ff were on a foot- 
 ing of license both to rob and steal. In another letter, he 
 tells his Majesty, that " one must count upon the troops 
 raised in Ireland (for his Majesty's service) only as so many 
 cravats. That, in the day of battle, they will always throw 
 themselves upon the first plunder. That Mr. Harbood, 
 (Pay-master General of his army) had experience of this : 
 for that having gone one night, with his fowling-piece, 
 upon a party with Count Schomberg, and having fallen from 
 his horse, five or six Enniskillen troopers began to strip 
 and rob him, although he cried out that he was a pay- 
 master, and that he would give them money to carry him 
 to the camp ; but that a French officer in passing, having 
 known him, the Enniskilliners brought him back." Does 
 the violation of the Treaty of Limerick stand alone ? — 
 There were other treaties, those of Drogheda, Carrick- 
 fergus, and Cork, The Irish were allowed to march out 
 of Carrickfergus, with colours and flags, and all the other 
 honours of war. But the English soldiers broke the ar- 
 ticles which Schomberg had signed, Thev fell upon and 
 G 
 
62 
 
 disarmed the town's people, and made the women run 
 the gauntlet stark naked ! Oh ! that our ancestors did not 
 prefer to perish in the field — to leave their bones to whiten 
 the land, rather than allow base things like these to pol- 
 lute the country. When Drogheda surrendered upon a 
 regular capitulation, the garrison, instead of being set free, 
 according to contract were detained prisoners. On the 
 surrender of Cork, the Irish General McCarthy, was near 
 being murdered, and the garrison were sent into a marshy 
 place, and there left without food for four or five days. — 
 Those who did not die there, were crowded up in jails 
 and churches, where several perished. A Captain Lodan, 
 who was sent with some Irish prisoners to Dublin, find- 
 ing them getting faint, had nine of them shot ! The con- 
 duct on the side of the Irish was widely different. Lady 
 Montrath, and several other respectable persons from the 
 English side, committed herself to the care of Owen 
 O'Rorke, who commanded an Irish garrison, in Mayo. — 
 O'Rorke* s brother was a prisoner with an English Gene- 
 ral, Sir Frederick Norton, and O'Rorke sent him word 
 he would exchange all his English prisoners for his bro- 
 ther. Norton hanged him the next day ! O'Rorke, 
 though enraged by such an infamous act, did not follow 
 the example of the barbarian ; he continued to treat the 
 English prisoners with kindness. Such was the conduct 
 of our persecutors then — base, barbarous, and savage; 
 and such would be the conduct of many of them to- 
 day, if they dared. We are not protected by their huma- 
 nity, but by their fears. I have closed my case on the 
 Treaty of Limerick. I have shown that it was useful 
 to England and absolutely necessary to the security of 
 the Throne. Sir, we gave valuable considerations to Eng- 
 land, and we were only promised our rights in return. — 
 That promise w T as violated, and up to this day the vio- 
 lation continues. When we call for its fulfilment, we are 
 met by facts that never occurred and by arguments that 
 no rational mind could entertain. Ireland never violated 
 her Treaties. She maintained her contract with England 
 faithfully, honestly, and to the letter. I appeal to the 
 history of Ireland for the conduct of the Irish Catholics. — 
 When in the reign of Mary, the scaffolds were dyed with 
 bloody the Catholics of Ireland, though they had the 
 power of retribution, did not exercise it on the Protes- 
 tants who had persecuted them. The Catholics had the 
 same power again under James II. and they exercised it 
 with the same lenity. Let us call upon England to se- 
 
63 
 
 cure the happiness of Ireland, by at length fulfilling a 
 solemn Treaty, and to consign to deserved execration 
 those who attempt to justify its violation, and would 
 transmit it to posterity. 
 
MR. SHEIKS 
 
 SPEECH AT THE CONNAUGHT PROVINCIAL 
 MEETING, 
 
 WHICH WAS ATTENDED BY 
 
 THE DUKE DE MONTEBELLO, 
 
 Mr. SHI EL. — I hold in my hand, a document of no 
 ordinary importance. It was delivered to me by that ardent 
 servant of his country and of his religion, the Roman Ca- 
 tholic Bishop of Waterford, " I give you," said that lofty- 
 minded Prelate, "the result of much labour, and much 
 zeal. I place a document in your hands, which is signed 
 by me, in my episcopal character, and for whose authenti- 
 city I can vouch. Take it, and let it be used for the good 
 of Ireland, and the honour of God." He entrusted to my 
 care what I consider to be of the utmost consequence to the 
 promotion of our cause, and I have selected this great Pro- 
 vincial Assembly, as affording the most appropriate occasion 
 for the statement of its contents. It is the certified census, 
 under the sign manual of the Bishop, of the comparative Pro- 
 testant and Catholic population of the united dioceses of Wa- 
 terford and Lismore, It comprehends the returns made, in 
 their official capacity, by the parish priests of thirty-seven pa- 
 rishes, (returns very different from the vague computations 
 of that strange calculator of men, Mr. Leslie Foster, who 
 allows three Catholics and a quarter to every Protestant) ; 
 and by these returns it appears, that the population of the 
 united dioceses, including the city of Waterford, amounts 
 to ten thousand one hundred and forty-nine Protestants, 
 and two hundred and thirty-one thousand two hundred and 
 eighteen Roman Catholics. Yes, I repeat it, 10,149, who 
 are not Catholics, (for Presbyterians, Quakers, Methodists, 
 Walkerites, Rodenites, Wolffites, and non-descripts, are in- 
 cluded under this negative denomination,) and two hundred 
 and thirty-one thousand eight hundred and eighteen profes- 
 
65 
 
 sors of that religion, which is laden with penalties, encom- 
 passed with disqualifications, and branded with dishomour 
 by the law. Gracious God, under what a system do we 
 live ? and how justly does the world look with admiration 
 upon those venerable institutions, which raise a handful of 
 men into an insolent and exasperating masterdom, and, 
 throwing down a whole people to the earth, reduce us to 
 that condition of debasing servitude, against which the un- 
 derstanding revolts, and the heart rebels. Ten thousand 
 Protestants, and two hundred and thirty-one thousand Ca- 
 tholics — and this is the system which we are told to bear 
 with a meek and gentle spirit — this is the condition of things, 
 at which we are to smile, and simper, and lisp, and not impre- 
 cate and groan — this is the condition of things against which 
 we should remonstrate in melodious murmurs, and with a 
 graceful attitude of supplication ! — This is the system against 
 which, whoever dares to inveigh in the language that be- 
 comes a man, and gives vent to the feelings that break the 
 nation's heart, is denounced as a savage demagogue, and a 
 truculent declaimer. — What will any man, whose mind is 
 not blocked up by passion against all reason, all justice, all 
 feeling, all honour, and all truth, think of such a system as 
 this ? In what light must any impartial Englishman, or 
 any foreigner, by whom this country may chance to be vi- 
 sited, regard a Constitution which excludes the enormous 
 majority of its citizens, from a participation in its privi- 
 leges ? If — but I should not put it in by way of hypothesis, 
 for a French nobleman of the highest rank, the Duke de 
 Montebello, is present in this assembly ; he is accompanied 
 by three of his countrymen, of whom two informed me, 
 at the moment I was about to rise, that they are French 
 Protestants, and that they consider the exclusion of the Ca- 
 tholics of Ireland from the full advantage of British citizen- 
 ship, a reproach to the religion of the state. They told me 
 that they whole body of French Protestants sympathise 
 with us, and are astonished that the professors of reformed 
 Christianity should deny to Catholics that perfect freedom 
 of opinion, on which their own system of belief is founded. 
 They further mentioned to me, that Monsier de Jaucourt, 
 and Monsieur de Portail, two members of the French Govern- 
 ment, w 7 ho fill important situations in the ministry, are Pro- 
 testants — and Protestants are not only legally admissible, 
 but are actually admitted to influential offices in the State.— 
 What, then, must be the astonishment of Frenchmen, on 
 visiting this country, to find seven millions of its inhabitants 
 cast beyond the pale of the constitution, on account of their 
 G 3 
 
66 
 
 conscientious adherance to the national faith ? The Duke 
 of Montebello will return in a little time to France, and I 
 have pictured to myself what he will say, when his compa- 
 triots shall enquire of him what he has seen, and heard, and 
 felt, amongst us, " I visited/' he will, or might at least 
 say, " that most important portion of the British dominions, 
 for which, in France, much interest is felt, but, as yet, 
 all is not known. I arrived in a country endowed by na- 
 ture with its best gifts, and covered with a population of 
 vigorous, healthy, intelligent and generously minded men. 
 Yet, with all these advantages, I found an utter counterac- 
 tion of the apparent designs of Providence ; and where I 
 expected a scene of national prosperity, I beheld a most 
 miserable and degrading spectacle. The law had estab- 
 lished an aristocracy different from that which exists 
 in any other country, and which is not derived from 
 rank, or birth, or public virtue, but consists in the profes- 
 sion of a peculiar form of religion. Protestantism is raised 
 into a kind of nobility, and every miserable pupil of an 
 eleemosynary school — every wretched product of a charter 
 house— every hard-handed mechanic — every sordid artizan, 
 and every greasy corporator is raised into an artificial supe- 
 riority over the great body of the people, The fiercest dis- 
 sensions are thus nurtured by the law, and two factions are 
 marshalled, which are halloed on by the government, and infu- 
 riated into a detestation of each other. In the North, I 
 found a band of men called Orangemen, with arms in their 
 hands, supported by the magistracy in their acts of outrage, 
 and exercising that species of domination, which the con- 
 sciousness of impunity, naturally engenders in base and 
 sordid minds. When I reached the Metropolis, I found a 
 Lord Lieutenant surrounded with the forms, but destitute 
 of all the realities of power — the slave of an underling of 
 office, set over him by Mr. Peel, and forced to submit to 
 every slight and insult which the prevailing faction sought 
 to put upon him. His vice-regal sceptre is a reed. He 
 enjoys so little of the substance of authority, that he is una- 
 ble to advance any liberal man to any important situation, 
 although he should superadd the motives of personal friend- 
 ship to his sense of political duty. Not long ago, he used 
 his influence to advance a Roman Catholic Barrister to the 
 only judicial office, open to the body, and utterly failed. 
 The ascendant party feel that they are still the virtual mas- 
 ters, and omit no opportunity to proclaim their conscious- 
 ness of superiority, and their conviction of the permanence of 
 their dominion. The Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant is 
 
67 
 
 their patron, and gives a sanction, by his attendance at their 
 atrocious festivities, to the anti-national and insulting senti- 
 ments which are announced upon these occasions. The 
 person who is armed with most power in the local govern- 
 ment of Ireland, makes it his business to countenance their 
 ferocious orgies. At a recent dinner, which was adorned 
 by his presence, a toast, reprobated by their Sovereign, was 
 announced, amidst a yell of factious triumph, and hailed 
 with rapturous vociferation. Thus the great mass of the 
 people are not only oppressed, but insulted, and re- 
 minded of their degradation in every form of offence 
 which the malignant spirit of Orange tyranny can devise. 
 The Roman Catholics are not permitted for an instant to 
 forget their inglorious condition. They are not only stamped 
 with shame, but the finger of scorn is for ever pointed at 
 the brand with which they are marked." And when he 
 shall have said this, and much more than this, and shall have 
 gone into all the details of contumely to which every man 
 of us is subject — when he shall have exhibited all the multi- 
 farious varieties of degradation, and of injury, which 
 result from this abominable system, will not some French- 
 man exclaim, " And how do these seven millions bear with 
 all this ? — are they contented with their political infa- 
 my f — do they bend in meekness to the yoke ? — do they 
 prostrate themselves before their masters ? — are they 
 satisfied with this state of things ? — are they so utterly base 
 as to hug their shame, and to be fond of their degradation ?" 
 Oh, my countrymen, what answer should be given to these 
 questions? Shall Frenchmen be told that our hearts are 
 compounded of such base stuff? Shall it be said, by our 
 illustrious friend, that we have reached such a meanness of 
 spirit, and have attained such an utter corruption, and 
 helotism of feeling, as to be contented with such a lot? 
 Shall the son of a gallant soldier, in answering that question, 
 say that Ireland is satisfied with her lot ? Shall he say that 
 we are such worms, that we dare not turn upon the foot 
 that treads upon us ? Will he say this ? No ! thank 
 God, No ! Thanks to Almighty God, he will not say 
 so ; he will speak far differently about us. He will say, 
 that seven millions of oppressed and degraded men, feel all 
 that burning indignation that befits the complication of 
 insult and of injury which they endure ; and that they are 
 animated by as resolved and enthusiastic a spirit as ever 
 actuated a people in the cause of freedom. He will say that 
 they are bound together by a single, an undivided, and 
 inseparable sentiment ; that they are as firm and as deter- 
 
68 
 
 mined as they are ardent and inflamed ; that every thought 
 and feeling is fixed and concentrated in an impassioned 
 aspiration for the liberty of their country. Let him say this, 
 and more than this ; let him add, that if ever it shall come 
 to pass that, to the financial embarrassments of England 
 there should be superadded, the enormous expenditure of 
 war, and if, when stripped of her commerce — with her 
 machinery and manufactures at a stand — with her enormous 
 debt, hanging like an avalanche upon her head — with famine 
 within and danger abroad — the fleets of France and of Ame- 
 rica shall unfurl their flags upon the seas, then — in that hour 
 of tremendous peril, with an enormous population, w r hose 
 bare physical power would be terrific if put into a simulta- 
 neous and gigantic action, and would be doubly terrible if 
 there were art and skill to give it direction, order, system, 
 
 and effect — then I have made a pause, and I feel from 
 
 the silence with which you await my words, that there is 
 
 something of awe in your anticipation — then But 
 
 I shall proceed no farther. This is a subject on which much 
 may be said, and more ought to be thought, and I shall only 
 add — may God Almighty give that wisdom to those who 
 are appointed by His providence to sway the destinies of 
 empires, which shall avert those dreadful events, whose bare 
 possibity is sufficient to appal, and from whose likelihood 
 every good man must recoil in horror ; and yet, why throw 
 a veil upon futurity — why shut out from contemplation 
 what may arrive hereafter, because I may be calumniously 
 reproached with desiring what I do but apprehend, and of 
 endeavouring to realize what it is even dreadful to imagine. 
 I do, in the face of heaven, solemnly protest, that I not only 
 deprecate the political calamities to which 1 have adverted, 
 but I look upon them with horror. Not only my duty as a 
 subject, but my feelings as a man, and those instincts of 
 humanity, of which, 1 trust, that I am not destitute, teach 
 me to regard any political convulsion which may take place 
 in this country, with a sentiment still stronger than dismay. 
 If it should unfortunately happen that such events should 
 take place in the course of a few years, the men, who, like 
 myself, take the most active share in public affairs, would 
 be the first to perish. They would be swept away in the 
 torrent of blood by which the country would be deluged. 
 The first blast of the trumpet would be a signal for their death, 
 and the example of Narbis, the tyrant of Sparta, would, no 
 doubt, be followed, who, upon an invasion in which it was 
 expected that the Helots might gain their liberty, ordered 
 the leaders of them to be scourged; and then beheaded, so 
 
69 
 
 that, as the historian tells us, the streets were red with their 
 blood. A selfish motive, independent of every generou9 
 emotion, should teach the most active of our body to look 
 with awe upon those awful events, of which I have but 
 traced the shadows. But is it wise, because the contempla- 
 tion of an event is attended with terrible anticipations, to 
 clasp our hands to our eyes, and shut it out ? Are dangers 
 to be averted by being disguised ? — or does he who cries 
 "breakers a-head" drive the vessel on the rock? I hear 
 the roaring of the billows, and see in the distance the surf 
 breaking over the reef, and shall I not exclaim, u helm a 
 lee !" It is to prevent, and not to hurry destruction on, 
 that I point out the peril on which we are advancing, and 
 drive to ruin before the wind, 
 
 O navis, referent in mare te novi, 
 Fluctus ! oh quid agis. 
 
 I shall, then, fearlessly state what I apprehend may be 
 the consequence of withholding their rights from seven 
 millions of the Irish people. It will be observed, that I am 
 not speaking of events which may take place in one, two, 
 three, or, perhaps, twenty years ; but any man who is not 
 actuated by sentiments of the basest selfishness, will be as 
 solicitous to protect his children from the evils incidental to 
 national calamity, as to shelter himself against them. Shoulc! 
 those claims, which are prosecuted with such an ardent 
 pertinacity, be constantly rejected, it is to be apprehended 
 (and such a possibility, independent of its likelihood, is 
 surely to be averted) that the sense of their political duty 
 may be ultimately so far weakened and impaired, that their 
 state of exasperation, to use the language of Mr. Canning, 
 may afford to the enemies of England an opportunity of 
 assailing the empire in a very vulnerable point. The Secre- 
 tary for Foreign Affairs has intimated this probability, and 
 stated that the attention of the Continental Powers was fixed 
 upon this country. I, therefore, do no more than amplify 
 and expand the sentiment of a Prime Minister — no more 
 than he considered it consistent with official delicacy to 
 do. Should the anticipation of Mr. Canning come to 
 pass, what sort of spectacle would this country present ? I 
 do verily believe that every man, who had any sort of stake 
 in the country — every respectable Roman Catholic, would 
 be induced to sacrifice his wrongs and his antipathies to his 
 sense of moral and religious duty, and would adhere to his 
 vow of allegiance. But the great body of the people would, 
 
70 
 
 I fear, be under the influence of very powerful temptation^ 
 and adventurers and men of desperate fortunes and aspiring 
 minds (and they are to be found in every country) might 
 yield to the suggestions of a wild and criminal ambition, 
 and give a loose to their passions. In my judgment, such 
 an enterprise would ultimately fail, because the power 
 of England, unless she sustained very great reverses, 
 would prevent rebellion from being ever sanctified by its 
 result. But supposing that the event w T ould be what every 
 good subject and good Christian should legally and piously 
 desire, still through w r hat dreadful scenes the country would 
 have to pass, before that salutary consummation could be 
 attained. I do not deny that many would derive, from the 
 confiscation of Catholic property, some consolatory compen- 
 sations for the national misfortunes. But must not every 
 man of ordinary feeling and humanity, no matter to what 
 party he may belong, shudder at the thought of all the 
 misery, both public and domestic, with which such a state 
 of things w r ould be attended. Some men there are, who are 
 disposed to say, "these things may happen, but they will 
 not happen in our time." This reminds me of the sordid 
 selfishness of Louis the Fifteenth, who shrugged up his 
 shoulders at the prospect of a revolution, and consoled him- 
 self by saying, " apres moi le deluge," Let it, he said, rain 
 blood, if it only falls upon my grave. The head of his son 
 rolled upon his tomb. I have said these things before ; but 
 why should they not be reiterated ? Why should not that 
 raven cry be sounded again and again ? It is not for the 
 purposes of faction — it is not as a furious and savage alarmist 
 that I speak thus — it is in the hope that these impassioned 
 appeals may have some effect in awakening our antagonists 
 to a sense of the dangers to which we are all in common 
 exposed. Protestants of Ireland, if you have no regard for 
 your country — if you are dead to all public considerations— 
 if the prosperity of your native land is no object of your 
 care, still have mercy upon your children, and unite with us 
 in our honourable efforts to arrest the progress of those 
 events, of which they may be the victims. Let this disas- 
 trous question be settled, and there is at once an end to all 
 your apprehensions. Abolish the detestable remnants of the 
 penal code — strike off the fragments of those chains that 
 still hang upon us — place seven millions of the Irish people 
 in their just relation to the State — make it the interest as 
 well as the duty of every citizen to support the system of 
 government under which he lives — fasten the great body of 
 the people by links which shall be rivetted to their hearts — 
 
71 
 
 give a fair influence to the talents of the able, the rank of 
 the titled, the affluence of the wealthy — put us, in one word, 
 in that state which ought to make us satisfied with our con. 
 dition, and in which neither our feelings shall be insulted, 
 our pride mortified, nor our passions inflamed ; and it 
 requires but little knowledge of human nature to be con- 
 vinced, that the Roman Catholics of Ireland will not yield 
 to any class of His Majesty's subjects, in loyalty to their 
 Sovereign, attachment to his family, and allegiance to his 
 government — fidelity to the Constitution, obedience to the 
 laws, and devotion to the interests of that great empire, of 
 which this country forms so important, and at present so 
 vulnerable a part. 
 
MR. SHEXL'S 
 
 SPEECH AT THE AGGREGATE MEETING, 
 
 HELD NOVEMBER, 1826. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL — I, not very long ago, announced, at the 
 Catholic Association, that I should make some observations 
 on the grand festival of condolence, given to Colonel Verner, 
 at Omagh. Having been prevented, by other occupations, 
 from attending the Association, I relinquished the idea ; but 
 as I perceive that the speeches have since been published in 
 a pamplet, and the attention of the London Newspapers has 
 been directed to the sanguinary Christianity of Mr. Robin- 
 son, it may be as well to make some few comments upon 
 the atrocious orgies, in which Colonels, Parsons, and Puri- 
 tans, emulated each other in their maledictions of their 
 country. Taken as individuals, the persons assembled on 
 the occasion deserve scorn ; but they expressed the feelings 
 of a party. The lucubrations of those consecrated baccha- 
 nals, Messrs. Miller, Robinson, and Company, may be con- 
 sidered as the catechism of a faction, and deserve to be 
 saved from immediate oblivion, upon the same principle that 
 a malefactor is prevented from dying of a natural death, in 
 order to break him upon the wheel. Let us, then, proceed 
 to the dinner. Was it not a strange notion after all ! What 
 could possess the Orangemen of Armagh to bring the lugu- 
 brious triumvirate of defected Candidates together ? Beaten, 
 utterly and completely beaten — with the dust which they 
 had been compelled to bite in their mouths, and beaten the 
 more disgracefully, because beaten by the men whom they 
 affected to despise — they assemble, crow, and clap their 
 wings upon the very dunghill of their defeat. They sung 
 u Io triumphe," as they passed under the yoke ! Mr. Robin- 
 son lamented, in his Ossianic phraseology, that he of Louth 
 was not there ; all that was wanting, indeed, was, that plea- 
 sant and vivacious Senator, Mr. Leslie Foster, to complete 
 the party ; but there was he of Monaghan, and there 
 was he of Armagh, and there was he of Curraghmore. 
 
73 
 
 How must they have looked when they surveyed each 
 other in the midst of their melancholy festivities ; — when 
 he of Armagh looked upon him of Monaghan, and he 
 of Monaghan gazed on him of Curraghmore, their faces 
 must, like the mirrors of melancholy, (if I may so say,) 
 have multiplied the expression of despair. — The pamph- 
 let (an authorised publication) called the Meeting an 
 assembly of " the Protestant Gentlemen of Armagh/' — The 
 Protestant Gentlemen, indeed ! There was scarcely a man 
 of rank amongst them ! Mr. Ensor, in his admirable com- 
 mentary, has set us right on that head. We are told, in- 
 deed, that there was a great number of Clergymen of the 
 Established Church of great opulence. I doubt not that ; 
 — there was many a sordid hearted Parson— many a rich 
 and rapacious ecclesiastic— many a fat and glossy vulture, 
 gorged to the beak, and yet scenting out new carrion, and 
 smelling a fresh feast in the ruin and misery of his country. 
 But most of the company were a set of ferocious paupers, 
 whose very means of life depend upon their politics, to 
 which they may be said to owe their subsistence, for in their 
 daily orison to the genius of Orangemen, they may appro- 
 priately cry out, " Give us this day our daily oread." In the 
 course of his speech, Sir George Hill observed, that if they 
 changed their principles " misery would attend them • " and 
 I do verily believe that, without meaning it, he spoke the 
 truth. — The orators of the night may be subdivided into two 
 great classes, the Military and the Ecclesiastical. There 
 w r ere seven Parsons who made speeches, three Colonels and 
 one General. It is only fair to give precedence to Lord 
 George. In drinking his health, the Chairman told the Par- 
 sons that Lord George was put out by an intolerant Priest- 
 hood. The pamphlet states, that Lord George addressed the 
 meeting with the discrimination of a scholar, and the honesty 
 of a soldier. With respect to his military achievements, i 
 never heard that they extended beyond the quay of Water- 
 ford ; and a3 to his Lordship's talents, I certainly admit 
 that the speech before me produced astonishment in my 
 mind. The truth, I believe, is this, that Lord George hi- 
 thereto concealed his abilities, lest they should be put into 
 too active a requisition. The Africans imagine that the 
 Ourang Outang has uncommon talents for eloquence, and 
 can speak remarkably well, but that lest he should be com- 
 pelled to work, the creature pretends to be dumb. So it is 
 with Lord George, Like " the wild man of the woods," he 
 remained in the forests of Curragmore, and purposely con- 
 cealed his genius for elocution lest it should be put too 
 H 
 
74 
 
 much task. Of the rest of the military Rhetoricians, Colo* 
 nels Verner and Leslie, and that personification of " John 
 Barleycorn " Colonel Blacker, it is unnecessary to say any 
 thing, for they are not worth mention. Upon some other 
 occasion I may, perhaps, enter into some details relative to 
 the last of them — the great supporter of the Constitution, 
 and the Revenue laws ; but I have more important matter 
 in hand. I proceed, therefore, to the " Soldiers in Christ," 
 Messrs. Miller and Robinson, who may be considered in 
 some sort as the representatives of the university, I may 
 observe in passing, that it is not a little singular that the 
 university of Dublin which once converted the appellation 
 of the " Silent Sister," into an honorable designation, by 
 refraining, it is said, through Dr. Magee's influence, from 
 petitioning against Emancipation, should have lately mani- 
 fested so angry a spirit. There were Messrs. Boyten and 
 Stack, at Omagh. The latter gentleman stated among other 
 things that the adored Doctor Magee. I understand that 
 the pious gentleman conceives that the world is on the verge 
 of dissolution, and that Doctor Magee is the prophet Enoch 
 in disguise, " mounted on a white horse," after the manner 
 of the Revelations. But to return to Doctor Miller — he 
 was professor of history in Trinity College, and published 
 his lectures in six volumes. Mr. Murray had the misfor- 
 tune of putting them into type ; and not long after they 
 issued from the press, I remember to have called to Albe- 
 marle-street, and found Mr. Murray in a state of considera- 
 ble exhilaration at the prospect of a great sale. Mr. Croker 
 of the Admiralty, the great Aristarchus of Toryism, had 
 assured him, I fancy, that he had made a great hit. Some 
 six months after, I called again to the shop, and saw some 
 twenty or thirty shelves, exclusively occupied with the 
 Doctor's work. Not a copy had budged. About a year 
 after I returned, and " the Philosophy of History 99 still re- 
 tained its disastrous permanence. Having read the "Art of 
 Ingeniously Tormenting," I ventured to throw out an obser- 
 vation on the great genius and erudition of the Doctor, who 
 was considered in Dublin College, to have thrown Hume 
 and Gibbon into the shade, when Mr. Murray threw his 
 eye over the immoveable mass of learning with an expres- 
 sion of despair, and gave that sort of shrug, which none but 
 authors understand, and which has descended from Tonson 
 and Lintot to the eminent Bibliopolists of the present time. 
 T had a recent occasion, however, to read the Doctor's 
 book. The numerous assaults made by the English Jour- 
 nals upon my sins against political sensibility, produced some 
 
75 
 
 solicitude of mind,, and deprived me of sleep. Having 
 passed whole nights in a state of agitated vigilance, I 
 consulted a physician, who prescribed various medi- 
 cines, 
 
 " Poppy and madragora, 
 
 And all the drowsy syrups of the world/' — 
 
 But it was in vain. At length, however, he said, " I have 
 exhausted all my other narcotics, but I have one specific 
 left ; read " Miller's Philosophy of History," and if it does 
 not set you to sleep, you are destined like the victim of Ke- 
 hama to eternal vigilance/' I accordingly provided myself 
 with the Doctor's work, and the effects were truly surpris- 
 ing. I had not read three lines before I felt a salutary hea- 
 viness about me. When I had gone through a dozen pages, 
 I began to stretch and yawn in a most luxurious drowsiness, 
 and at length I fell fast asleep. Before, however, I had 
 completely closed my eyes, I drew a pencil along a particu- 
 lar passage in the book, which it may be as well that I 
 should read, in order that you may be able to compare it 
 with the Doctor's oratory at Armagh. He is expatiating 
 upon the miserable policy adopted towards Ireland, and 
 says, u Such a system of conduct can be explained only, as 
 Sir John Davies has remarked, by conceiving that those 
 who held the Government of Ireland, acted on the princi- 
 ple of a perpetual war, by which the English should extir- 
 pate the Irish, and possess themselves of the vacant terri- 
 tory. Unable, however, to execute such a plan of lawless 
 avidity, they have only generated a national feud which was 
 afterwards, yet more exasperated by a difference of religion, 
 and in this state of extraordinary excitement became a pow- 
 erful agent in the general combinations of the Empire. The 
 influence of this singular policy has been well illustrated by 
 Sir John Davies in comparing the case of Ireland with that 
 of Wales, the original laws of which were in many particu- 
 lars similar to those of the former country. Edward I. as 
 soon as he had completed the reduction of that territory, 
 established such a modification of its laws, as in a conside- 
 rable degree assimilated them to those of England ; and 
 when the insurrections of the Barons, the wars of France, 
 and the contention of the rival houses, had so withdrawn 
 from Wales the attention of the English Government, that 
 it relapsed into its former condition. Henry VIII. perfected 
 what had been begun by Edward, by receiving that coun- 
 try into an incorporating union with his kingdom, and abo- 
 H2 
 
76 
 
 lishing at the same time all usages, which would have main- 
 tained its distinction. The result of this different treatment 
 of Wales was that the country was in a short time rendered 
 a scene of order and civilization, whereas the feud of Ir e- 
 land is still shaking our repose" This, I think, affords a 
 tolerale specimen of the consistency of Doctor Miller, With 
 what scorn we should survey him, when we contrast his 
 mean and miserable politics at Armagh, with his published 
 and recorded opinions upon the fatal misrule of this unfor- 
 tunate country. Enough of him. I proceed to Mr. Rom- 
 ney Robinson, the astronomer, who, in point of sacerdotal 
 ferocity, it must be admitted, has left the historian far be- 
 hind. Mr. Robinson is now an important person, and it 
 may gratify your curiosity to hear that he was once upon a 
 time a poet, and published a collection of juvenile poems 
 which made him be regarded as a blossom upon Parnas- 
 sus. In order that you may form a judgment of his genius, 
 it may not be inappropriate to read an extract from his com- 
 positions. Mr. Robinson appears to have been upon inti- 
 mate terms with a certain culinary artist, commonly called 
 a kitchen-maid, whose name was Dolly. In one instance 
 he carried his familiarities with this vestal of the scullery to 
 an extreme, which the damsel somewhat acrimoniously re- 
 sented. He has thought it not inconsistent with his poeti- 
 cal dignity, to record this very interesting, but not very 
 uncommon incident, and begins by an invocation of 
 the Furies, to whose inspirations it must be admitted 
 that he was not a little indebted for his own oration 
 at Armagh. — 
 
 "My angry lyre, Magaera string, 
 In notes Tartarean battle sing : 
 Instead of tears for beauty's woe, 
 Let rancour burn, and discord glow — 
 Tho' erst my muse has mourned with Dolly, 
 My strains now sing her thoughtless folly — 
 Her pots and kettles, pans and plates, 
 And pokers breaking brittle pates. 
 
 Once on a time when all was quiet, 
 And mute the voice of brawl and riot, 
 While peace was sitting by the fire, 
 Then Dolly 'gan with furious ire." 
 
 You should be informed that the indignation of Dolly 
 
77 
 
 was produced by a liberty not necessary to be men- 
 tioned. Dolly starts up in a paroxysm of exaspe- 
 ration, and is compared to Mount Etna in an erup- 
 tion. — 
 
 " As when in fire Typhseus roars. 
 And Etna shakes Secilia's shores, 
 Thus bellowed Doll." — 
 
 This is succeeded by a passage to which, even in Mr* 
 Wordsworth's Nursery of the Muses, nothing can be 
 compared. 
 
 " She threw the poker at my head, 
 And deemed the blow r would strike me dead. 
 The Poet now, with choler swelFd, 
 Fierce dealt a blow, and Dolly yelled/' 
 
 Mr. Robinson proceeds to describe the process to which this 
 modern Thalestris was thrown upon the ground, and w T hen 
 Dolly and the Poet — but res- 
 pect to my auditors prevents me from proceeding far- 
 ther. Suffice it to say that Apollo suddenly appears 
 in the kitchen, and through his celestial intervention, 
 a reconciliation between Dolly and the Poet is effected. 
 I have read these passages from Mr. Robinson's poems, for 
 the purpose of illustrating and justifying the claims to intel- 
 lectual superiority which, in his speech at Armagh, he has 
 claimed for the Irish Protestants. Mr. Robinson became a 
 Fellow of Trinity College ; and when we consider the mira- 
 cles in literature and science which have been accomplished 
 by the Professors of that University ; when we consider the 
 illumination which they have thrown upon the whole sphere 
 of knowledge, and the number of valuable works with 
 which their press may be said to teem, it must be confessed 
 that the mere fact of Mr. Robinson having once belonged to 
 that intellectual corporation, gives him a paramount title to 
 our respect. In the University Mr. Robinson devoted him* 
 self to the study of the stars. His familiar use of the teles- 
 cope naturally led him to prefer Mr. Croker to Mr. Plunkett. 
 During the memorable contest between those eminent per- 
 sons, Mr. Robinson consistently voted for "him of the 
 garret " This, however, was not immaterial. Mr. Robinson 
 and Mr. Croker are both expert at the use of t'ie telescope; 
 and while the one was engaged in watching the stars, Mr,. 
 Croker was occupied in observing "the transit of Venus." 
 H 3 
 
78 
 
 in the lodgings of Mrs. Clarke. But let us come to his 
 speech. He returned thanks on behalf of the University, 
 and enumerated some of the illustrious persons who had 
 been produced by that College. He said nothing of Burke 
 or Grattan, (Grattan, whose picture was removed from the 
 great hall of the University by an order of the Board) nor 
 of Curran, nor of any other advocate of freedom, whose 
 name tends, in some degree, to rescue our University from 
 shame ; but he commemorated the virtues of the Calvinistic 
 Usher, who laid down the doctrines of Geneva as the essen- 
 tial Articles of the Irish Church, and had afterwards the 
 meanness to sacrifice his opinion to his Sovereign's will. 
 He had the folly to speak of Swift, who was deemed a dunce 
 in our University, and who obtained his degree by special 
 favour, which, Doctor Johnson informs us, means in Dublin 
 College, " a want of merit." Mr. Robinson also referred to 
 Molyneux. Thi s was an egregious mi stake ; for in Molyneux's 
 celebrated book, which was burned by order of the House 
 of Commons, principles are laid down which are far more 
 applicable to the present case of Ireland, than they were to 
 the times in which Molyneux poured out his argumentative 
 vituperation. Molyneux insists that Irishmen and English- 
 men have equal rights; and maintains the abominable 
 doctrine, that tyranny should be encountered with resistance, 
 and that oppression should be beaten down by force. He 
 menaces the British Government with the consequences 
 which may result from the indignation of the Irish people. 
 If; then, England had any reason to apprehend any evil 
 result from the exasperated pride of the Protestants of Ire- 
 land, (who were but a handful of men) — if Molyneux were 
 alive, would he not exhort the English nation to consi- 
 der the consequences which may arise from the Union, 
 the confederacy, the organization, and the discontent of 
 seven millions of the inhabitants of this country. — Let 
 Mr. Robinson then beware of referring his countrymen 
 to the example or the principles of Mr. Molyneux, and 
 above all, let not a fellow of Trinity College in pronouncing 
 an encomium upon Molyneux, call him the friend of Locke. 
 On the part of a fellow of Trinity College, I cannot readily 
 conceive a more egregious mistake, than that he should have 
 made the least reference to the'great philosopher whose name 
 he has so incautiously introduced. The University of Ox- 
 ford, the seat of the Protestant religion, on the very day on 
 which the great Lord Russell perished upon the scaffold, 
 issued its celebrated declaration in favour of slavery, and 
 embodied the doctrine of non-resistance with the fundamental 
 
79 
 
 principles of the Reformation. The University of Dublin, 
 at the distance of more than a century, followed this glorious 
 example ; and in order to establish a perfect consistency 
 between the principles of the English and the Irish Church, 
 upon no other ground, than that Locke's Essay upon Go- 
 vernment justified a resistance to tyranny, excluded the work 
 from the College course. And yet Mr. Robinson, with this 
 fact staring him in the face, has the clumsy effrontery, and 
 the aukward impertinence, to inform us, that it is to the 
 University of Dublin, that we ought to look for the assertion 
 and preservation of the true principles of liberty. If Mr. 
 Robinson had merely committed those gross indiscretions, 
 and had only offered an insult to the understanding of the 
 public, he would not be deserving of any very vituperative 
 comment ; but the ferocity of his opinions produces a sort 
 of counterpoise to their absurdity, and he ceases to be ridi- 
 culous only because his sentiments deserve to be abhorred. 
 Laughter subsides in execration, and we cannot utterly 
 despise what we so entirely detest. The sentiments ex- 
 pressed by Mr. Robinson, are the principles of a whole fac- 
 tion. He has had the atrocious frankness to avow, without 
 disguise, what others have only intimated — he has made a 
 public profession of opinions, of which others have only 
 given a sanguinary hint. I will not say, (for it were a vul- 
 gar and inferior phrase,) that he has let the cat out of the 
 the bag, but he has uncaged the passions of his faction, and 
 shewed the tiger crouching for its prey. In the spirit of a 
 ferocious honesty, and with a blood thirsty candour, he has 
 openly acknowledged, that he and his party long for a ge- 
 neral massacre, and aspire at an universal extirpation of the 
 Roman Catholics of Ireland. If what he said was the mere 
 result of a temporary excitement ; if his sentiments were but 
 the steam of drunkenness and the vapour of debauch ; if his 
 foul and nauseous opinions roso out of his mind like the 
 reekings of a drunkard's brow, I should allow them to dis- 
 perse and pass away. They should be permitted to dissipate 
 like the stench of revelry, which, after a night's debauch, 
 it is sufficient to open a window to let out. But the opinions 
 of Mr. Robinson were not the mere evaporations of political 
 intoxication, or the bubbles of a temporary effervesence. 
 They were the black and putrid discharge of a foul and 
 ulcerated heart, ouzing out of a mind which should be re- 
 garded as a mass of rottenness, and which infected the whole 
 moral atmosphere with its rank and abominable exhalations. 
 f Scelus anhelantem.' — The phrase applied by Cicero to the 
 teacher of massacre in his time, becomes his sacerdotal 
 
80 
 
 savageness. Openly and avowedly, without cover, subterfuge, 
 or modification, he proclaims a wish that a civil war may 
 take place, which, he says, may indeed cause a national 
 butchery, but will terminate in the achievement of much 
 substantial Protestant good. Men with grey hairs, women 
 and infants without the power to cry for help, are to be 
 piled up together in one vast heap of carnage, which the 
 genius of Orange Ascendancy is to choose for its throne. 
 He is a chemist, a philosopher, a man who sits tranquilly 
 in his political laboratory, and would make experiments w ith 
 blood. Calmly, nobly, deliberately and savagely, he offers 
 up a wish for the massacre of a whole people, and blends 
 the aspirations of Caligula with the orisons of a christian 
 Priest, For he is a Priest ! He too, talks of his Parochial 
 duties ! Merciful Heaven ! Is this man a teacher of the 
 Gospel, and a Minister of the God of mercy, of charity, 
 and of benevolence ? Is this the man who lifts up his hands 
 from the Altar — who breaks the bread of life, and distri- 
 butes the commemorative cup ? — Is this man a Priest of 
 Christ ? Oh ! no, no — not of Christ ; not of the divine and 
 merciful redeemer of mankind — not of the God whose co- 
 ming was announced amidst the hymns of peace, and whose 
 last words were an adjuration of forgiveness, founded upon 
 the frailty of mankind — not of Christ — but of that sanguinary 
 fiend who was deified in the abominable idolatry of Phoenicia 
 —of Moloch, the demon who was worshipped with human 
 sacrifices, and nourished with Infants' blood, would this 
 sacriligous Priest be the appropriate Minister. But let jus- 
 tice be done, even to him; if guilt can be diminished by its 
 participation, then is he not entirely guilty. He has but 
 given utterance to the detestable wish with which the hearts 
 of Orangemen are pregnant. They pant, they burn, they 
 sigh for another confiscation. They long for a return of the 
 era of triangles, and the epoch of pitch caps. They would 
 invoke the spirit of Fitz Gerald, and conjure the blood 
 boultered spectre of O'Brien from the grave. They recollect, 
 with a moral luxury, the screams of the riding-house — 
 they remember them of the shrieks of Horish, when the 
 torturer stood by, and presided over the feast of agony, in 
 the extacy of his infernal enjoyments— when he gloated on 
 his writhings, and refreshed himself with his groans.— But 
 let them beware. I speak not of the Government, but of 
 the Orangemen of Ireland. If they should undertake to 
 carry their frightful speculations into execution, they may 
 learn by experience that they mistake their strength. We 
 are told by their orators, that without the aid of England 
 
81 
 
 they could put U8 down. Let them take care how they in- 
 dulge in that hazardous experiment. Let them beware of 
 the sound of that trumpet which may summon seven milli- 
 ons to arms. It is not now as it once was. We are no lon- 
 ger divided and distracted as we were wont to be. — We are 
 no longer broken into fragments. We are united, confederat- 
 ed and combined, not by oaths and forms, for they are ille- 
 gal and unnecessary, but by that spirit of moral organiza- 
 tion which results from a sympathy in suffering, and a vast 
 participation in wrong. Let them, then, beware how they 
 proceed to carry their threats into performance, and remem- 
 ber that a whole population, rising simultaneously to pro- 
 tect itself against a national slaughter, will present a fearful 
 obstacle to their projects. We will not, whatever happens, 
 hold out our throats to the Orange Yeomen — we will not 
 stand tamely by when the Ministers of our religion shall be 
 butchered before our eyes ; when the temples of our wor- 
 ship shall be committed to the flames, and when the foot of 
 murder and of rape shall bestride the threshold of our 
 doors ! This is what Mr. Robinson calls a " tropical hur- 
 ricane," to be succeeded by a glorious calm ! It is a hurri- 
 cane of which he may meanly expect to behold the devasta- 
 tions from the steeple of his Church in security. Let him 
 not forget, that in that whirlwind of the passions which he 
 has well described, and for which he offers up his pious 
 aspirations, the Church itself may be shaken to its founda- 
 tions, and they who have called up the hurricane, because 
 they considered themselves in safety from its effects, may be 
 the first to perish under the ruins of those institutions, of 
 which they affect to be the main supporters, but which they 
 are the first to put in peril. Mr. Sheil concluded his speech 
 by declaring, that in speaking of resistance, he referred 
 merely to the Orangemen of Ireland, and not to the Eng- 
 lish Government, by which he was convinced that the atro- 
 cities of the Orange faction would not receive a sanction. 
 
MR. SHEIL'S 
 
 SPEECH AT THE CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION, 
 
 In giving notice of a vote of thanks 
 
 TO THE 
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP 
 
 OF WATERFORD. 
 
 MR. SHEIL said, I give notice that I shall, upon the 
 first opportunity, move, that the thanks of the Association 
 be given to the Right Rev. Dr. Kelly, the Roman Catholic 
 Bishop of Waterford. That Prelate has commenced the 
 Census. He that begins has half achieved. Dr. Kelly has 
 conferred an incalculable obligation upon this country. 
 Under his auspices an accurate Census of the Catholic and 
 Protectant population of his diocess has been made, and the 
 Priests of thirty-two parishes have engaged to make certi- 
 fied returns of the comparative numbers. In a few days an 
 official statement of the Census will be transmitted. In the 
 interval, it may not be inapposite to communicate to you 
 the returns of some of the Parishes, which I have myself 
 obtained from Dr. Kelly. In the Parish of Ardmore, there 
 are 7871 Catholics and 39 Non-Catholics; in the Parish of 
 Susquera, there are 3015 Catholics and 20 Non-Catholics. 
 In the barony of Ballynamant, there is but one Protestant. 
 He had been a Catholic, but being appointed a Collector in 
 the Excise, he was illuminated by a " special grace/' and 
 abandoned the unprofitable errors of the Church of Rome. 
 — In the Parish of Carrickbeg, there are 4853 Catholics 
 and 2 i Non-Catholics. In Abbeyside, 4899 Catholics and 
 33 Non- Catholics. In Killgobbenett, 3079 Catholics, and 
 4 Protestants. In Ring, near Dungarvan, 2464 Catholics 
 and 20 Protestants, and in Durgarven, a commercial and 
 rising town, 6952 Catholics and 168 Non-Catholics. In 
 
83 
 
 Trinity Without, in the City of Water ford, there are 9325 
 Catholics and 396 Non-Catholics, including the boys and 
 girls in Killoteran Charter School. In Killea, 5929 Catho- 
 lics and 376 Non-Catholics. But if any person be surprised 
 at the number of Non-Catholics in this parish, it is right to 
 apprise him that the artificial harbour of Dunmore, which 
 has cost Government an immense sum, and furnishes, of 
 course, a means of jobbing, is situate in this parish, and of 
 necessity, is a focus of Protestantism. The Catholics are, 
 indeed, sent down in the diving-bell, but the Protestants, 
 who work the apparatus, are all above water, The parish 
 of Portlaw is upon Lord Waterford's estates, and his Lord- 
 ship has made great efforts to colonise his property with the 
 professors of the hereditary creed of the House of Beresford, 
 Accordingly he has succeeded in gathering about him 537 
 Protestants. But, notwithstanding all his exertions to eradi- 
 cate Popery, that noxious weed still continues to flourish and 
 spread upon his estate. There are 5567 Papists in the parish 
 of Portlaw. I have, mentioned these returns without 
 selection, and I do believe they afford a very accu- 
 rate view of the comparative population of the whole dio- 
 cese. What I have stated is of great importance,—- 
 But a fact remains to be communicated to you of still greater 
 moment. It has been ascertained, in the taking of the 
 census of Clonmel, that there are three hundred and fifty 
 soldiers stationed in that town, and that three hundred and 
 ten of them are professors of our damnable, idolatrous, 
 unconstitutional, and disloyal religion. This is certified by 
 the Rev. Dr. Flannery. Furthermore, it has been stated to 
 me by the Rev. Mr. Sheehan (than whom there is not a 
 more zealous, ardent, and valuable man in the city of Water- 
 ford, and who has honorably devoted himself to the indepen- 
 dence of the County) that the garrison of Waterford (the 
 29th) consists of five hundred men, and although it is 
 accounted an English regiment, and is commanded by an 
 English Baronent, out of these five hundred men there are 
 only one hundred and seventy-seven who are not Catholics. 
 This fact, which illustrates the condition of the British 
 army — this great and most momentous fact, should be told 
 with a trumpet through every country in the civilized 
 world, and it shall be proclaimed. France and Spain, and 
 Germany and Russia, shall hear of it. The Etoilc shall send 
 it forth, and stamp shame upon the men who, with exaspe- 
 rating exclusions, with vilifying disqualifications, with an- 
 cient wrongs, and with new insults, repay the victories that 
 have been achieved by the feats of Irish valour, and the 
 
84 
 
 waste of Irish blood. Shame upon the abominable system 
 that takes the heart-blood of Ireland and requites it thus! 
 What will a French soldier say ? What will be said by the 
 men who survived the field of Waterloo ? When they shall 
 peruse what I am now speaking to you, (and they will 
 peruse it) and learn that those who put their battalions to 
 flight, and broke the spell of Napoleon's invincibility, are 
 deemed unworthy the rights of citizens ? What will they 
 say when they shall have been told, that the arms which 
 drove the bayonet through their ranks, are laden with heavy 
 shackles, and that while laurels are heaped upon the brows 
 of the Captain of that great host, the soldiers who achieved 
 that unparalleled victory are bound in chains. They will 
 say that it is better to be unfortunate than ungrateful ; and 
 that the field of Waterloo was as disgraceful to England as 
 it was disastrous to France ; and they will say more than 
 this — they will say that it is easier to imagine than it is wise 
 to tell. But let that pass. I return to the census. That 
 measure was proposed by me, and I am proud of it. There 
 were some who doubted its feasibility. Their doubts must 
 now be at an end, (I tell it these sceptics) and we shall hear no 
 more of their misgivings, and their difficulties, and their 
 paltry fears. The thing is not in the future, but in the 
 past. It is not only resolved, but done. What will be the 
 result of a census ? It will not only teach our numbers to 
 the Legislature, but it will instruct ourselves. The clergy 
 who can count the people can do more. They can gather 
 the people and teach them to lift up their voices in one 
 simultaneous call for redress. The meetings in every parish 
 on the same day will be readily effected. Three thousand 
 Petitions will be transmitted to the tables of the Legislature 
 from the altar 3 of God ! But more than this can be accom- 
 plished. They who can count heads can count acres. The 
 extent and value of Church property, thte rate of Cesses, and 
 the amount of Tithes, can also be easily ascertained through 
 the same medium, I trust that Emancipation will render 
 these investigations unnecessary, and that the Ministers will 
 see the wisdom of not arraying the People against the 
 Church. But if the measure be not accomplished in the 
 first Session of the new Parliament, let it be given up, and 
 let the axe be laid to the root. In the interval, it is well 
 that we should know what potent means we possess to obtain 
 justice for Ireland. If any man were to inquire of me the 
 chief grounds upon which I rest my hopes of ultimate 
 success, I should, without hesitation, answer, that my best 
 hopes were grounded upon the lofty patriotism, the devoted 
 
85 
 
 zeal, the ardent love of liberty which characterise that pure, 
 that pious, that enlightened, and, let me add, that powerful 
 and influential body of unbought and unpurchaseable men — 
 the Roman Catholic Priesthood of Ireland. If we but apply, 
 with ordinary sagacity, the great means within our power, 
 all the obstacles in our way must be at last overcome ; and 
 the anathemas of a Prince, the fears of a Chancellor, the 
 protestations of the Premier,and even the late orgies atDerry, 
 will be without avail. In referring to the city of Londonderry 
 I can hardly avoid alluding to a gentleman who recently 
 made a conspicuous figure among its Apprentices, in return 
 for the very delicate and forbearing manner in which, after 
 complaining of the scoffs and ribaldry of which he was the 
 victim, and for which he had no other consolation but his 
 conscience and his place, he did me the honor to introduce 
 my name, I felt it to be a condescension on the part of Mr. 
 Dawson to appropriate so much valuable and elaborate 
 phrase to a person for whom he appears to entertain so much 
 compassion as myself, and I confess that I could not help 
 feeling, on perusing the oration attributed to him, that his 
 pity is akin to hate. Such is the interest which he takes in 
 a person whom he affects to regard as beneath his^ conside- 
 ration, that he has made comments upon physical imperfec- 
 tions, and expatiated upon the inharmonious intonations of 
 my voice. It is not the first time that I am under obliga- 
 tions of this nature, to the family of which Mi\ Dawson is a 
 member, and of whose passions and antipathies he may be 
 regarded as the representative. Mr. Peel, although a Minis- 
 ter of State, thought it not unworthy of him to make allusions 
 from his seat in Parliament to an individual of so little 
 significance as myself. The sarcasms of the Secretary of 
 State for the Home Department, were not, however, wholly 
 unprovoked ; for I had ventured to intimate that his lan- 
 guage was bald, his reasoning disingenuous, his manner 
 pragmatical, affected, and overweening ; and that to his 
 opinions more than to his talents, he was indebted for his 
 elevation. Mr. Peel retorted ; he spoke of fustian, and I 
 talked of calico. He touched on Covent-garden, and I 
 referred to Manchester. He alluded to Evadne, and I 
 glanced at Spinning Jennies. He thus, as Mr. Dawson has 
 expressed it, became my antagonist ; and as if I were more 
 than a matcli for the Minister, he has thrown himself, with 
 a feeling of fraternal sympathy, into the contest. I am 
 inclined to surmise, that Mr. Dawson was induced to take a 
 part in the conflict, by a phrase which has, I fear, given 
 offence in a quarter where certainly none was contemplated^ 
 1 
 
86 
 
 I spoke of the ce plebeian arrogance of Mr. Peel." The 
 shaft appears to have stuck with a deadly tenacity; but, 
 after all, Mr, Dawson should not take this expression in such 
 bad part. It was first snggested to me by an incident in 
 which the public took some interest upon Mr. Dawson's own 
 account. When evidence was given in the House of Com- 
 mons relative to a couple of Ex-officio informations, filed 
 during Mr. Saurin's administration, and suprise was expressed 
 that no intimation had been given of it to Mr. Plunkett, Mr. 
 Peel, with more strenuousness than was called for, protested 
 that he knew nothing whatever of a gentleman who is very 
 nearly allied to Mr. Dawson, and whose name was intro- 
 duced upon the occasion. I must confess that it struck me 
 that this disclaimer of Mr, Dawson had a relish of that 
 fungus kind of pride which marks a man of low origin, who 
 is transferred, not by his own merit, but the accident of 
 fortune, to a higher station ; and I ventured to express that 
 feeling by the phrase which has left more deep and extensive 
 impressions than it warranted behind. By interfering in 
 other people's concerns, and thus voluntarily taking up the 
 cause of Mr. Dawson, I have incurred his displeasure to 
 such a degree, that, not satisfied with assailing the defects 
 of my understanding, he has converted my tones into grave 
 accusation, and brought an impeachment against my voice. 
 I am free to acknowledge, that I cannot retort the charge. 
 Of his voice in public assemblies, I can form no judgment I 
 have, indeed, been occasionally present at his effusions in 
 the House of Commons, but could never hear him. When- 
 ever he spoke, the House was seized with an universal fit of 
 coughing. His eloquence is down to Zero, and is so chilly 
 and frozen, that his auditors immediately catch cold. The 
 House of Commons is a far more disorderly assembly than 
 the convivial convocations of the Apprentices of Derry, and 
 amidst the cries of order from the Speaker, and the inter- 
 mingled sneezing, coughing, scraping, laughing, and 
 expectorating of the House, it was impossible to collect 
 a whole sentence of what he said. The only persons 
 who seemed disposed to listen to him, were Mr. Peel, 
 Sir Thomas Lethbridge, and Mr. Butter worth. When 
 he mentioned the name of Mr. Hamilton Rowan, and 
 introduced the grey-headed father of one of the best officers 
 in the navy into the debate, the face of Mr, Peel divested 
 itself of u the conscious simper and the jealous leer," and with 
 a savage exultation, he called upon the House to hearken to 
 his kinsman's contumelies upon an old and venerable man. 
 When Mr. Dawson ended a sentence with " Church and 
 
87 
 
 State/' Sir Thomas Lethbridge awoke, and stretching his 
 arms, yawned out " Hear/' and I conclude that one of his 
 periods must have terminated with an imprecation against his 
 country and its religion, for Mr. Butter worth lifted up his 
 hands and eyes to Heaven, and ejaculated u Amen." I wish 
 it to be understood that I do not pretend, for the reasons I 
 have suggested, to give any minute description of Mr. 
 Dawson's speeches in Parliament, at the same time I may 
 venture to assert, that he did not in the House of Commons 
 invoke the shades of those who fell at Numantia or London- 
 derry. The mention of Numantia recalls to me another ob- 
 servation of Mr. Dawson. He has sneered at a reference 
 made by me to Livy, and laughed at an alleged deviation 
 on my part from the rules of Prosody. I did not use a 
 single Latin word before the Committee. I did, indeed, 
 refer to a passage in Livy, in answer to a question put to me 
 by Mr. Peel, and in comparing the contests between the 
 Patricians and Plebeians, to the struggles between the 
 Catholics and protestants, I pronounced the word " Plebe- 
 ian," in a way which, I believe, grated upon the ear of Mr. 
 Peel, and which he considered peculiarly discordant. I 
 spoke it with more emphasis than sound discretion. Here- 
 after, however, in using the word, whether in the presence 
 of Mr. Peel, or in reference to that Gentleman, I shall endea- 
 vour to give it utterance with a less jarring intonation. So 
 much for Mr. Dawson's charge with respect to Prosocty. 
 It is not a little ludicrous that the Gentleman who brought 
 this serious accusation againstme, respecting an allusion to an 
 ancient writer, did himself refer to that very writer for a de- 
 scription which is not to be found in his works. The books 
 of Livy, in which the Numantian war is detailed, are lost. 
 The next time Mr. Dawson undertakes to astonish the 
 Apprentices of Derry with his erudition, it will be judicious 
 upon his part to quote from those books only, which have 
 been preserved. Not satisfied with the non-existant autho- 
 rity of Livy, he also appeals to what he calls the " plaintive 
 lay of Horace/' in his (Mr. Dawson's) lamentations upon 
 Numantia. The Morning Chronicle has justly remarked that 
 the name of Numantia occurs in a single line of Horace only, 
 and it is introduced without any mournful sentiment. I 
 believe he is the first person who ever discovered that plain- 
 tiveness was characteristic of Horace. There is, in sooth, 
 much matter of a fantastic nature in Mr. Dawson's oration. 
 He complains of ribaldry, while he " spits himself abroad." 
 He mounts the chair of a professor, w T hile he manifests the 
 most deplorable ignorance, and charges his opponent with a 
 I 2 
 
88 
 
 violation of good taste,, while in his speech, from which 
 Scriblerus might draw new hints for the Art of Sinking, he 
 throws himself from the ruins of Numantia into the filthiest 
 dyke of Londonderry. That a man so low in Parliament 
 should have given such a loose to his oratory, amidst the 
 huzzas of ferocious rabble, excites ridicule and contempt, 
 But there is graver matter of accusation. After having stat- 
 ed to Mr. O'Connell that his evidence had removed many 
 prejudices from his mind, he seeks in that new evidence a 
 ground of hostility to his country ; and he presumes, in the 
 same breath, to fling a miserable sneer at Mr. Brownlow. 
 If he had not the virtue to follow his example, let him, at 
 least, abstain from his vilification. He charges me with a 
 mis-statement of fact. Did he not state that Hamilton 
 Rowan had been attainted of treason ? Was that true ? 
 And what are we to think of him and of Mr. Peel, when 
 they dragged an aged man by the grey hairs into the debate, 
 and in the absence of his gallant son, cast opprobrium upon 
 his father, and struck a brand upon his name ? The con- 
 duct of Mr. Peel and Mr. Dawson excited the disgust of all 
 parties in the House. The good feeling of their own fac- 
 tion got the better of their political animosities, and they 
 could not refrain from applauding Mr. Brougham when he 
 stood forward as the champion of old age, and trampling 
 upon the Minister, made him bite the dust. Mr, Dawson 
 is sufficiently injudicious to refer again to the shipwreck at 
 Tramore, in relation to which Mr. Peel performed so paltry 
 a part. A ship laden with soldiers was upon the rocks—an 
 humble man plunged into the sea, and dragged eleven of 
 his fellow-creatures from the waves. Mr. M'Dougal applied 
 at the Castle for a reward ; and the underling of Mr. Peel 
 asked if he was a Protestant. Mr. Dawson boasts that the 
 question was not asked by Mr. Peel, What matter is it 
 since it was asked by the minion of his anti-chamber, who 
 reflected his mind, and understood his wink ? If the agent 
 put the question without authority, it affords proof that he 
 was an habitual interrogatory in his master's office. Mr. 
 Dawson seems to think that my cross-examination afforded 
 a complete vindication of Mr. Peel. If so, why did Mr. 
 Peel procure himself to be examined touching that very mat- 
 ter, and convert himself from an inquisitor into a witness, 
 in order that he might give evidence on his own behalf. It 
 appears by Mr. Peel's own testimony, that the religion of 
 Kirwan had been made matter of comment by a Quaker, 
 and Mr. Peel has himself established a further and a most 
 important charge against himself^ when he admits thai Kir- 
 
89 
 
 wan received no more than the wretched sum of £30. When 
 I stated in the Committee, that the Government, at the head 
 of which Mr. Peel was placed, had given this despicable 
 remuneration, and that Mr. Peel had full cognizance of the 
 fact, the members were astonished. They could hardly 
 believe, though it is beyond dispute, that Mr. Peel could 
 have appraised heroism at such a price. Let Mr. Peel argue 
 the matter as he will, his web of sophistry will be without 
 avail. He cannot get over the plain and most discreditable 
 fact, that he paid for the lives of eleven soldiers at a less 
 rate than £3 a head. It is idle for him to allege, that a 
 certain quantity of the public money was allocated to the 
 occasion, and that Kirwan got his share. Had he possessed 
 one touch of generous sentiment, he would have thrown 
 open his coffers, and flung a handful of his inglorious gold 
 to the man whose courageous humanity was beyond all 
 praise. Kirwan is to this day unremunerated ; and if I may 
 venture to speak of myself, I may with justice say, that I 
 have done more for him than Mr. Peel. I repeat it, Mr. 
 Peel is not a high-minded, nor is he a fair-minded man. 
 Contrast his former declarations with his present conduct. 
 He stated in the House of Commons, that it was his anxious 
 desire that the Catholic Question should be decided by the 
 unbiased will of the Legislature, and that, so far from endea- 
 vouring to excite, he would do all in his power to subdue 
 the popular passions. How has he fulfilled this undertak- 
 ing ? He dispatches his brother-in-law, his mere utensil, 
 the creature of his smile, his political dependant, to this 
 unfortunate country, in order that he may inflame the fero«* 
 cious passions of an Orange mob. My friend, Mr. Conway, 
 has placed his conduct in so strong a light, that it is enough 
 for me to refer to his admirable observations upon those bar- 
 barous festivities. I scarcely blame Mr. Dawson ; he is but 
 the emissary, the apostle of Mr. Peel, and is dispatched by 
 him for the purpose of exciting discord in the country, at 
 the hazard of producing a re-enactment of those scenes in 
 which the North of Ireland has been drenched with blood. 
 It is thus that His Majesty's injunctions are obeyed by his 
 Ministers, and that the precept of peace, of charity, and of 
 love, is exemplified by Mr. Peel. 
 
 I 3 
 
MR. SHEIL'S 
 
 SPEECH IN MOVING A VOTE OF THANKS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF WATERFORD. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL said — I rise to move a vote of thanks to Dr. 
 Kelly, the Catholic Bishop of Waterford, His praise may 
 be expressed with as much brevity as force ; he has com- 
 menced the census of the Irish people — he has thus held out 
 a noble example of the most useful kind of public virtue — 
 he is an essentially practical man. There is an efficiency 
 and an operativeness in his patriotism, which is peculiarly 
 deserving of panegyric. The learned, pious, and energetic 
 prelate did not allow himself to be swayed by any petty 
 fears, or miserable solicitudes. He did not ask whether the 
 counting of his flock was consistent with the rules of cold 
 prudence and nice calculation. He did not stop to inquire 
 how far the fastidious pleasure of the Government should be 
 consulted upon this momentous measure. He did not hold 
 out a wavering balance and allow a noble opportunity to 
 escape in its adjustment. The only question which Doctor 
 Kelly asked, was put to his ownheart — he simply asked, " Will 
 it serve my country ?" — and you have the answer in the 
 result. But it was to be expected that this great undertak- 
 ing should commence with a Bishop of Waterford • and 
 when we recollect that Hussey and Power were the prede- 
 cessors of the enlightened and intrepid man to whom their 
 crozier has been so appropriately transmitted, it will not be 
 matter of surprise that he has acted a lofty and a patriotic 
 part. They were his models, and he has improved upon 
 them. Dr. Hussey, the first of those remarkable men, was 
 conspicuous at a period when great talents and great deter- 
 mination of character were required. He was the friend of 
 Edmund Burke, who addressed to him one of the most 
 admirable of his letters. The phrenetical fear of Jacobinism, 
 
91 
 
 which amounted to disease, in the mind of Burke, did not 
 extinguish all love of liberty in the heart of that celebrated 
 person ; and, whatever might have been his distaste for the 
 absract rights of man, he looked with horror upon the 
 oppressors of that land, in place of which he had adopted 
 what he calls his better and more comprehensive, but which 
 I verily believe, could not have been his clearer country. It 
 w 7 as on the eve of the troubles of Ireland that he wrote the 
 letter to Doctor Hussey, in which his anxiety for Emanci- 
 pation is so emphatically and so unaffectedly expressed, and 
 it was about the same period that Doctor Hussey addressed 
 his celebrated pastoral admonition to his flock, which con- 
 tains so much wise injunction and so much intrepid truth, 
 Cumberland has given in his memoirs a sketch of the cha- 
 racter of Doctor Hussey, with whom he was well acquainted 
 at the Court of Spain. He represents him as an able 
 but ambitious person. The conduct of Doctor Hussey, 
 when raised to the See of Waterford, justifies the enco- 
 mium upon his talents, while it refutes the satire upon 
 his morals — There was nothing servile, timorous, or com- 
 promising in his demeanour. He stood forward in the worst 
 of times, with a stern and fearless aspect, and although he 
 felt that every head on which the mitre was placed, might 
 be laid down upon the block of martyrdom, bated nothing 
 of the loftiness of piety, and the attitude of courageous 
 magnanimity which became a Christian pontiff. He 
 addressed himself to the Pro-Consul of Ireland, with the 
 boldness of an Apostle, and claimed the franchises of a 
 citizen. He it was who did not fear to proclaim that great 
 truth, which it required more courage than inspiration to 
 announce. He was the first to trace the progress of that 
 mighty spirit, the rapid and headlong course of which he 
 daringly pointed out. Well did he anticipate all the 
 events which followed, and it may be added, that he pro- 
 phesied the scenes which are passing before us, when he 
 exclaimed — 
 
 " The rock is loosened from the mountain's brow." 
 
 Has not the rock been loosened, and is it not from the 
 brow of the mountain ? Have not the people become ac- 
 quainted with their rights ? Have not great passions and 
 great desires been put into motion ? Has not the rock been 
 loosened from the mountain's brow ? and is it not rolling 
 and bounding with accelerated velocity, and sweeping every 
 impediment before it ? Where will it rest in its course, and 
 
92 
 
 in what gulf will it lie at last ? This is an intorragatory to 
 which no man of our time will live perhaps to give a reply. 
 Our children, and the children of our oppressors, will read 
 it in the history of this unfortunate land, and God grant that 
 its pages may not be written in blood. The intrepid Eccle- 
 siastic of whom I have been speaking was succeeded by a 
 man of a gentler mood of mind, but not a less elevated and 
 patriotic spirit. As you enter that magnificent house of 
 worship which the Roman Catholics of Waterford have 
 raised to the honor of God, you behold a plain marble slab, 
 on which a beautiful inscription has been graven — the 
 epitaph is not remarkable for any peculiar felicity of monu- 
 mental expression — it is not conspicuous for any funeral 
 epigram ; but it contains a simple and most eloquent fact to 
 the bare statement of which all its panegyric is confined, 
 for it intimates, that, " the marble was raised to commemorate 
 the Christian virtue of Doctor Power, by the Catholic, the 
 Protestant, and the Presbyterian inhabitants of his Diocess." 
 The day on which the remains of that truly good and bene- 
 volent man were laid in the earth, was a remarkable one — 
 there was not a single Protestant of respectablilty who did 
 not join the procession which followed his relics to the grave. 
 That amiable and excellent person, whose life was an illustra- 
 tion of his precepts, was succeeded by a Gentleman, of 
 whom it is unnecessary to say more, than that he was cha« 
 racterised by a spirit of political complaisance which arose 
 from the imbecility of his intellect, more than from any vices 
 of his heart. Upon his death it was found necessary to fill 
 the See which he had left vacant with a man of a very opposite 
 cast of mind. The Clergy of Waterford looked round for 
 an Ecclesiastic who was fitted to the time. They wanted a 
 man of high talents and acquirements, of a firm, decided, 
 and manly character, with a bold and inflexible spirit and 
 something of a republican simplicity of mind. And where 
 did they seek him ? These lovers of despotism by religion, 
 these necessary slaves, these men who are deemed insensi- 
 ble to the love of liberty, and incapable of its enjoyment, 
 these Popish Priests — looked out into the democracy of 
 America, and selected for their Prelate, a Bishop of the 
 United States. It was among the forests that mark the boun- 
 daries of the United States, it was in the midst of the Savannas 
 —in the midst of poverty, and of privation, and surrounded 
 with every hardship, that Doctor Kelly had evinced the 
 qualifications of a truly Christian Pastor. He had not, when 
 far away from his country, lost his affection for the land that 
 gave him birth, and his anxiety to do that service to Ireland, 
 
93 
 
 which he has proved that it is in the power of every Bishop 
 to confer, induced him to accept the honorable tender 
 which was made to him by the Clergy of his native diocess. 
 He came, and what more need I do than appeal for the 
 results of his coming to the simple fact upon which I rest the 
 Resolution in which the gratitude of the Irish People is ex- 
 pressed ? It did befit a man who lived in a free country, 
 in a land of manly spirits and fearless minds, to put into 
 accomplishment a measure which belongs to the spirit of 
 genuine citizenship, and which enumerates the People for 
 the purpose of giving assertion and extension to their rights. 
 To such a man great praise is due, and, believe me, he will 
 not stop here. He will teach the power and efficiency 
 of a simultaneous but pacific assemblage of seven millions of 
 People, and I may conjecture what he will do, by what he 
 has already achieved ; he will not be slow in adopting that 
 fine suggestion, that the cry for liberty should be mingled 
 with the voice of prayer, and that from the altars of God, an 
 invocation should be offered, to touch our rulers with the 
 spirit of justice, to illuminate their minds, and awaken in 
 them a sense of the perils of the empire. And let it not be 
 said that it is unmeet to do so. If we call for the rain from 
 heaven, or ask for the shining of the sun ; if for grass and 
 corn we are permitted to submit our orisons, who will say 
 that for the great harvest of long and golden prosperity, for 
 the maturing of those events of which the seeds have been 
 already deeply sown — who will say that for these great ob- 
 jects, it is unfit that we should offer up our prayers ? But 
 let me not deviate into matter which affords too wide a field 
 for present expatiation. The office of gratitude is more plea- 
 surable than the indulgence of even the most sanguine 
 expectation of future good ; and I shall therefore conclude 
 by moving the following resolution : — " That the Right 
 Rev. Doctor Kelly, the Catholic Bishop of Waterford, by 
 commencing the Catholic Census in his diocess, has con- 
 ferred a great obligation upon his country, and deserves 
 its thank s." 
 
MR. SHEIL'S 
 
 SPEECH ON MR. O'CONNELL'S MOTION, 
 
 THAT A PRAYER BE OFFERED UP 
 
 IN EVERY ROMAN CATHOLIC CHAPEL 
 
 FOR EMANCIPATON. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL said — I am of opinion that a prayer for 
 liberty should be incorporated with the liturgy of the Catho- 
 lic Church. It is idle to insist that such a measure should 
 originate with the Bishops. I have no doubt that we shall 
 have their individual assent to the proposition, although they 
 may not deem it judicious to recommend it in their corporate 
 capacity. It is enough that they should permit the utterance 
 of the prayer, without enjoining its adoption. The spirit 
 which actuates the great body of the Clergy will induce them 
 to act in conformity with our suggestion ; and there is not 
 a Prelate in the land who would so far deviate from the 
 course which has been hitherto pursued by the head of our 
 Church, as to issue an injunction against the use of so just, 
 so reasonable, and so consistent an orison. Let us not at 
 least anticipate any episcopal veto upon this great expedient. 
 The Roman Catholic Hierarchy are united with us in poli- 
 tical sentiment. There is uot one among them who does 
 not personally applaud our conduct, although they do not 
 deem it accordant with their spiritual character to take a 
 visible and outward participation in our proceedings. The 
 fact, that they have selected the period of our sittings for 
 their own Session, affords proof of their desire that the two 
 great assemblies which represent the wishes of the Irish Peo- 
 ple — should be convened and act together. They are virtually 
 in correspondence with the Association ; and have trans- 
 mitted to us in an almost official shape the Resolutions passed 
 by their Body. I therefore dismiss the argument pressed on 
 the other side, that we are interfering with their legitimate j 
 province. But it is said that political matter should not be ; 
 
95 
 
 blended with religious practices, and that Che call for free- 
 dom is not an object of prayer, I hold the Catholic Litany 
 in my hand. It was given me by a Catholic Priest on en- 
 tering this room — let us examine the contents of the Litany 
 as it stands, and determine how far the addition of the pro- 
 posed prayer is in conformity with the character of the es- 
 tablished supplication. — I find in the first place aprayer for the 
 preservation " of the fruits of the earth." Our physical wants 
 have thus become the objects of our spiritual aspirations. 
 But I may be called on to show, that political matter is 
 already introduced into the Litany. I accept the challenge ; 
 " vouchsafe to give peace and true concord to Christian 
 Kings and Princes/' In other words, " preserve the Holy 
 Alliance." But I should not upon such an occasion indulge 
 in the spirit of sarcastic jest. What follows is much better ; 
 C( vouchsafe to grant peace and unity to all Christian People." 
 This is truly a noble and exalted desire ; and its use amongst 
 us evinces how little we are swayed by views of a narrow 
 and sectarian character. We do not pray for peace and unity 
 among all Catholic People. We do not limit our wishes to 
 the benefit of those who coincide with us in our religious 
 tenets : we implore the Almighty to grant peace and 
 unity, (those paramount and surpassing blessings) to all the 
 nations by whom a belief in the Divine Redeemer of mankind 
 is professed. But, Mr. Chairman, I am arguing this ques- 
 tion with too much minuteness and formality, and treating 
 it as if it really stood in need of an inductive series of rea- 
 soning, when the propriety and the consistency of such a 
 prayer, are matters so obvious, that argument seems to be 
 wasted upon them. I shall take a bolder ground, and one 
 more fitted to the time, and becoming the closing hours of 
 the political existence of this body. I care not whether 
 there be a prayer in the Litany for concord or unity — I care 
 not whether there be in the appendix to the Liturgy, a 
 prayer against earthquakes, tempests, famine and pestilence. 
 But abandoning all reliance upon authority, and putting 
 form and precedent aside, I ask of this great assembly, 
 whether it be an offence against religion to call upon the 
 Almighty to save us or our children from the horrors of a 
 political convulsion, to which the system pursued in its re- 
 gard is precipitating this unfortunate country ? I have spoken 
 boldly and abruptly. It is not matter for hints and inuendos. 
 I speak without fear, because I cannot justly incur re- 
 proach ; and I am myself as much disposed, as any one of 
 those who are inclined to attribute to me motives as pre- 
 posterous as they are wicked, to deprecate the frightful 
 
96 
 
 calamities, which, if a change of policy be not adopted, 
 will fall at last upon this country. Let it be understood. 
 I am not alluding to events that will happen in our 
 time. It is not likely that they who " sow the storm " will 
 <( reap the whirlwind." I, and every man that hears me, 
 and most of the enemies of our political rights, will, 
 probably, be lying in the grave before the arrival of the 
 dreadful results upon which I protest to God that I look 
 with unaffected dismay. The case stands simply thus : — 
 There are seven millions, or at all events, nearly that num- 
 ber of Roman Catholics in Ireland. Their wealth, their 
 intelligence, their public spirit, their union, their commu- 
 nity of purpose, and their unalterable determination to 
 prosecute their political rights are every day on the increase. 
 Acts of Parliament are as bonds of flax. Every effort which 
 has been made to extinguish the desire for freedom with its 
 hope has been utterly without effect. The denunciations of 
 the Heir to the Throne have only tended to add indignation 
 to resolve. The number of public meetings has of late 
 exceeded all prior example of popular assemblies in Ireland 
 — and the rank, the talent, and the energy, and the intrepid 
 spirit manifested in these vast convocations, afford the most 
 convincing indications of the rapid and formidable advance- 
 ment of the national mind. I doubt not that this progression 
 may go on pacifically for ten, fifteen, or, perhaps, for twenty 
 or more years : but is there a man who knows any tiling of 
 human nature, who can, for a moment, indulge in the idle 
 hope, that a crisis will not at last arrive, and that this mon- 
 strous and most anomalous state of things will not generate 
 some frightful results ? Can things stand as they are ? No! 
 It is impossible. It is out of all calculation of contingency. 
 There is hardly a man here that does not remember the 
 horrors of 1798. The scenes of blood which were enacted 
 in that brief period, would, in all likelihood, be greatly 
 exceeded and atrocity in a future and better organized 
 convulsion : but yet they were sufficiently frightful to make 
 any man look forward with horror to their recurrence 
 Is it unmeet that we should implore Providence to enlighten 
 the minds of our rulers, and instruct them in the wisdom of 
 mercy, and the policy of toleration, which will effectually 
 prevent the disasters of which I have drawn this black but 
 rapid sketch ? Is it unmeet to call upon Heaven to disperse 
 the cloud that is gathering in the horizon, though years must 
 past before it bursts upon our heads > Is it unmeet to pray to 
 God with all the ardour of which the heart of man is capa- 
 ble, to prevent a return of the scenes of which we have already 
 
97 
 
 had so bitter an experience ? Is it unmeet for the father to 
 clasp his offspring to his bosom and exclaim, " merciful and 
 Almighty God, save my children from spoliation, massacre, 
 and shame ?" Is it unmeet to implore of Heaven that tor- 
 ture may not be renewed ? That the Riding-house and the 
 Exchange may not echo with shrieks and groans ? That 
 scaffolds may not stand in our streets, and that their chan- 
 nels may not be red with gore ? I will frankly admit, that 
 one among the many reasons by ^which I am swayed, in thus 
 strongly enforcing this measure, is the deep community of 
 sentiment which the utterance of a prayer for the freedom 
 of Ireland will produce among all classes of the people. It 
 will tend to link the clergy with us by a still stronger bond, 
 and impart to the patriotism of the people a more exalted 
 and enthusiastic character. Will it not be a noble spec- 
 ctacle to behold the brave and impetuous peasantry of 
 Ireland kneeling, on every Sabbath, before the altar of 
 Heaven, and lifting up their brawny arms, and their rugged 
 and impassioned faces, in the utterance of a prayer for the 
 liberty of Ireland ? — and if any man should, after the insti- 
 tution of this admirable practice, by w r hich a great political 
 pursuit will be consecrated and made holy, be disposed to 
 tell me that the Irish people are indifferent to their civil 
 rights, I shall say to him — " Go into the humblest edifice 
 dedicated to the w T orship of God, and w T hen you shall have 
 heard the prayer for Emancipation pronounced from the 
 altar, and beheld the passion and enthusiasm with which the 
 humblest tillers of the earth will have joined in that noble 
 supplication — when you shall have witnessed their ardent 
 eyes and beaming countenances, and listened to the fervour 
 of the exclamations with which they will unite their orisons 
 with the minister of their persecuted religion, then you will 
 not presume to tell me that seven millions of people are 
 careless of the attainment of their political rights." 
 
MR. SHEIL'S 
 
 SPEECH AT THE CLOSE OF THE POLL 
 
 AT THE 
 
 LOUTH ELECTION. 
 
 Mr. DAWSON was elected by a majority of three hun- 
 dred over Mr, Leslie Foster, the Anti-Catholic Candidate. 
 Although the latter succeeded, yet the majority was so 
 small, that he set off immediately from Dundalk in a state 
 of dejection, and did not even wait until the Sheriff should 
 have proclaimed the Candidates, which he did about five 
 o'clock 
 
 Mr. DAWSON came forward, and returned thanks in a 
 very short, but emphatic speech. He stated, that he owed his 
 election to the people, whose interests, he trusted in God, 
 lie never should abandon. The spirit by which the great 
 body of the community was actuated, had been powerfully 
 evinced by his success. He had to boast of a vast majority 
 over his rivals, who must have felt that it was vain upon 
 their part to oppose the people and their rights. 
 
 Mr. PENTLAND, the son of the agent of Mr, Foster, 
 returned thanks for Mr. Leslie Foster. That gentleman had 
 instructed him to state how deeply grateful he felt for the 
 honour conferred upon him. A severe attack of illness had 
 obliged him to leave Dundalk, and thus deprived him of 
 the gratification of returning thanks in person. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL rose and said, I am sincerely sorry, Mr, 
 Sheriff, for the cause of Mr, Foster's absence, and for its 
 effect. It is to be lamented that a gentleman so eminently 
 popular as he is, should be only spiritually present — and 
 should be under the necessity of employing a proxy for the 
 expression of his gratitude ! How deeply should we regret 
 that he is not here in his own proper person, instead of 
 appearing by attorney, and that he should not have the 
 opportunity of witnessing the enthusiasm with which his 
 
99 
 
 name was received, and of attesting those demonstrations of 
 public affection with which, no doubt, he must have been 
 hailed. But a truce to irony. I should not have indulged 
 in a sneer at the mortifications which Mr. Foster's politics 
 have entailed upon him, but should rather cherish tbe hope 
 that he will derive a wholesome admonition from the circum- 
 stances of which he has been the witness in that county, in 
 which the power of his family has sustained so fatal a shock. 
 Let no man think that it is for the purpose of givng vent to 
 any feeling of factious exultation, that I have risen to address 
 you. No, Sir — I am not disposed to turn the signal success 
 which the advocates of liberal opinions have attained, into 
 any such miserable account. The result of the momentious 
 contest in which he was engaged, has, indeed, afforded to me, 
 as well as to every other Roman Catholic, a lofty gratifica- 
 tion. Without indulging in the insolence, I cannot but 
 participate in the pride of an honorable and useful triumph. 
 That great cause, which involves the interests, and, as you 
 cannot fail to feel, absorbes the passions of the vast popula- 
 tion of this country — that cause in which the hopes and 
 solicitude» of seven millions of our fellow-countrymen are 
 so profoundly and fervently engaged — that great and glori- 
 ous cause, (so at least I am accustomed to regard it) upon 
 which the honor and dignity of the British character, and 
 perhaps the safety of the British empire so immediately de- 
 pend, has, by the event of this election, been essentially 
 advanced. But the sentiment of elevated joy, which this 
 event so naturally produces, ought to remain unalloyed by 
 any meaner emotion, and it is the part of a wise and gene- 
 rously minded man, instead of exasperating the passions and 
 wounding the feelings of those over whom an advanntage 
 has been obtained, to use every effort which may not be 
 inconsistent with his own dignity and honor, to conciliate 
 those whom adversity ought to have instructed, and to en- 
 deavour, by a calm appeal to the just feelings and to the 
 unbiassed reason of his antagonists, to disabuse them of 
 their impressions ; to open the avenues to concord, to smooth 
 those asperities which prevent the minds of men from cohe- 
 ring together, to unite all partes to an amnesty of mutual 
 injuries, and prepare the way, if it be possible, to a great 
 national pacification — It is, Sir, for the purpose of promoting 
 these objects, as far as it lies in my power, that I have risen 
 in an assembly, composed, to a great extent, of the chief 
 Protestant gentry of this opulent and highly populous coun- 
 try ; and although I am not sufficiently vain to imagine that 
 I shall be able to charm their prejudices away, yet I cannot 
 K2 
 
100 
 
 help thinking that much has recently taken place beneath 
 their own eyes, which affords a salutary admonition, and 
 from which a very useful lesson may be derived. Let us, 
 then, look back for a moment, and consider what has befallen 
 us. A powerful and strongly illustrative incident is prefer- 
 able to many speculations. It is in political as well as in 
 physical science. That philosophy which searches for truth 
 through the medium of undisputed fact, ought to be applied 
 to ethics, as well as to external nature ; and he is far more 
 likely to be right who estimates the dispositions of men by 
 the phenomena in which they are exhibited, than he who 
 deduces his conclusions from theory, and builds the whole 
 system of legislation upon conjecture. The events of which 
 we have had an immediate and personal cognizance, 
 afford data from which the most strenuous opponent of Ca- 
 tholic Emancipation will be much more likely to draw a 
 sound inference, than from any of those hereditary notions 
 which have been imbibed in infancy, and have strengthened 
 with youth and manhood, and to whicb men are so habitu- 
 ally but so erroniously disposed to refer, as the tests of irre- 
 fragible truth. . I would entreat of the most inveterate 
 advocate of Protestant Ascendancy to lay aside, if it be pos- 
 sible, impressions which we are so apt to mistake for argu- 
 ment, and to ask of himself whether what he has himself 
 attested, and of which he has had the recent occular 
 demonstration, should not lead him to enquire whether 
 some change in the condition of this country is not requisite, 
 whether the health of the political frame be so sound as to 
 supersede all necessity of reformation, and whether it be 
 wise and just, and consistent with sound policy, and with 
 the great rules and canons of Government, to exclude from 
 the full enjoyment of the privileges of British Citizenship 
 seven millions of the population of this country ? That 
 question is to be solved by inquiring into the moral state of 
 that population, and by considering how far they are inves- 
 ted with power and influence — how far they are contented 
 with their condition, and by having regard to the likelihood 
 of their submitting to their disqualifications in the spirit of 
 servile and permanent acquiescence. Now, Sir, I will ven- 
 ture boldly to assert, that the manifestation of public feeling 
 which has taken place in this country, and which is only an 
 evidence of the sentiment that pervades the whole body of the 
 people, renders it more expedient, and will even render it 
 wholly impossible, to persevere in that system of degrading and 
 exasperating exclusion by which not only the passions of the 
 people are peovoked, and their indignation is excited, but 
 
101 
 
 by which their energies are aroused into a formidable, 
 a confederated, a daring, a dauntless excitation. I 
 should not set any sort of value upon the result of the 
 contest in this country, unless it were indicative of the 
 general condition of Ireland. As the health of the whole 
 body may be tried by feeling the pulse in a single member, 
 so from its beating in any specific part of the country the 
 general circulation of that sentiment, which constitutes the 
 great principle of political vitality, may be determined. 
 Indeed the events which have taken place in this civilised, 
 opulent and prosperous part of Ireland, furnish a better 
 illustration of its moral condition, than any incidents of an 
 analogous nature which have taken place in other counties. 
 In Water ford, for example, a great proprietor, with a for- 
 tune of nearly twenty thousand pounds a year, the lineal 
 descendant of the great Earl of Desmond, did not place 
 himself at the head of a mere populace, but in the foremost 
 ground of a powerful Catholic aristocracy. For two years 
 the way was prepared for his success. Every stimulant 
 which could be applied to the popular passions, was per- 
 severingly and prodigally employed. All that eloquence, 
 'patriotism and religion could accomplish, was achieved; but 
 in this county, where no contest has taken place for fifty- 
 eight years, the most remote notion of overthrowing the 
 despotism of the Protestant aristocracy did not exist. The 
 most ardent enthusiast did not contemplate the possibility of 
 shaking the long-established and deeply founded dominion 
 of a family, who were accustomed to consider the represen- 
 tation of the count}' as an appurtenance of their estate, and 
 as a kind of heir-loom of their house. It is true that nine 
 years ago Mr. Balfour engaged in an enterprise, which he 
 afterwards relinquished as a rash and idle one. He imma- 
 gined that he would have been able to throw off the Foster 
 yoke, and canvassed the county upon liberal principles. 
 He applied to several Roman Catholics for their support, 
 and obtained their promises. But the more I observe of life, 
 the more I am satisfied of the justice of the Horatian maxim, 
 " nil adinirari," The very man who was the first to lift up 
 the standard of revolt against this hereditary dominion, 
 was the first to throw down the flag which he had unfurled, 
 and take to his heels. I presume, from the energy, the 
 constancy, and moral intrepidity which that gentleman has 
 displayed, that he must be descended from the famous Bal- 
 four of Burley, whose heroic feats are recorded by Sir 
 Walter Scott. I do not presume to pass any censure upon 
 K 3 
 
102 
 
 his conduct, but I must say, that I heard with no little sur- 
 prise, that after having proclaimed himself the champion of 
 independence, he gave his vote for Foster and Fortesue, and 
 opposed the advocate of Catholic emancipation. Alas, for Mr. 
 Balfour ! He is one of those who, instead of seizing fortune 
 by the forelock, wait until she is beyond their reach to make 
 an unavailing grasp at the skirt of her garment. Had he 
 stood for this county, he would, beyond a doubt, have been 
 returned ; but the opportunity has gone by, and will return 
 no more. It was in this state of things, when the only per- 
 son belonging to the aristocracy who had presumed to inti- 
 mate a notion of resistance to Mr, Foster, had relinquished 
 so desperate a purpose, that Mr. Dawson, without wealth 
 or patrician connexions, resting his pretensions upon his 
 principles as a politician, and his worth as a man, offered 
 himself as a candidate, and in an instant the energies of the 
 people were aroused, and started up in an array of confe- 
 derated and appalling power. An eruption of popular feel- 
 ing took place, which indicated that there had been long 
 accumulating a mass of fiery materials, which at last found 
 a vent, and swept away every impediment in their progress. 
 But let me lay aside the language of illustration, and state 
 the plain and simple fact, from which such important con- 
 clusions are to be derived. Two days before the election 
 took place, no idea of a contest was entertained ; and yet, 
 the moment a friend to Catholic emancipation was proposed, 
 the whole tenantry of the county simultaneously revolted 
 against their landlords, and in direct opposition to their 
 wishes, gave their suffrages to the advocate of religious free-* 
 dom. This single fact speaks volumes. When we take into 
 our consideration the very great influence which a landlord 
 must exercise over his tenant, in that state of almost univer- 
 sal pauperism in which the peasantry are placed, it becomes 
 a matter of wonder that the miserable occupiers of the soil, 
 thus dependant and prostrate before their masters, should 
 presume to act in opposition to their desires. There must 
 be some most extraordinary force, to counteract the domi- 
 nion of those, at whose will they may be said to breathe. 
 What, then, is that most powerful and compulsive stimu-, 
 lant ? What is that fierce and irresistable incentive which 
 raises and impels the lower orders into a resistance, so appa- 
 rently unnatural, and which is so utterly at variance with 
 their individual interests ? What is it that induces the pea- 
 sant to rend that bond asunder which it would be but rea- 
 sonable to suppose that it would be impossible to sever, and 
 
103 
 
 makes him confront starvation, and look ruin in the face ? 
 These interrogatories bring back to my mind a scene, of 
 which I was myself the witness, during this election, and 
 by which (and I say it without the least affectation) I ^vas 
 profoundly moved. I saw a man brought up to the hust- 
 ings, of an athletic form, and a countenance, upon whose 
 strong and massive features passion had set a deep stamp. 
 Although a peasant of the humblest class, lie bore the 
 traces of a rude but vigorous sensibility. He at once 
 attracted my attention. 1 felt a curiosity to learn for 
 whom he should vote, for I perceived that there was a strong 
 contest of emotions going on within him. When asked for 
 whom he should give his first vote, he answered Mr. For- 
 tescue ; but when the Deputy enquired for whom his 
 second vote was to be given, I perceived that the question 
 went through his heart. The poor man stood silent, agi- 
 tated, and aghast. A succession of various and contending 
 feelings passed rapidly over his face- He leaned upon the 
 piece of wood which formed the boundary of the hustings 
 for support ; his whole frame was shaken by the violent 
 passions which rushed upon him — his knee became slackened 
 — his chest lost its openness and dilation — and while he 
 grasped his arm with the force of one who endeavours to 
 work himself into determination, I could perceive that 
 quivering of the fingers, which is peculiarly indicative of 
 emotion. The Deputy repeated the question, and still he 
 ga\e no answer; but it was easy to conjecture what was 
 passing in his mind ; it was evident that he was contemplat- 
 ing the consequences of fulfilling what he felt to be his 
 political and religious duty. He was revolving the results 
 of his landlord's indignation. He stood like the martyr 
 who gazes upon, and half shrinks from the rack. " Poor- 
 wretch (I whispered to myself) he is thinking of his family- 
 his cottage and his fields have come into his imagination. — 
 He sees his wife and his children gathered about him — he 
 stands at the door of his wretched habitation, and sees the 
 driver entering his little farm, seizing his unreaped corn, 
 mowing down his meadow, carting his potatoes, and driving 
 his only beast to the pound. This vision of misery has 
 disturbed him. The anticipations of calamity press upon 
 his heart, and assume the aspect of reality in his mind. He 
 beholds himself expelled from the little spot of earth where 
 he was born, and where he hoped to die, turned with his 
 children upon the public road, without roof, or food, or 
 raiment, sent in beggary and nakedness upon the world, 
 with no other hope to cheer him but that of death,, and no 
 
104 
 
 eye to pity him but that of Heaven. The cries of his chil- 
 dren pierce into his nature, and his bosom bursts with that 
 fearful agony that breaks the husband's and the .father's 
 heart." It was thus that I explained to myself the agitation 
 of the wretched man who stood before me, When the Deputy 
 repeated the question for the third time, and asked him 
 again to whom he gave his second vote ? What do 
 you think he did ? With all that dreadful scene in his 
 imagination — with all that spectacle of misery present to his 
 mind — with woe, and want, and sorrow, and utter destitu- 
 tion before him — with nature pleading in his bosom — with 
 the cries of his children in his ears — after an interval of 
 horrible suspense, the miserable man called up all his ener- 
 gies, and with all the valour of despair, answered, " I vote 
 for Dawson !" Landlords that hear me, let me ask of your 
 consciences, what could have wrought this poor peasant into 
 such an exertion of intrepidity as this ? You know that I 
 have, in this individual picture, done no more than paint the 
 feelings by which the whole body of your revolted peasantry 
 are influenced. Again, then, I ask you, what could have 
 produced this dreadful courage, this desperate intrepidity ? 
 Nothing but that principle which is paramount to all others 
 in the bosom of man — which sets all earthly ill at nought, 
 and by which all fear is vanquished — nothing but religion 
 could accomplish this ! And if it has accomplished this — if 
 it has wrought these wonders among the whole Catholic 
 community — if it has generated these marvellous and appal- 
 ling results, you, and those with whom you sympathise, are 
 to blame. Your mad perseverance in the sustainment of the 
 penal code — your deplorable obstinacy in the habits of per- 
 secution — your absurd and fanatical adherence to the system 
 of religious disqualification have produced these results. 
 You have set up the pulpits from which the dogmas of which 
 you complain are inculcated — you have established the code 
 of political casuistry, which justifies this rebellion against 
 your legitimate dominion — you have forced your tenants 
 into resistance, and by its very weight compelled them to 
 throw off the yoke. It is in vain that you talk of distraining. 
 If the peasant sees the warrant of distress upon the one 
 hand, he beholds the Cross upon the other. Martyrs you 
 may make, but slaves you never can. There is another 
 topic which you will forgive me for pressing upon your con- 
 sideration. From what has been done, judge what may be 
 done. If the tenant has resisted his landlord — if he has 
 bidden defiance to the man who has the means of prompt 
 and immediate vengeance, what part would he perform. — 
 
105 
 
 if, under the influence of some disastrous temptation, his 
 passions were to come into collision with his duty, and he 
 were invited by some mad adventurer to engage in a tremen- 
 dous experiment ? Do not disguise it from yourselves. It 
 is a dreadful thing to live in a country surrounded by a fierce 
 and daring population, whose minds would take fire at a 
 single spark, and burst into a simultaneous explosion* If 
 you have any regard for the peace and welfare of your chil- 
 dren, you will take the means of averting events which 
 it requires but little of the spirit of political prophecy to fore- 
 see. But I perceive that I am entering upon subjects on which 
 it is perilous to tread — let me turn into a better path, and with 
 i devout wish, that the possibilities to which I have glanced 
 may never be realised. I trust in God that the progress of 
 iberal opinions will be so rapid, that measures may shortly 
 \ye adopted which will effect a general reconciliation, and 
 mite us all in lasting harmony and sincere and genuine con- 
 cord. I do not even despair of seeing Mr. Leslie Foster 
 limself contributing his abilities to this useful work, and 
 ■epairing the injury he has done to his country, by his zeal 
 n her service. If he has been formidable as an antagonist, 
 le will in the same measure be useful as an advocate. He 
 las a glorious example before him. The name of Brown- 
 ow is consecrated in the affections of his country. Would 
 hat the time may come, when in place of being op- 
 )osed by the popular feeling with all that strenuousness 
 rhich has been displayed against him, he may be carried 
 vith a concurrent acclamatidn into Parliament. With the 
 xpression of this hope, I shall conclude anadress in which 
 feel that 1 have committed some trespass opon your indul- 
 gence, and I retire from amongst you with an earnest prayer, 
 hat in place of witnessing the scenes of contention and of 
 crimony which have accompanied this election, I may, 
 pon my next coming amongst you, see Catholic and Pro- 
 estant combining and co-operating together for the' ad- 
 ancement of morality, the propagation of good principles, 
 he diffusion of comfort, and the extension of education, 
 argetting all their past differences, and looking forward to 
 tie future good of Ireland, with an honourable emulation 
 i its promotion, exemplifying the precepts of true religion 
 a an oblivion of every animosity, and merging all the dis- 
 inctions of sect in the fellowship of a common country* 
 
MR. O'CONNELL'S 
 
 SPEECH ON CHURCH RATES AND PARISH 
 CESS, 
 
 DELIVERED AT 
 
 A CATHOLIC MEETING, 
 
 On the 10th January, 1827. 
 
 THERE is but one real enemy to Ireland, and that is the 
 man who violates the law— one thing can alone injure the 
 cause of civil liberty in Ireland, and that is, any violation 
 of the law. Could I but persuade the Irish people of the 
 great injury which they inflict on themselves, more than on 
 any one else, by a violation of the law. their physical force, 
 which is great and encreasing, would be united with an im- 
 mense moral strength, and such a combination of powers 
 would render it impossible for any species of misgovern- 
 ment to continue in this country. 
 
 Never violate the law ! Such is my text : the comment 
 on it will be this Act of Parliament. The most terrific Act 
 of Parliament to the well-wisher of the peace and happiness 
 of Ireland that passed in my recollection; an act highly 
 likely to exasperate, and in its result, to degrade us still 
 more, unless the people shall have the good sense and pati- 
 ence to refrain from violating the law, as long as it continues 
 to be law, and look for redress in the manner we wish they 
 should, by petition and remonstrance. If the people at- 
 tempt to resist it by force, or to avenge it by outrage, they 
 will make it perpetual. It is indeed, impossible, that so 
 oppressive and extensively mischievous an act, should con- 
 tinue law, unless the attention of the legislature be directed 
 from its injustice, to the crimes of its victims. 
 
 The Act in question is technically called the 7th Geo. 4, 
 c. 72. It is entitled " An Act to consolidate and amend the 
 laws which regulate the levy and application of Church Ratet 
 
107 
 
 and Parish Cesses, and the election of Church-wardens, and 
 the maintenance of Parish Clerks in Ireland,'* To amend. — 
 Take notice that this is an Act to amend the law . Before 
 I sit down you will see w T hat that is, which, by a species of 
 bitter irony, is called an amendment. 
 
 The history of this Act is curious : it is highly illustrative 
 of the manner in which this lovely and wretched land is 
 administered. It is a kind of relief to the soreness of the 
 heart, when a simple statement of facts serves for every 
 purpose of reproach and vituperation. 
 
 For many years past loud and vehement complaints were 
 made of the manner in which Church Rates and Parish 
 Cesses were levied in Ireland. There were always great 
 abuses in the system, and, not unfrequently, individual 
 instances of the grossest oppression were laid before the 
 public. The subject was a common topic of discussion in 
 the Old Association. We boldly assailed this crying and 
 constant grievance, and that was one great reason why the 
 Old Association w^as suppressed. I know it was the chief 
 reason why the Algerine Act was passed. 1 do not now 
 speak on supposition or inferentially. A communication 
 w T as made to me by a distinguished Protestant gentleman^ 
 high in the confidence of Lord Wellesley's Government ; 1 
 was told by him, as I entered the door below stairs, that if 
 the Old Catholic Association would give up the topic of 
 Church Rates, it w T as highly probable that no Bill would be 
 brought in for its suppression, and that I myself w r ould not 
 be prosecuted. Here I am to whom that communication 
 was made ; but if that prosecution threatened my life, in- 
 stead of being, at the utmost, for a misdemeanor, 1 would 
 have given a similar answer to the one I then returned — 
 that I considered the Church Rates one of the most abomi- 
 nable and illegal grievances by which this country was 
 oppressed, and that I would never compromise that feeling. 
 VVe proceeded. The result was, the Old Association was 
 suppressed. I am not now surprised at that suppression, 
 when I see Government had in contemplation this Act of 
 Parliament, which w T as passed last Sessions, under the pre- 
 tence of an amicable amendment. It passed unnoticed and 
 unknown. But if the Old Association had sat at the time 
 this Act was printed, we would have raised such an opposi- 
 tion to it, we would have so exposed its peculating provi- 
 sions, that it would be as impossible for any open enemy to 
 carry it, as for the worse foe — any disguised friend — to 
 support it. 
 
 The law has been for many years different in England 
 
108 
 
 and Ireland. In England no church can be built by order 
 of Vestry. The vestries there have no power to build or to 
 rebuild churches ; they have only the power to repair them. 
 — Thus a leading difference exists between the law on this 
 subject in England and in Ireland. Several Acts of Parlia- 
 ment have given the power to vestries in Ireland to build, 
 rebuild, and repair churches. The common sense of England 
 would not allow the majority of a parish, composed, perhaps, 
 of many interested persons, to bind the property of all to so 
 great an extent as the expence of building a church. In 
 England there is a natural and just sensitiveness as to allow- 
 ing one man to put his hand into another man's pocket and 
 take out his money. 1 hey, therefore, never gave the vestry 
 this power. But matters have been managed quite in another 
 guise with us. Here it has been for near two centuries the 
 ruling principle of state policy to allow every body connected 
 with the Established Church to dip as deeply into the 
 people's pockets as they pleased, and to take out as much as 
 they possibly could. Diis aliter visum. Accordingly there 
 were several Acts of Parliament passed, which allowed the 
 parish vestries in Ireland, often composed exclusively of the 
 Protestants, or at all events, and in the most favourable 
 case, under the entire management of the Protestant inhabi- 
 tants to assess the parish as they pleased. In short, the 
 Catholics were, by management excluded from the ves- 
 tries, although always the most numerous in nine- 
 teen-twentieths of the kingdom. In Ireland the ves- 
 tries could repair or rebuild, or build anew, and on a diffe- 
 rent scite, churches at their discretion or caprice. The cause 
 of the necessity for this power was in itself a source of una- 
 vailing but bitter reflection. 
 
 At the Reformation this land was replenished with 
 Churches, You cannot now stroll for a mile amidst our 
 green and neglected plains, without seeing the ruins of the 
 ancient church of some parish or monastery. At the time 
 the baleful Reformation reached our shores they were all 
 flourishing and full. No tax was levied to build or sustain 
 them. The revenues of the church supplied an ample and 
 ungrudged fund. But the plundering Reformation came. 
 The revenues of the Church passed into other hands — 
 Those who then took to themselves the revenues of the 
 Church, let the Churches go to ruin, and having first 
 allowed the Catholic churches to go to ruin, they then turn 
 round on the Catholics, and by Act of Parliament make us 
 rebuild them. Was ever there in any country under the sun 
 an evil like to this ? Our Catholic ancestors built churches 
 
109 
 
 to serve for them and their posterity, with splendid revenues 
 to sustain them. Then came the Reformation and took 
 away the revenues, turned the Catholics out of their 
 Churches, consumed and still fattens on the Church income, 
 and crowned all by making the Catholics build, repair, and 
 maintain other Churches for these reformers. 
 
 It did not occur thus in Greece. The Greeks were only 
 subject to the Turks, and the Turks, although they took 
 away the ancient Churches from their Greek slaves, had too 
 much humanity to make them build new ones for the Maho- 
 metan worship. In this, as in many other Acts towards this 
 unfortunate country, the English stand unrivalled. They 
 beat the Turks all to nothing, and Ireland stands alone in 
 the sad story of variegated and unremitting oppression. 
 
 The Reformation was, in my humble judgment, one of 
 the most horrible calamities that ever afflicted the human 
 race. I do not allude to the new Articles of Faith, or the 
 fantastic doctrines it might have introduced, I speak of it as 
 a political and moral event. It was a monstrous evil ; for, 
 in the first place, it corrupted to the core public and private 
 morals. The deluge of immorality and vice that followed it, 
 was its immediate and most striking feature — profligacy and 
 perfidy and crime. The disregard of every law of man, and 
 the contempt for every restraint of the law of God, charac- 
 terised its infancy and announced its progress. These are 
 truths to which all the leading and prominent reformers 
 bear the most distinct, though unwilling testimony. Luther 
 and Zuinglius, Melancthon, Beza, and Calvin, differing as 
 they do in every thing else, all agree in this fact. It is true 
 that they lamented and deplored the spread of immorality 
 amongst the followers of the Reformation, and stated, that 
 as men became better in faith they grew worse in works. 
 The Reformation did not stop here — it took away the reve- 
 nues of the Church, and appropriated them to lay hands — it 
 robbed the people of their rights — it robbed the poor of 
 their property — it destroyed the funds to relieve the indi- 
 gent, to solace the sick, to clothe the children of poverty, to 
 sustain the wretched orphan, and to comfort the desolate 
 widow. It applied to the purposes of laymen the property 
 of the Church and of charity. In short, the Reformation 
 gave to a married and heartless clergy, and to a profligate 
 gentry, who controuled that clergy, the inheritance of the 
 Lord and his poor, and entailed new burthens on the peo- 
 ple. For my present purpose, I need only consider its 
 effects as they relate to the building and repairing of 
 Churches. 
 L 
 
110 
 
 I lay it down as a perfectly plain and indisputable position, 
 that in Catholic times the people were not burthened with 
 building or repairing of Churches. In Catholic times the 
 English Barons claimed, as one of their proudest privileges, 
 to build Churches at their own expence. It appears in 
 ancient Statutes, that this was one of the rights of free 
 Englishmen, that each of them, who chose, might build a 
 Church at his own expence. Thus, in Catholic times, the 
 people at large could not be taxed or fleeced to build 
 Churches. Individual piety created those Churches, which 
 Reformation rapacity has strewed in ruin around us. The 
 repairing of the Churches was not left, in Catholic times, to 
 individual benevolence, but the people were protected from 
 any exaction. The fourth part of the tithes was dedicated 
 to the sustentation of the fabric of the Church, and the 
 expence of the Service — to these things for which at present 
 Church Rates are levied. The portion thus set apart was 
 called the quarta pars. It was originally received by the 
 Bishops, and by them applied to the repairs and other 
 expenditure connected with Divine Service. Afterwards 
 the Bishops relinquished this quarta pars to the Parochial 
 Clergy; but in their hands it was equally liable to this 
 expence, and they (the Parochial Clergy) were then bound 
 to repair and defray these charges. 
 
 Such was the system in Catholic times, and but for the 
 Reformation we should not have to pay one shilling of 
 Parish Cess or Church Rates. Whoever now pays Parish 
 Cess or Church Rates, should express his gratitude to the 
 Reformation for imposing that burthen on him. Oh ! 
 blessed Reformation, which generated the grossest immora- 
 lity, spawned one thousand sects, robbed the poor, and 
 fleeced the people. 
 
 In Ireland we have still some curious traces of the exis- 
 tence, down to a late period, of the severance of this fourth 
 part, the quarta pars of Catholic times. In the province of 
 Connaught the Archbishops continued to receive this quarta 
 pars from every parish in the Archdiocese, down to the year 
 1717* To be sure they were not fools enough to lay it out 
 on the Churches — it was little enough for themselves. They 
 had only about ninety thousand arable acres of land — a 
 splendid palace — a peculiar diocese or two— a noble domain: 
 that was all. They, however, kept the quarta pars till 
 1717, when, by a Statute of 4th Geo. I. cap. xiv., it was 
 transferred to the Parochial Clergy. But were these obliged 
 to repair ? No ; the Legislature gave the Protestant Parsons 
 the fund, but, at the same time, they shifted this burthen 
 
Ill 
 
 for ever on the people. The Protestant Parsons gladly took 
 all our tithes to themselves, and, with equal cheerfulness, 
 made the Catholic People build and repair the Protestant 
 Churches. 
 
 This contrast between Catholic lenity and Protestant pres- 
 sure on the people, is not the creation of my fancy. We 
 lawyers love to cite our authorities, and, therefore, beside 
 the statute I have mentioned, I refer any person desirous to 
 authenticate the sources of my information to a book called 
 : Burn's Ecclesiastical Law/ 1st vol. p. 350 ; and to Degge's 
 Parson's Counsellor, chap. 12. The doctrine which I have 
 thus laid down is to be found not only in the books of Ec- 
 clesiastical Law, but is recognised by our common law 
 authorities. In Ball v. Cross, Salk. 164. — Chief Justice 
 Holt lays it down as an incontrovertible proposition that u at 
 common law the parson is bound to repair the church/' He 
 adds, " that it is so still in foreign countries !" that is, in Ca- 
 tholic countries where the burthen is thrown from the people 
 on the clergy. But in Ireland the Reformation has reversed 
 the principle. Though the Parson here possesses only the 
 shadow of spiritual influence, and has no flock to attend to, 
 he enjoys all the substantial Ecclesiastical revenues, and the 
 building of the church is thrown upon thp flock who re- 
 ceive no instruction at his hands, and who derive not the 
 least benefit from his office. This evil is felt in Ireland as a 
 practical one, exceeded by no other. 
 
 It is curious to see the progress of legislative enactments 
 in Ireland to aggravate this evil. The churches had been 
 fallen into decay ; there were in many places no Protestant 
 parishioners, or so few as to render it ridiculous and absurd 
 to build a church for them. But it was desirable to make 
 all the inhabitants contribute to give money to the few Pro- 
 testants wherever they were to be found. The steps by 
 which this universal contribution of the Catholic peasantry 
 to the Protestants of the vestry was accomplished, are wor- 
 thy of notice in the history of religious persecution and do- 
 mestic oppression. They first began by an Act of Parlia- 
 ment, authorising the Lord Lieutenant and Privy Council to 
 unite parishes which had no church and few Protestant pa- 
 rishioners, to any other parish having a church. This was 
 done by the 14th and 15th Char. 2. ch. 10, an Act in force 
 for only 20 years. It was, however, renewed for ten years 
 by another Act, called the 2d Geo. 1, ch. 14, and at length 
 made perpetual by the Act of 13 Geo. 2. chap. 4. This, 
 however, was not sufficient to glut the voracity of vestry 
 assessment. There were individual interests of Protestant 
 L 2 
 
112 
 
 patrons — and also inconveniences with respect to Govern- 
 ment patronage, in such unions, and less cumbrous and more 
 dexterous machinery to bring Catholic parishes within the 
 gripe of vestry assessment was desirable. This was carried 
 one step further, by an Act passed also in the reign of Geo. 
 2. It is technically called the 3d Geo. 2. ch. 11. By this 
 Act, the bishop of each diocese is enabled to make unions 
 for the purposes of contribution — pro hac vice — or for any 
 particular occasion. This Act greatly facilitates a vestry in 
 one part of a county, to assess a parish, perhaps, twenty 
 miles off, for all the parochial salaries and expenditure of 
 the persons connected with such vestries. It is a very sum- 
 mary process by which the poor Catholic peasantry of Cun- 
 nemara, for example, may be obliged to contribute to the 
 expences of a church at Ballinasloe, and for the services 
 performed by a parson, whose person they do not know, 
 and whose name they never hear of, save when read at the 
 foot of a citation from the Ecclesiastical Court, or at the 
 head of a eivil bill process to the Sessions. But even this 
 was not sufficient. There were still some parishes that had 
 a parson without any church whatsoever ; nay, if he had 
 more than one Parish, there was no church in any of them. 
 This was a case in which neither the Lord Lieutenant nor 
 the Privy Council, nor the Bishop could interfere, so as to 
 make such parishes pay church rates. There were, accord- 
 ingly, several parishes in Ireland exempt from church rates. 
 But the wisdom of the Imperial Parliament has even reach- 
 ed this case. In my researches on this subject, I have 
 found, that during the administration of Mr. Plunkett, and 
 Goulburn, and Lord Wellesley — during the reign of his 
 present most Gracious Majesty, that reign from which the 
 Catholics of Ireland had so many reasons to anticipate bene- 
 fits — by the 4th Geo. 4. ch. 86, the simple order of an 
 Archbishop or Bishop is made equivalent to an union of 
 parishes, so as to render any parish not having a church of 
 its own, liable to contribute to the building of the church 
 of any other parish the Bishop may please. Aye, at fifty 
 or sixty miles distant if he pleases. In fact this Act was 
 stolen upon us by the means of that ignorance of what is 
 going on in a foreign Parliament, which that most mischiev- 
 ous measure, the Union, necessarily produced. 
 
 I could not peruse the history of that statute I hold in 
 my hand, without exposing the vile perfection of that sys- 
 tem of legislative enactment, which has brought every pa- 
 rish in Ireland within the ravening grasp of some vestry or 
 other — I may say foreign or domestic. 
 
\ 
 
 113 
 
 I now resume the more immediate story of this Act. — 
 We had, in the Old Association, exclaimed against the sys- 
 tem of organized plunder, carried on in several vestries. — 
 We entered into details — gave dates, and sums, and places. 
 To rational minds we would have afforded conviction. But 
 we were replied to in the usual style. We were called agi- 
 tators, demagogues, and calumniators of the Established 
 Church. This was quite sufficient logic, and Parliament 
 refused to do any thing for us. Sir John Newport, how- 
 ever, was not satisfied. He brought the matter before Par- 
 liament in the shape of a distinct motion. He accused the 
 vestries of gross peculation, and systematic plunder of both 
 Catholics and Protestants. He said, and said properly, that 
 they ought not to be condemned unheard- He concluded 
 by moving for a return of the sums levied by vestries for 
 the last twelve years — declaring that he required only to 
 have these returns produced, and he would prove from them 
 the illegality of the peculation which had taken place. It 
 was impossible to refuse his request. Accordingly an order 
 was made for the vestry assessments for the last twelve 
 years, and by these returns the accounts of assessments were 
 brought to the year 1825. On the 22d of February, in that 
 year, Sir John Newport called the attention of the House 
 to them. He made an admirable speech on that occasion* 
 Many of our delegates who were then in London heard 
 that speech. It was miserably reported, as speeches on the 
 local affairs of Ireland generally are. But even in that mi- 
 serable report there appear some facts to shew what a pow- 
 erful case Sir John Newport made out against the parish 
 vestries in Ireland. His ascusation of their foul delin- 
 quency was so clearly established, that even Goulburn did 
 not venture to defend the vestries. Only conceive how de- 
 cisive a case must have been made out when that unblush- 
 ing assertor, Goulburn, did not hazard the slightest con- 
 tradiction. Sir John Newport prefaced the details of ves- 
 try peculation with some remarks which I have extracted 
 from the report. He said, 
 
 <( It was utterly impossible, indeed, that so corrupt and 
 profligate a system as he was prepared to bring under the 
 notice of the House, could be permitted to continue." 
 
 These are the words. — Mark — Corrupt and profligate are 
 the terms in which he justly characterises the system of 
 parish vestries in Ireland. I am glad that there was no 
 one found in the House so corrupt and profligate as to con- 
 tradict him. But, alas ! how miserably has this anticipa- 
 tion been destroyed. He proceeded. 
 
114 
 
 " .Last year the House had on his (Sir John Newport's) 
 motion, directed returns of parochial rates levied in Ireland 
 for the last twelve years. These returns were exceedingly 
 voluminous, and disclosed a system of abuse and misappli- 
 cation of the money raised by the vestries in Ireland, to 
 which, he believed, there was nothing at all parallel. The 
 parochial vestries in Ireland set the law completely at defi- 
 ance." 
 
 " The Parochial vestries in Ireland set the law completely 
 at defiance!" We have been called agitators when we 
 made such an assertion. Sir John Newport called for the 
 documents and established its truth. To establish that the 
 vestries in Ireland were corrupt and profligate, and set all 
 law at defiance, Sir John referred to several instances of 
 gross and illegal charges made by the vestries. I have se- 
 lected a few of them. I will begin with the county of 
 Louth — once Foster's, now Dawson's county. — I use Sir 
 John's reported words : 
 
 " Ardee. — In the return from the Union of Ardee, there 
 w r as a very extraordinary item. — Two dozen of wine were 
 charged for the Sacrament, at £5 18s, and as the quality 
 of this wine was not thought good enough, there was a 
 charge next year for two dozen, of a better flavour, amount- 
 ing to £7 12s. Every one who was acquainted with the 
 price of wine in Ireland, must see at once the profligacy of 
 this charge." 
 
 Can any serious christian read this profligacy without 
 shuddering at the idea of ludicrous blasphemy which it is 
 calculated to suggest — sacred Heaven, has the turpitude 
 or the tavern mixed with the administration of the Sa- 
 craments? If the base Press of London could cite an 
 instance of this kind against Jesuits or Apostolicals, or 
 any other nick-name in which its rancour loves to in- 
 dulge, ^hen assailing Catholic worship — if the writers of 
 that vile Press could turn to an instance of this kind, 
 confessed and proved as this is — what torrents of vulgar 
 abuse — what flood-gates of calumny would be opened 
 upon us. I merely cite it to shew what " e the law Church 
 in Ireland can do in the way of meanness and sacrilege," I 
 will now relieve you by a charge of a lighter nature — 
 but equally illegal. I go to Tipperary, and still quote Sir 
 John. 
 
 "Thurles, Co. Tipperary. — In the Parish of Thurles, 
 County Tipperary, it appeared that a sum of £$7 10s. was 
 charged for ornaments, hangings, and crimson fringe, where 
 nineteen twentieths of the rates were paid by the Catholic 
 
115 
 
 occupying tenants, who derived no possible advantage real 
 or imaginary, from the ornaments employed in the service 
 of a different religion/' 
 
 A robbery of the Tipperary Papists, of the sum of 
 £37 10s , for it was a robbery, was hardly worth while 
 talking of. — We will pass it over, and go to Wexford. I 
 must here trouble you with a much longer extract. 
 
 u Wexford. — In the town of Wexford, it appeared that 
 a parish clerk's salary was charged £20 : this was followed 
 by a curious item: ditto, for early services, £10, sexton 
 and beadle, £10, which was raised, in 1814, to £20, in 
 consequence of the practice of ringing a bell being discon- 
 tinued for want of a bell. The sexton and beadle left off 
 ringing the bell, for the best of reasons to wit — that there 
 was no bell to ring, and this, forsooth, was the reason for 
 raising his salary from ten pounds to twenty pounds, — This 
 was by no means a solitary, it was not even a strong case, 
 compared with many which he should have to state to the 
 House." 
 
 " In another case, an en creased salary was given to a 
 parish clerk, and a compensation given to another clerk for 
 having been removed. There was an item given of 20 gui- 
 neas for an organ.. Now he (Sir John Newport) did not 
 know what right or authority any of these vestries had to 
 tax the parishioners for an organ ; at all events, common 
 decency demanded that the Roman Catholic laity, who 
 were excluded from the vestries, ought not to be called upon 
 to defray the expences of an organ used in a Protestant 
 Church. This expence for an organ was raised, in the year 
 1815, to fifty pounds, the corporation having withdrawn its 
 contribution for want of funds. In consequence, therefore, 
 of the corporation having discontinued to pay their share of 
 the expence, the parish was taxed to the further amount of 
 £30. In the following year the corporation declined paying 
 the expence of repairing and mending the clock, and this 
 expence was also charged upon the parish." 
 
 We next hear of Castlecomer. This is the residence of 
 our hopeful friend — because we crnnot help it — Butler 
 Clarke. His aged mother is surrounded with a bevy of she 
 saints, and he saints, who hate popery as the devil is said to 
 hate holy water, Let us see whether there be any saintly 
 peculation of popish money amongst them — they are liberal 
 enough at any rate not to hate popish money. Kere is what 
 Sir John says of them — 
 
 Castlecomer, County Kilkenny. — In the return from 
 the parish of Castlecomer, in the County Kilkenny, there 
 
116 
 
 were some singular items — one Mr. William Taylor's bill was 
 charged £22 : 7*. there came an item interest on ditto, two 
 guineas. This was a Carpenter's bill for repairing his own 
 house. But who did the House conceive this Wm. Taylor 
 was ? Let them not imagine that he figured only in the 
 capacity of a carpenter. He was, moreover, the parish 
 clerk and schoolmaster — and the account of this ingenious 
 pluralist stood thus — 
 
 For repairing his own house 
 Interest on ditto 
 Salary as clerk 
 Do. as schoolmaster 
 Annual gratuity 
 
 Total 
 
 £22 7 
 
 2 
 
 20 
 
 20 3 
 
 6 2 6 
 
 £70 l| 6 
 
 We next come to Drogheda. The holy zeal for peculation 
 shines here with peculiar lustre. 
 
 " Drogheda. — One more rate as to another parish, into 
 which, by itself alone, all possible sins and violations of law 
 seemed to be collected. Against the parish of Saint Peter, 
 Drogheda, there was charged — an organist, £50 a year ; a 
 boy to assist the organist, £5 a year ; to the tuner of the 
 organ, £l0 — the parish clerk was paid £80 — ten pounds 
 more than was allowed by the statute ; the sexton had £24 
 — raised in 1818 to £31, Then for rebuilding the house of 
 the parish clerk — this was in the year 1815, £429 19^> 
 Had any body ever heard before of a parish building houses 
 for a clerk and sexton ; and at such a cost as £42y ? And 
 this was not all — for actually, in the year 1823, there was 
 4 for improving the clerk's house/ a charge of £33. A fur- 
 ther item of £6 : 11.?. appeared for wax candles. And for 
 wine for the sacrament, from the year 1812, to the present 
 time, from £21 to £36 annually." 
 
 This extortion seems to have been considered by the house 
 as matter of exquisite jest and high humour. — They laughed 
 heartily, it seems, at the plunder of Irish Papists. If they 
 had themselves been robbed, they would think it a scurvy 
 joke enough. There is one observation on this Drogheda 
 extortion which I cannot omit, By calculating the money 
 levied for sacramental service, it appears that the communi- 
 cants must have consumed, in the twelve years which the 
 return embraces, no less than four pipes of port wine, and 
 indeed more. Four pipes of wine consumed in communion 
 service. I check every propensity to jest, and leave the 
 
117 
 
 fact to sink deep on the minds of the reflecting persons who 
 are ignorant of the nature of the foul faction by which the 
 Catholics in Ireland are oppressed, and for whom they are 
 sacrificed, and who require four pipes of wine for commu- 
 nion service ! ! ! 
 
 The next shall be Tuam. Tuam is long renowned in 
 the annals of intolerance. Indeed it is classic ground in 
 the sad story of money-loving bigotry. Mark some of 
 the evils of the bad days commemorated by Sir John. — 
 
 €€ Tuam. — The next document he should notice was a re- 
 turn from Tuam, in which city there was a Cathedral as well 
 as a Parochial Church. He begged to call the attention of 
 the House to the statute by which Parochial Churches were 
 united with Cathedrals ; because the powers given by this 
 statute has been very grossly abused. The provisions of that 
 statute applied to Cathedral Churches, which were so in- 
 commodiously situated that they could not be conveniently 
 resorted to for divine service. This could not apply to the 
 Cathedral of Tuam, because it was situated in die Town. 
 The statute went on to state, that, M whereas many Cathe- 
 dral Churches had been suffered to go to ruin and decay, 
 &c." Now he (Sir John Newport) thought the dignitaries 
 ought to be compelled to repair the Cathedrals out of the 
 benefices, instead of throwing the burthen upon the parish. 
 The statute, which manifestly did not apply to a Cathedral 
 situated in a town, had been alledged as the ground for 
 uniting the Cathedral with the parish church, and throwing 
 the expence of repairing it upon the parish. By the provi- 
 sions of the statute, a moiety of the expense was to come out 
 of the economical fund of the Cathedral, and the other moiety 
 was to be paid by the parish. — In defiance of these provisi- 
 ons, however, the parish has been charged with the whole 
 expense. The first item in the return from Tuam was di- 
 rectly in defiance of the Act. It gave to the clerk, 20 
 guineas, when the statute gave no more than £20. There 
 were other items— for the parish register, 5 guineas ; for 
 the vestry clerk, 10 guineas; and for the sexton, 10 gui- 
 neas. But the most curious charge was the next : — for 
 12 quarto prayer-books for the church, 12 guineas — for 
 two bound in morocco for the communion, so much — for 
 eight smaller ones, so much mose. There was scarcely a 
 Protestant went into the church but had a prayer-book at 
 the cost of the parish ! With respect to the collection of 
 the assessment, a Roman Catholic gentleman had offered to 
 collect it for £20. This proposal had been rejected, and 
 it had been given to some one else at £30. The effect of 
 
118 
 
 all this was, that the parish rate which had in the year 1812 
 been 2 Id. in the in the pound, was now increased three 
 times over — it was 7d. Then, could any man doubt that 
 there was a necessity for controul over proceedings like these 
 when four or five Protestants, the only people of that class 
 in a parish, were taxing the whole parish in any way they 
 pleased ? 
 
 I shall trespass on the meeting with only one extract more ; 
 but it is one of no insignificant magnitute : — 
 
 " Parish of St. George, Dublin. — The original esti- 
 mate for building the Church of St. George, Dublin, 
 amounted to £ 16,000, This had been swelled to the enor- 
 mous amount of £57,000. And as a great deal of this 
 money had been borrowed, the payment of the interest still 
 continued a burthen on the parish." 
 
 This last is a pretty specimen of the devastation of pro- 
 perty which the vestry system in Ireland could accomplish. 
 With a debt of £50,000 bearing interest, placed as a first 
 charge upon all the houses and lands of a parish — -what was 
 the value to the proprietors of their estates ? It was, to be 
 sure, a parish in an opulent city—but what of that. It was 
 felt, and felt to this hour ; and families, who ought to be in 
 opulence, are struggling, or perhaps starving, because the 
 vestry has engrossed their property, or diminished its sale- 
 able value one-half, or at least one-third. 
 
 You perceive that Sir John Newport accused the Irish 
 vestries of corruption, of profligate extortion, and of a daring 
 violation of every law. He established these charges to the 
 entire conviction of the House of Commons. He reduced 
 the supporters of that system to total silence, and the ves- 
 tries could not find a single advocate. Here they are pecu- 
 lating, and plundering, and robbing. Yes, it was robbery I 
 The poor were robbed to feed the sexton and fatten the 
 organist — to replenish the cellar of the powerful vestry-man 
 — and adorn the pew of the wealthy parish lordling. Yes, 
 these men, who thus extorted, were the guardians of the 
 land. I think I see them in holy horror punishing the vices 
 of the lowly and the humble — transporting the pick-pocket 
 — hanging the sheep-stealer — and then returning to their 
 vestry — and there turning the chalice of their sacrament into 
 a receptacle for pilfered property, and an instrument to 
 extort the money of their poor Catholic neighbours. There 
 is no Act of Parliament to make their crime felony ; but is 
 it more or less culpable — is it less robbery in the eyes of 
 morality and religion ? 
 
 This was a frightful picture of the vestries of the Estab- 
 
119 
 
 lished Church in Ireland — traced with her own hand — 
 exhibited by her own returns. I again repeat it — if the 
 base press of London — if the vile parasites who write for the 
 Courier had such a topic as this to urge against the Catholic 
 Clergy of France, what a yell of exultation and reproach 
 would burst forth. What ! the most awful ceremonies and 
 rites of religion made subservient to corrupt and profligate 
 tortion ! ! ! But let it pass. It is a fact of a family ; and 
 the sad story of Ireland's woes is full of many and many an 
 illustration of the effects of that system which makes a po- 
 litical religion the chief instrument for which and by which 
 the State is ruled. Let me not be misunderstood — or rather 
 let me not be misrepresented. My heart tells me, that 
 I mean no disrespect to my Protestant countrymen. Some 
 of my near relations — many of my most loved and va- 
 lued friends are Protestants. I therefore cannot intend 
 to insult Protestantism, when I refer to those facts ; 
 but I call on every honest Protestant in the land to blush 
 at this profanation of sacred things, by employing them 
 us the tools of extortion— this converting of the house, 
 which once was dedicated to God, into a den of rapacious 
 thieves. 
 
 The case being completely made out by Sir John New- 
 port, it remained to apply the remedy. Leave was there- 
 fore given by the unanimous vote of the House of Com- 
 mons, to bring in a bill to abolish the abuses that had been 
 exposed, and to guard the Catholics in future from a repe- 
 tition of such exactions. Let it be borne in mind constant- 
 ly, that the case was made out completely against the Irish 
 vestries. No person even affected to doubt that they were, 
 as Sir John Newport asserted, guilty of corrupt and profli- 
 gate extortion, and of open and daring violation of all law. 
 Of course each particular vestry was not guilty of these 
 crimes — nor were all equally guilty. But this characteris- 
 tic guilt was fixed on the vestry system in Ireland — cor- 
 ruption, profligacy, extortion, and a daring violation of all 
 law. The result of Sir John Newport's motion was, that 
 he was allowed to bring in a bill. I happened to be in Lon- 
 don at the time, and he honoured me by sending for roe to 
 consult on the technical details which must be necessary to 
 make an Act of Parliament effectual. He shewed me an 
 English Act, respecting the vestry accounts, and asked me 
 to convert the machinery of it, so as to suit it to the prac- 
 tice of our Quarter Sessions. I took the Act, telling Sir 
 John that I would go to my lodgings, and arrange two or 
 three sections of an Act to suit his purpose. He, however, 
 
120 
 
 good humouredly told me that I must draw them then, or 
 not at all : because it should not be known that 1 had 
 contributed to draw the Act while it was in progress, 
 otherwise it might meet personal hostility. I recollected at 
 once what Sir John alluded to — the puerile and ridiculous 
 objections of Peel, to my drawing the draft of an emanci- 
 pation bill. How a creature who could make such a 
 childish point could be one of the statesmen of a nation, may 
 be accounted for if that nation be in its dotage. No mat- 
 ter. I yielded to the hint, and I remained in Sir John's 
 rooms, until I drew the regular enactments to attain two 
 objects — first, a power to restrain the amount of each paro- 
 chial levy — secondly, a vigilant and rigid controul over its 
 expenditure. I added to these a section to prevent Catholics 
 from being forced to fill the office of Churchwarden. The 
 rest of the bill was framed I cannot tell how, but it passed 
 the House of Commons without opposition, and reached 
 the Lords in a shape which, as far as I have learned, would 
 have afforded at least a considerable alleviation of the grie- 
 vances complained of and admitted to exist. 
 
 To get rid of the liability to be churchwarden was in 
 itself a great boon. The Catholics were placed by the law 
 in a situation of great peril — not allowed in practice, if not 
 prohibited by law, to vote in the choice of a churchwarden ; 
 they were compelled to fill that office because it was then an 
 office of great risk and responsibility. Whilst Catholics were 
 compelled to be Churchwardens, they, (the Churchwardens) 
 were made personally, and out of their own pockets, respon- 
 sible for the non-collection of the Parish Rates, to the full 
 amount of the parochial assessment. This measure of ini- 
 quity was of course sanctioned, and indeed created by an 
 Act of Parliament. The Act was the 3d George the Se- 
 cond, cap. 18. — It enabled the successors of any Church- 
 wardens to sue their predecessors for the full amount of the 
 assessment of the foregoing year, unless collected. This at 
 once suggested a species of parochial tyranny, unequalled in 
 the annals of any other, save Irish bigotted tyranny. When- 
 ever the vestry had occasion, or thought fit to make a large 
 or heavy assessment, they uniformly selected two of the 
 wealthiest Catholic farmers or gentlemen as Churchwardens. 
 These persons were placed in this disagreeable predicament 
 — if they did not collect the Cess they must pay out of their 
 own pockets the full amount. If they did not collect it, 
 all the odium of levying a burthensome, a hateful, an unne- 
 cessary, and an oppressive rate from wretched Catholics, 
 fell in the first instance on Catholics themselves. Oh ! ca- 
 
121 
 
 lumniated Algerines ! Oh! slandered Moslems! You 
 never invented so ingenious, so emaciating a system of do- 
 mestic, village, and parish tyranny as the vile Orange 
 faction, to whom England has so long flung this ill-fated 
 country as a spoil, and for devastation. 
 
 There appeared one glimpse of safety — one chance of 
 escape. No man is, in point of Law, a Churchwarden, 
 unless he takes the oath of office. That of course was an 
 oath which no Catholic would take, and which no Court of 
 Justice could possibly compel a Catholic to take. The 
 Legislature felt the difficulty, and with a vicious ingenuity 
 obviated it — for by the statute 24th Geo. 3, c, 49, the record 
 of the election in the vestry book was made, after six weeks, 
 conclusive evidence of the being Churchwarden, although 
 the oath of office was never taken. But note and digest 
 this distinction. The entry was evidence in all suits against 
 the Churchwarden ; so much was certain. But it appears 
 that he was left at common law in all suits brought by him 
 as plaintiff ; that is, he shall prove his full qualifications, 
 swearing and all, to sustain the character of plaintiff. Thus 
 the Catholics were made responsible as Churchwardens, to 
 all actions, and for all Church Rates, whilst they were left 
 totally unprotected, because they could not qualify as 
 Churchwardens to sue, though they could at once be sued. 
 Did the Pagan Emperors of Rome — did the ferocious fol- 
 lowers of Mahomet ever devise any scheme so cruelly, con- 
 stantly, vexatiously, oppressive. 
 
 There remained, however, one mitigation. Individual 
 Protestants, nay, many, very many Protestants, were 
 better than the laws. There were abundant and more cheer- 
 ing instances of the Protestant successors in the office of 
 Churchwarden refusing to prosecute their Catholic prede- 
 cessors for the amount of Parish Rates, too oppressive or 
 too unjust to be collected. Yes, in despite of clerical rapa- 
 city, many, very many, Irish Protestants were found, who 
 generously and nobly refused to be the oppressors of their 
 Catholic neighbours, or to lend their names to suits against 
 them, for not collecting the parish cess when it was too 
 oppressive and odious. But the faction — Parliament again 
 interfered. They suppressed, or rendered ineffectual, Pro- 
 testant generosity and kindliness ; and they closed the door 
 upon the Catholic Churchwarden against any possibility of 
 escape. They passed the statute 21st and 22nd George III. 
 cap. 52. By that Act, if Churchwardens neglected to col- 
 lect the Parish Rates and that their successors neglected for 
 six months to sue them, in that case the Bishop was empow- 
 M 
 
122 
 
 ered to sue the successors, and to compel them to pay 
 the Church Rates of the former year out of their own pro- 
 perty. 
 
 My indignation boils too strongly at this perfection of le- 
 galized tyranny — I cannot proceed. This capped the cli- 
 max of iniquity. But I turn from it. After six months — 
 oh, aye— the Bishop, good man, had full time to coax and 
 threaten before he shewed himself in the broad day. Well, 
 well, I hope aud trust, and belive, that in no other coun- 
 try was man ever so treated as in Ireland, as in wretched 
 Ireland. 
 
 To return to Sir John Newport's Act — It passed the 
 House of Commons without opposition, and the House of 
 Lords without public notice. Every one supposed that 
 some palliation at least, would be afforded. But the Act 
 did not escape the lynx eye of the Chancellor. This man 
 hates the unfortunate Irish too much to consent to any thing 
 to their advantage. " A bloody spouse thou art to me/' said 
 Sephora, in the holy word. I know not how, but the 
 scripture phrase strikes to my mind whenever I see or think 
 of Lord Eldon. — He is the great, the permanent foe of our 
 name and nation. It is a source of pleasure or of sorrow 
 that he exhibits a visage such as never before disfigured a 
 creature having an immortal soul. His hate to us appears to 
 be, and it need not be greater, in the inverse ratio of his 
 love of power and of money. He accordingly quietly struck 
 out nine-tenths of Sir John Newport's bill. That is, he 
 struck out all the valuable and efficient clauses, and left in 
 nothing but what turned the statute into ludicrous skeleton 
 — the very absurdity of legislation. This paltry trick natu- 
 rally irritated Sir John. I may, by way of parenthesis, say, 
 that all my clauses were struck, save that which exempted 
 Catholics from being Churchwardens. The subject could 
 not remain in that state. The honest and venerable Newport 
 has lost the fire of youth, but in his age he retains the stea- 
 dy glow of continued patriotism. He brought the matter 
 again before the House of Commons. It was on the 16th 
 of February last, that he again appealed to the House of 
 Commons on the subject. He spoke with some asperity of 
 the paltry dexterity with which a measure that could not 
 with decency be publicly opposed, was got rid of. He 
 reminded the House of the mass of evidence which con- 
 victed the Irish vestries of every species of corruption and 
 profligacy ; and he added a few new instances of the total 
 disregard to justice, or even decency, which the vestry re- 
 turns before the House is presented. It is my object to de- 
 
123 
 
 monstrate the total unfitness of the vestries for the guardian- 
 ship of our properties, and therefore, at the risk of being 
 exceedingly tedious, I will mention some of the fresh 
 instances of abuse with which the vestry assessments teemed. 
 He began with that multitudinous job of jobs— the Bible 
 Society. Take this small specimen : — 
 
 f * Raphoe. — There were people anxious to promote the 
 Hibernian Bible Society; and in Raphoe they voted £\0 
 for this purpose. And this, be it remembered, was to come 
 out of the pockets of the Catholic peasantry, for the 
 use of a Society avowedly established to make proselytes to 
 the Protestant faith. 
 
 The next is a bird of another colour. It shews that 
 nothing could escape the minute as well as the majestic 
 spirit of vestry speculation. They were too great saints to 
 strain at the gnat although they swallowed the camel. 
 
 "Bishop. — In one place, and he regretted the circum- 
 stance, because it reflected on high dignitaries of the Church, 
 a tax was made to repair the Bishop's throne, to provide a 
 clothes-horse for his closet, and brushes, ewers, basins, &c, 
 and, indeed, every species of article for the toilette of a 
 finished gentleman." (A laugh.) 
 
 A finished gentleman ! Aye, a finished gentleman, in 
 good truth. I wish I had seen him on a visit to the female 
 saints of his diocese. His white teeth shining with parish 
 tooth-powder. His cambric handkerchief scented with 
 parish perfume. His polished half military boots glistening 
 with the best Day and Martin's blacking, bought at the 
 parish expence. His black coat glittering from the parish 
 brush, and his ambrosial wig redolent of parish pomatum — 
 looking as much like a coxcomb, and as little like a successor 
 to St. Paul, as imagination can conceive. Oh, blessed Refor- 
 matiou, these are of thy creation ! Let him, however, pass; 
 he, probably, is one of the poorer class of Irish Bishops, not 
 having above eight or ten thousand a year; poor man — 
 really the parish could not sacrifice enough to him. From 
 the lordly and proud Bishop, let us, with Sir John, descend 
 to the humble and acrimonious Curate. The vestry could 
 not overlook him. 
 
 " Curate — In another parish in Dublin, a sum of one 
 hundred guineas was voted out of the rates, to purchase a 
 piece of plate for the Curate." 
 
 From the Curate, Sir John goes lower still, but the same 
 unremitting extortion attends him as he goes. I am, how- 
 ever, sorry he does not tell us to what parish the silvered 
 Curate belonged. 
 M 2 
 
1U 
 
 "Clerk — Fifty pounds were also voted to the parish 
 Clerk, and the same to the vestry Clerk, which was more 
 than double the amount authorised by law." 
 
 Double the amount allowed by law — to be sure it w 7 as. 
 What did they care for law ; and yet was it not plain, 
 undisguised, unsophisticated robbery ? What is the diffe- 
 rence between stealing the plate out of your pantry, or the 
 books out of my library, and stealing my money, in the 
 shape of a Parish Cess ? But if I do not restrain my indig- 
 nation, I never can have done. The next instance mentioned 
 by Sir John Newport, in his speech in February last, I 
 mean in the year 1826, was that of the Organist. 
 
 " Organist — In one parish, in the course of ten years, 
 the Organist received more than £850, and the Bellows- 
 blower was also a pensioner ; he had £15 a year ; and there 
 was a Vestry-maid at £20, besides three Servants to attend 
 the Church." 
 
 One note upon the organist ; his salary was illegal, the 
 Bellows-blower's pension was illegal, the fair Vestry-maid 
 had an illegal stipend, and the three Church Servants were 
 all violations of the law. Let them console themselves. I 
 will presently shew that these salaries will in future be 
 perfectly legal. The Act of last Sessions has cured all 
 defects. Let me, however, not anticipate. I will read but 
 two extracts more from Sir John's second speech. I select 
 the following passage, as being very characteristic :— 
 
 "Church — In one of the returns there was a remarkable 
 nola bene, which he would read to the House. It was this— 
 Nota bene. No access to the church or church-yard, for man 
 or horse, but by climbing over two or three walls. From 
 this it appeared that access to the church was not considered 
 at all material ; so the money was levied, the only object in 
 view was attained." 
 
 The levying of the money certainly was the great object. 
 I conclude with the following item : 
 
 te Singing — In many instances palpaple modes were taken 
 to evade the law which limited the amount of salary to the 
 clerk. He was first paid for his clerkship £20, then they 
 gave him 20 guineas for singing, 30 guineas for instructing 
 the boys, 20 guineas more for teaching the girls, and 20 
 guineas more for extra services (a laugh) ; so that the salary 
 was raised to £ 120 and £140 a year." 
 
 Sir John Newport arraigned all these charges as being 
 grossly illegal. They clearly were so. He accused the 
 vestries of the profligate robbery of the people. It was not 
 denied ; and he concluded his speech on the l6th of Febru- 
 
125 
 
 ary, 18^6, by the following motion, which was seconded by 
 Lord Althorpe. It is important to bear in mind every word 
 of it, as it appears on the Journals of the House of Com- 
 mons : 
 
 " That from the detailed return of parochial assessments 
 imposed during ten years past in Ireland, as laid before the 
 House, it appears that large sums of money are annually 
 levied for the purposes, in many instances, not warranted by 
 law, and for paying salaries to officers at rates exceeding the 
 limits prescribed by statuary regulation. That these and 
 other considerable abuses appear to prevail in the imposition 
 and application of such parochial assessments, in conse- 
 quence of the absolute want of adequate controul to secure 
 their limitation within proper bounds, and their appropri- 
 ation to definite and legitimate objects. That it becomes 
 the duty of the Legislature to make efficacious provision for 
 the easy attainment of such controul, and against the recur- 
 rence of such abuses, particularly as a large proportion of 
 the persons who are subjected to payment of these parochial 
 levies, are at present by law excluded from voting in ves- 
 tries held for the imposition of many of these assessments.' , 
 
 The great value of this proposed resolution, is, that not 
 one word of it was denied. Mr. Goulburn made a speech in 
 reply. Mr. Plunkett spoke in reply. Did Goulburn deny 
 its assertions ? Not one syllable of them. Did Mr. Plun- 
 kett contradict the statements? Not one word of them. 
 Let it now, once for all, be recollected, that thus twice, in 
 the face of the House of Commons — thus twice in the pre- 
 sence of the British empire, there was recorded the convic- 
 tion of Irish vestries, of the complicated guilt of corruption, 
 profligacy, extortion, and the setting all law and justice at 
 defiance. The conduct of Mr. Goulburn and Mr. Plunkett 
 was singularly curious on this occasion ; they admitted the 
 delinquency of the vestries — they promised redress. I am 
 truly sorry to be obliged to state the part Mr. Plunkett, in 
 particular, took on this occasion. He admitted that the 
 proceedings of the vestries had been illegal ; and he pro- 
 mised that they should not continue so. It was apparently 
 a candid promise ; allow me to believe that it was made in 
 the spirit of candour. But if it had been made in wicked 
 mockery and treacherous delusion, it would not more effec- 
 tually have answered the purpose. He has, indeed, like the 
 evil spirit in the play, kept the word of that promise to the 
 ear, but he has broken it to the sense. Such proceedings 
 are no longer illegal. He has contrived this Act that it 
 should legalise them all. No vestry now can be so absurd 
 
 M x 
 
126 
 
 or so ingenious as to make an illegal assessment. The mode 
 in which the thing was arranged was this — Goulburn and 
 Mr. Plunkett admitted the necessity of redress, and the truth 
 of Sir John's proposition ; but they said, and said truly, that 
 a mere resolution of the House was useless ; that relief could 
 only be given, and they promised it should be given, by a 
 Bill. They therefore moved, by way of amendment, that 
 all Sir John's motion, except the first word, " that/' should 
 be left out, and that there should be substituted, in the 
 stead, these words — " leave be given to bring in a Bill to 
 consolidate and amend the laws which regulate the levy and 
 application of Church Rates in Ireland." The amendment 
 was, of course, carried. Indeed the enemies of vestry pecu- 
 lation did not oppose it ; on the contrary, they were fully 
 confident that there was an honest and sincere determination, 
 at least on the part of Mr. Plunkett, to redress grievances of 
 so oppressive as well as manifest a nature. Sorry am I to 
 say — bitterly do I regret to be obliged to say — that such 
 confidence has been most grossly violated. A Committee 
 was formed to bring in the Bill, The names are inauspici- 
 ous ; for, in addition to Mr. Plunkett, there were Goulburn, 
 Sir George Hill, and the Attorney- General and Solicitor- 
 General of England. Of these, three are the bitter and 
 unrelenting enemies of Catholic Ireland. The Bill they 
 framed passed both Houses almost in silence. One or two 
 amendments, proposed by those excellent men, Spring Rice 
 and James G rattan, not at all affecting the details of the Bill, 
 were all that was known of it in Ireland. It w T as printed 
 and passed the House of Commons, whilst the Lawyers of 
 the Catholic body were on Circuit ; and I for one imagined 
 that there was some useful measure in agitation. I did not 
 expect any extensive relief ; but the system was so very bad 
 that I expected something would be done to ameliorate it. 
 The Bill thus crept through both Houses unnoticed and 
 literally unknown ; and it was on the Statute book for some 
 time before one of the casualties of profession drew my atten- 
 tion to it. 1 then, for the first time, discovered (it is scarcely 
 a week) that this Bill is a cruel aggravation of all the former 
 abuses ; that it legalizes them all, and adds tenfold to their 
 w eight. It gives to the vestries a power which, if it shall be 
 continued, will render the property of every landholder in 
 Ireland of little value, and leave the lands of the Catholics 
 completely at the mercy of the Protestants. 
 
 It is with heartfelt sorrow that I am compelled to connect 
 Mr. Plunket with this Bill. I hope it was the act of those 
 ill-sorted colleagues with whom it is his fortune to act in 
 
127 
 
 the present patched and piebald administration This 
 wretched compound of the two principles of the Manicheans: 
 — the good sometimes predominating, but the bad almost 
 always the lord of the ascendant. In this, indeed, the evil 
 
 stands pre-eminent. Am I wrong in expressing regret 
 
 sincere regret, that with this evil, Mr. Plunkett is closely, 
 intimately mixed ? I cannot help it. Of course, my inter- 
 course with him, as a public man, has long since ceased. 
 But I cannot, and will not forget how much the unaffected 
 simplicity of his manner — how much the cordial kindness 
 of his disposition — how much a natural appearance of love 
 of right and justice, which accompany him in private life;, 
 are calculated to facinate those who happen to enjoy an in- 
 timacy with him, even for a short time. It was my fortune 
 to have known him in that way, and the impression made 
 on me will never vanish. But it is my duty to arraign him 
 as a public man ; and now I hold up the Act of Parliament, 
 and I charge him with having promoted and patronised, if 
 he did not draw up, a statute which, in its tendencv as well 
 as its direct operation, is the most injurious to Catholic in- 
 terests, and the most destructive to Catholic property, of 
 any Act that passed since the commencement of the penal 
 code, and since the first base violation of the Treaty of 
 Limerick. It is my business now to prove those charges. 
 It is my duty to do so; because, by so doing, 1 will, I trust, 
 rouse all that is rational and honest in Ireland to call upon 
 Parliament to repeal this monstrous piece of Legislation. 
 
 This Act came into effect on the first of January, 1827. 
 
 On that day, every thing that was prominent in the arrange- 
 ments of parish vestries and parochial levies ceased, and this, 
 a new law, commenced its operation. I will now point out 
 its principal provisions. It begins by totally excluding the 
 Catholics from the vestries on all matters of business. The 
 law hitherto excluded us from some vestries only, although 
 by management we were excluded from most — but the 
 Catholics were beginning to know their rights, and to as- 
 sert them boldly. This Act put an end to those rights for 
 ?ver. I have analyzed its second section, and I find by it 
 that Catholics are excluded from parish vestries on all sub- 
 jects respecting or relating to any of the following topics: — 
 'or all of which, observe, power is given by this Act, to the 
 vestries to levy money — viz : — 
 
 1st. As to the building of Churches. 
 
 2d. f As the rebuilding of Churches ' 
 
 3d. As to the building of Protestant Chapels. 
 
 4th. As to the rebuilding of Protestant Chapels. 
 
128 
 
 5th. As the enlarging of Churches. 
 
 6th. As to the enlarging of Protestant Chapek. 
 
 7th. c As to the repairing of Churches. 
 
 Mth. As to the repairing of Protestant Chapels. 
 
 9th. As to the election of Church -wardens. 
 
 10th, As to the election of Chapel- wardens. 
 
 11th. As to the setting of the salary for the maintenance 
 of the Parish Clerk. 
 
 12th. As to the setting of the salary for the maintenance 
 of the Sexton. 
 
 13th. As to the setting of the salary for the maintenance 
 of the Clerk of any Protestant Chapel,, or Chapel of Ease. 
 
 1 4th, As to the letting or demising of any estate belonging 
 to the Parish. 
 
 15th. As to the disposal of the income of any estate belong- 
 ing to the Parish. 
 
 1 6th. As to the letting or demising of any estate belong- 
 ing to any Church, or Protestant Chapel. 
 
 17th. As to the disposal of the Income of any estate be- 
 longing to any Church or Protestant Chapel. 
 
 18th. As to the providing things necessary for the ce^ 
 lebration of divine service in any Church, as required and 
 authorised by any rubric or cannon in force in England or 
 Ireland. 
 
 19th. As to the providing things necessary for the ce- 
 lebration of divine service in any Protestant Chapel, as re- 
 quired and authorised by any rubric or canon in force in 
 England or Ireland. 
 
 20th. As to the making any to defray the expences of 
 building any Church. 
 
 2 1 st. As to the making any rate to defray the expence of 
 building any Protestant Chapel. 
 
 22d. As to the making any rate to defray the expence of 
 rebuilding any Church. 
 
 23d. As to the making any rate to defray the expence of 
 rebuilding any Protestant Chapel. 
 
 24th. As to the making any rate to defray the expence of 
 enlarging any Church. 
 
 25th. As to the making any rate to defray the expence of 
 enlarging any Protestant Chapel. 
 
 26th. As to the making any rate to defray the expence of 
 repairing any Church. 
 
 27th. As to the making any rate to defray the expence of 
 repairing any Protestant Chapel. 
 
 28th. As TO MAKING THE RATE TO DEFRAY THE EXPENCE 
 OF OTHER NECESSARY CHARGES, OR ANY OF THEM. 
 
129 
 
 It is literally ' do omnibus rebus — et quibusdam aliis." We 
 are thus excluded from vestries where all things, or any of 
 them, are to be agitated. It is important to remark, that 
 there were, at the utmost, but five of these topics from 
 voting on which the Catholics were excluded before this 
 Act. These were the above Nos. 2d, 7th, 9th, 14th, and 
 1 5th, To these five exclusions — if even the entire five sub- 
 sisted — to these five exclusions this statute has added no less 
 than twenty-three additional ; and amongst these some are 
 of the most sweeping and most comprehensive nature ; and 
 we are now excluded from voting on all subjects respecting, 
 or in any way relating, to these several heads of business. 
 Is it not manifest that they include all the business of parish 
 vestries? — and more, infinitely more business than any pa- 
 rish vestry could legally do before the passing of this Act 
 —but now, by this Act, the Protestant parishioners can do 
 just what they please. Here is, indeed, a penal law against 
 the Catholics— a penal law of the most afflicting nature, 
 because it deprives them of all controul over the expenditure 
 of the money raised by such taxation. This is, indeed, a 
 grievance of the first magnitude. It is spoliation of the most 
 direct description ! 
 
 To this grievous injury insult is superadded, becanse 
 the 3d section gravely enacts, that on all other occasions, 
 save those I have above specified, it shall be lawful for Ca- 
 tholics to vote at vestries. That is, by this express enact- 
 ment, Catholics are turned out of the vestries upon all trans- 
 actions of business — and then, truly, there is a clause in 
 this statute, to enable them to attend on all other occasions 
 —in other words, they may attend when there is nothing to 
 do. But I will tell the bigotted framers of the third section 
 of this statute — for it must have been framed by some of 
 the bigotted colleagues of Mr. Plunkett, who are working 
 their way to the bench, and to decide impartially on our 
 lives and fortunes, by exhibiting their unrelenting and in- 
 terested hostility to us — I tell these miserable bigots who 
 framed this third section, that they were grossly ignorant 
 of the law. I tell them that this section proves their ig- 
 norance, because at common law, and by common right, 
 every inhabitant of a parish liable to the parish rates, is en- 
 titled to attend and vote at vestries. That is the common 
 law right, and continues, unless taken away hy positive en- 
 actment. It follows that the third section, purporting to 
 empower Catholics to attend vestries on occasions not ex- 
 pressly prohibited, is nonsensical in itself, and a proof of 
 gross ignorance in those who framed it. 
 
130 
 
 The next reflection which this statute affords is one of in- 
 finitely more importance. It is, indeed, of vital import- 
 ance. The second section of the statute does, as we have 
 seen, exclude the Catholics from voting at vestries upon all 
 matters relating to the different heads I have enumerated. 
 This is its direct operation. But its indireet effect is still 
 more powerful, because it is a legislative declara- 
 tion, THAT ALL THOSE ENUMERATED HEADS OF EXPEN- 
 
 dituru are legal. It, therefore, directly sanctions, and 
 in fact empowers the Protestants at vestries, to levy money 
 for all those purposes. Every thing above specified — that 
 is, every imaginable purpose of expenditure, is thus recog- 
 nised and legalised. I now defy any lawyer to define the 
 limits of the powers of the Protestant vestries to impose 
 taxation. I say it advisedly and deliberately, and I am 
 ready to pledge whatever reputation I may have as a law- 
 yer, that the power of the Protestants in vestry, to levy 
 rates on the entire parish or union, as the case may be, is 
 by this act, rendered unlimited, and impossible to be de- 
 lined. 
 
 Let this, however, not rest on my authority, and I 
 come to particulars. I will take up the first item and cou- 
 ple it with the last. The Protestants in vestry are autho- 
 rised to levy sufficient money to build churches or Protest- 
 ant chapels, and for all the necessary charges relating 
 thereto. You cannot build a church without having the 
 land to build it on — that is of prime necessity. Well, at 
 once goes a levy for that necessary charge, the purchase 
 money of the land. But land should not be purchased 
 without getting a good title to it. Well, to acertain the ti- 
 tle there are abstracts and statements and copies of deeds, 
 perhaps of decrees and pleadings, searches in the registry, 
 and for incumbrances, An attorney, of course, and coun- 
 sel, are all necessary. These are all expensive articles ; 
 another necessary charge on the parish. We will now sup- 
 pose that the land is purchased ; the purchase money paid ; 
 the attorney's bill of cost discharged by the parish ; is the 
 church to be built without further previous expense ? By 
 no means. Nothing can be more necessary than plans, sec- 
 tions and estimates. The ingenuity of the architects is set 
 to work ; and their beautiful drawings, and their detailed 
 calculations must all be paid for by the parish — and then 
 before one stone of the new church is laid, hundreds, nay 
 thousands of pounds may be expended at the desire of the 
 few Protestants, but at the expence of the many Catholics, 
 Next would come the expence of actually building the church ; 
 
131 
 
 and next of finishing its interior, and adding its beils and 
 ornaments. See how easy it is for a vestry, like that of St. 
 George, in Dublin, to swell the expenditure, or the ratio, 
 which they did, from £ 15,000 to £57,000. Let it not be 
 forgotten, that the owner of the land to be sold may be one 
 of the vestry— that the attorney to make out the title may 
 be one of the vestry — and the counsel to advise, and the 
 architect to draw the plans, and the masons to build, and 
 the carpenter for the timber work, and the painter to paint, 
 and the glazier to glaze ; in short, the vestry may well be 
 composed of those alone who are to receive the monies when 
 expended, and to receive it in large sums. They may con- 
 stitute the entire vestry, while those who are to pay 99 parts 
 out of 100 are excluded. 
 
 To elucidate still further the power of taxation given to 
 the vestries by this statute, let us refer to the power of ves- 
 tries to assess the parishes to any amount, to provide any 
 thing necessary for the celebration of Divine worship, as 
 authorised by any canon or rubric in force in England, or 
 in Ireland. It is impossible that any thing can be more 
 comprehensive and distinct than that power is — and yet, as if 
 it were not sufficiently so, there is the 28th head, which 
 enables the vestries to assess for all other charges, or any of 
 them ! ! ! I will, however, consider the 18th head on its 
 own intrinsic power. You perceive that by the 1 8th head 
 the vestry can assess for every thing necessary for divine ser- 
 vice, as authorized by any canon or rubric ! Now, suppose 
 I were consulted to-morrow, as I have often been, upon a 
 vestry assessment, to know if there were any illegal charges 
 in it— (let me here observe by way of parenthesis, that 
 hitherto, I never saw a vestry assessment that did not con- 
 tain some illegal charge,) But to return— suppose a Counsel 
 consulted under this Act as to the legality of a parish assess- 
 ment—what would be his first duty? It would be to make 
 himself master of all the canons in England and in Ireland, 
 which relate to celebration of divine worship in all its 
 branches, both on Sundays, and week-days, and in the ad- 
 ministration of the sacraments. They are of course all 
 included in divine worship, which, observe, is not limited 
 here to the public celebration alone — but is general, includ - 
 ing private as well as public celebration of divine worship. 
 This would be a pretty extensive task. All the canons 
 which were framed before the Reformation are still in force* 
 unless where they are expressly repugnant to the Protestai,. 
 religion. There are besides canons framed since the Refor- 
 mation. Every thing authorised by either the Catholic or 
 
132 
 
 Protestant canons that can be applicable to the Protestant 
 worship, is now the subject of assessment. The lawyer 
 therefore, before he gives his opinion that any assessment is 
 illegal, must make himself master of all the canons, both 
 before and since the Reformation, which relate in any way to 
 divine worship. So must any court of justice, before it is 
 empowered to alleviate the burthen imposed by any vestry, 
 on any parish. And after becoming master of the English 
 canons, the next thing to be done is to learn in a similar 
 manner all the Irish canons. The English canons are tole- 
 rably numerous. — They fill several volumes. The Irish 
 canons are still more so. By the discipline of the Irish 
 church, there were two annual synods held ; one every half 
 year. I, of course, allude to the Catholic times. The 
 canons enacted at these synods are exceedingly numerous. 
 There are some of them to be found in Spelman, and in Sir 
 James Ware ; but the far greater number could be found 
 only by referring to the ponderous folios of the foreign bene- 
 dictines, such as D' Archery, Martene, and Durand. What 
 lawyer or judge could possibly ransack them all; and still 
 no lawyer or judge can possibly say, that a vestry assess- 
 ment is illegal under this new act, if there be any thing to 
 justify that assessment in any of those canons, English or 
 Irish. But it is not sufficient to study the English and Irish 
 canons. One must go infinitely farther — from the " corpus 
 juris canonici " down to the reformation — that is, all the 
 canons of the Universal or Catholic church down to the 
 reformation, must all be referred to on the copious subject 
 of divine worship. Here is a task indeed ! There are, to 
 place them in their natural order : 
 
 1st. All the canons of the Catholic Church down to the 
 Reformation, as applicable to then universal celebration of 
 divine worship. 
 
 2d. There are the local canons in England to the same 
 period, 
 
 3d. The English canons since the Reformation. 
 4th. The Irish canons before the Reformation. 
 5th. The Irish canons since the Reformation. 
 
 But what is most important, is the reason why it is 
 incumbent on Irish judges or lawyers to examine all these 
 canons. Let me repeat the appalling reason — because any 
 thing authorised and required by any of them is now, by 
 this Act, by this sweeping and grinding Act, a lawful object 
 of vestry taxation. Observe here, I implore you, that 
 
133 
 
 although this Act is an Irish Act, relating only to Irish 
 Parishes, yet it gives this power of taxation, not only as to 
 matters contained in the canons of force in Ireland, but it 
 extends to every thing relative to divine worship contained 
 in any canon of force in England ! ! ! One would have 
 imagined that it would have been sufficient to tax us accord- 
 ing to the Irish canon law, as this was an Irish Act ; but no 
 —something more may, and, of course must be gleaned 
 from the English canons ; and therefore this additional 
 source of taxation is opened to our vestries. 
 
 Perhaps it may be imagined that we have now arrived at 
 the limit of the power of vestry taxation. Perhaps it may 
 be supposed that this multitudinous code of canon lav/ con- 
 tains the limits, if any man could trace them, of this power. 
 Sir, he who so imagines is grievously mistaken. This is 
 scarcely the beginning of the taxing powers of vestries, un- 
 der this new Act. That power really resembles eternity— 
 nothing else. It is, under this new Act, always beginning 
 —never, never, never to end. I do not exaggerate. I 
 speak literally the truth. The vestry is commissioned not 
 only to tax according to any canon in force in England or in 
 Ireland, but also to tax for any thing authorised and required 
 for divine service, by any rubric in force in England or in 
 Ireland. 
 
 Rubric ! Rubric ! What is a rubric ? This is the first 
 question I asked myself when I read this Act of Parliament. 
 I perceived, that under this Act, it is something which, 
 whether it existed in England or in Ireland, gives power to 
 a Protestant vestry to tax all the Catholic occupiers of lands 
 and houses. What that something was and is I confess I was 
 totally ignorant. I accordingly had recourse to my law 
 books. It is now matter of law, affecting property to an 
 enormous amount. But I could not find one word about it 
 in the books of law of ordinary reference, or in the Luw 
 Dictionary. I then turned to the index to the Statutes, I 
 hunted the letter R till I found " rubbish," but nGt the least 
 mention of rubric. I was literally like a hound at fault. I 
 knew not where to strike off the legal scent of rubric ; yet 
 how could I advise my clients in any parish in Ireland, as to 
 the legality of any Parish Assessment, without knowing 
 exactly what a rubric was. I turned to Johnson's Dicti- 
 onary, and there I found the following description of a 
 rubric : — 
 
 '•'Rubrick. n. s. ( rubrique Fr. rubrica Lat.)— Directions 
 printed in books of law and in prayer books ; so termed, be- 
 cause they were originally distinguished by being in red ink.' 
 N 
 
134 
 
 Johnson illustrates its meaning by the following quota- 
 tion : — 
 
 " They had their particular prayers, according to the 
 several days and months, and their tables and rubrics to in- 
 struct them/' Stillingfleet. 
 
 f< The rubrics, and the rules relating to the liturgy, 
 are established by royal authority, as well as the liturgy 
 itself." Nelson. 
 
 So — so — sc. Here is a pretty extent of power of taxation. 
 Any money which may be required by any Royal direction. 
 Even the red ink is no longer necessary. Any thing that 
 the head of the Protestant Church — the King — that is, in 
 other words, the Minister of the day, has chosen or may 
 chuse, is or can be a rubric. I saw the other day, an epis- 
 copal ordinance directed from the King, as visible head, 
 under God, of the Established Church, addressed to the 
 Archbishops and Bishops of that Church, and signed, 
 " Robert Peel/' I confess it did strike me as something 
 worse than ludicrous to have ecclesiastical mandates signed 
 (i Robert Peel." To a mind turned towards the awfulness 
 of Christianity, there is something abhorrent in joining 
 Robert Peel and religion. This may be a prejudice. How- 
 ever, one thing is certain, that Robert Peel or Goulburn 
 may, in one hour, issue as many rubrics as would fill a 
 volume, without any one Catholic knowing or having the 
 power to discover what they were. I say this with confi- 
 dence, because, seeing by this statute how enormously the 
 property of the Catholics might be taxed by Protestant 
 vestries, either under the pretence or by reason of the exist- 
 ence of rubrics, I felt it my duty to add the existing 
 rubrics of the Established Church to my law library. I 
 accordingly waited on Mr. Milliken, who is bookseller to the 
 University, and in fact to the Irish Church. I asked that 
 intelligent and respectable person for the rubrics of the 
 Established Church. Pie said he had no book of that 
 description. I begged to be told how I could procure 
 them. He said he knew not, unless they w r ere to be found 
 in the Book of Common Prayer. I immediately called for 
 that Book, that I might, if it contained the rubrics, add the 
 Book of Common Prayer to my law library. But upon 
 turning over the book, I found that it gave but little and 
 very scanty information on the subject. This, then, was 
 the result of my researches on the rubrics. 
 
 But what is the result as to the power of Protestant ves- 
 tries to tax the Catholic population ? Why, that it is unli- 
 mited, undefined, undiscoverable. No research will enable 
 
135 
 
 any man to find out its bounds. No ingenuity can trace its 
 limits. Such I unhesitatingly say is the power given by 
 this Act to the Protestant vestries. We are surrounded 
 with those, who, like Mr. Sergeant Blackburn, are Church 
 and State lawyers. I challenge them, one and all, to define 
 or describe the limits of the present power of Protestant 
 vestries, to tax Catholic property, unless, indeed, they shall 
 do it by this one sentence. " The power of the Protestant 
 vestries to tax the Catholics is limited by the value of the 
 property of the Catholics to be taxed, because they cannot 
 take more than the entire," 
 
 True, quite true, they cannot take more than the entire ; 
 but that entire they are by law empowered to take ; and no 
 lawyer can be of any avail to protect that property ; because, 
 although several years of close application may make a 
 lawyer master of the Canon law, on all points respecting 
 Divine Service, yet, it is impossible for any lawyer to say 
 that he knows all the Rubrics. If they were collected this 
 day, they may be altered to-morrow. Nay, a Rubric may 
 be got up in half an hour to suit any possible purpose. Let 
 it be noted too — for this Act is apiece of devilish perfection 
 on all that is bad — let it be noted, that the Irish vestry may 
 tax, not only according to any Rubric in force in Ireland, 
 but also, according to any Rubric not in force in Ireland, if 
 it happen to be. in force in England. 
 
 Having thus shewn that Catholics are excluded by this 
 Act from voting at all at vestries, and that the power of tax- 
 ation given to the Protestant is unlimited, it seems an idle 
 waste of time to go into detail or particulars ; but I deem it 
 my duty to state, that all the illegal charges pointed out by 
 Sir John Newport, are legalised by the Act. For example — 
 it appears by the Parliamentary Returns which I read, that 
 the organist in one parish had received the enormous sum of 
 £850. That, at the time, was an enormous robbery. It 
 would, under this Act, be perfectly legal. The organist 
 may now look to a salary in every parish. The tuner and 
 bellows-blower are necessary, wherever there is an organ. 
 The organ itself, in its first cost, will be a tolerably, or rather, 
 an intolerably large burthen ; its expense will be an annual 
 source of taxation. Music-books are necessary where there 
 is an organ. The Protestant young ladies of the parish may 
 have their music cheap, at the expense of the parishioners. 
 Singing-bo} r s and singing-girls will adorn every church 
 where they can be mustered. There must, of course, be 
 salaries for those who teach them to sing. All those ex- 
 penses, though hitherto grossly illegal, and criminal, with 
 N 2 
 
136 
 
 respect to the Catholic payers, were yet inflicted wherever 
 they could be so with impunity. In future they can be all 
 provided for legally, by the simple process of a vestry tax. 
 One cannot know what expense is not included in the 
 Canons and Rubrics ; but that all those are included in 
 them, or some of them, is quite certain. Any lawyer who 
 doubts this, may look to the case of Hutchins v. Denziloe, 
 reported in Haggard's Consistory Cases, vol. I., page 170. 
 Let any man look to pages 177 and 178 of that report, and 
 he will easily conjecture the extent to which music and 
 singing were authorised and required by the ancient canons 
 and by the Protestant rubrics. After that inspection, every 
 lawyer will agree with me as to the present power of the 
 vestries on these subjects. 
 
 I cannot help remarking, that there has been for many 
 years, in Dublin, a familiar head of illegal assessment, — 
 There was much ingenuity in the way in which it was le- 
 vied, without apprising the payers of the nature of the ad- 
 ditional rate. 1, for one, say, that the Protestant clergy- 
 men, when they took my money without explanation, as an 
 additional rate, obtained my money dishonestly, and under 
 a false pretence— I throw it on their consciences, if, unlike 
 Paley, they can afford to keep a conscience. But to the 
 point. This illegal charge consisted in votes of vestries for 
 large sums to the curates, for morning and evening lectures 
 and other services in the celebration of divine worship,-— 
 Let those curates be consoled. These charges are no longer 
 illegal. This Act empowers the vestries to lay on such 
 charges thick and tenfold. Let, however, the inhabitants 
 of Dublin look to it. The Protestants may, it is true, pro- 
 tect themselves— but the Catholics are deprived (Mr. Plun- 
 kett, with his bright-eyed aide-de-camp, Goulburn, has 
 deprived the Catholics) of all power of protecting them- 
 selves. 
 
 Another source of taxation, hitherto illegal, has been no- 
 ticed in the Parliamentary Returns, I mean pew openers, 
 gallery sextons, vestry maids, and church servants. The 
 salaries for all these were hitherto illegal. They are now 
 perfectly legal. The canons of the Catholic Church allow- 
 ed and required several classes of servitors in the church. 
 The sexton is no longer the bearer of the holy water, but 
 he is no less substantially the pensioner of the parish. — 
 There were in Catholic times somewhat about ten or twelve 
 different servitors or inferior assistants, in the church. All 
 these classes may now legally be revived— all the salaries 
 mentioned in the returns may be assessed, and if a canon 
 
were wanting to give them authority, a rubric could easily 
 be found or made, to render them perfectly valid. 
 
 Let me just notice the charge for coffins. In Dublin, 
 some of the honest folks engaged in vestry peculation, used 
 to make charges scandalously large for this illegal exaction. 
 No less a sum than £70. has been charged in a single assess- 
 ment under the fantastic head of ' ' miscellaneous for coffins, 
 £70." This was heretofore as unlawful as it was frau- 
 dulent. That time, however, has gone by. Goulburn 
 has clung to his coffins, and accordingly the 10th section 
 of this statute legalises for the future " the coffin miscel- 
 lany." 
 
 Thus wholesale and in detail, all manner of assessment 
 is legalized. The powers of the vestry are most enormously 
 encreased — the exclusion of the Catholics is most enor- 
 mously encreased. Formerly Catholics were excluded by 
 law from voting in only a few instances— now they are ex- 
 cluded in all. Formerly the legal exclusion, even in the 
 excepted cases, was merely partial — now it is general — is 
 universal. For example— formerly Catholics were excluded 
 from voting when the question was, whether a church 
 should be repaired or not ? but that question once decided, 
 the Catholics had, in point of law, a right to vote as to the 
 assessment to be made for such repair. It is quite a differ- 
 ent question, whether or not a church should be repaired at 
 all, from the question, what sum should be expended in 
 such repair ? The second question could not arise till the 
 first was decided. Upon the first the Catholics have, since 
 the reign of George the Second, been excluded from voting. 
 On the other question, a very important one, they had, 
 until this Act passed, the right to vote. Thus this Act has 
 enormously encreased our burthens, and the Protestant 
 power over our properties, whilst it has altogether abridged 
 our legal rights, even for the common and ordinary objects 
 of protecting our property. The Catholic, under this Act, 
 is in the state of a man who has his hands pinioned behind 
 his back, his pockets unbuttoned, and is simply surrounded 
 by pickpockets. It is very material to observe also, that 
 •ee and unlimited power to pick our pockets is given 
 to the comparatively few in number. A parish vestry is, at 
 common law, a meeting oil all the occupiers of lands or 
 houses in the parish — that "v\as the vestry in Catholic times. 
 Every man and every woman too, having property in the 
 parish, was entitled to attend the vestry. Such are the 
 rights which the Protestants, as well as the Catholics, de- 
 rived from our Catholic ancestors, the common ancestors of 
 N 3 
 
138 
 
 both. These rights are, by this Act, taken from us, Ca- 
 tholics, and given to the few Protestants. It is important 
 to see Aow few they are to whom this power is given. It is 
 important to see how numerous are those over whom that 
 power is given. I select from the census furnished by the 
 Catholic Clergy, the following specimen : — 
 
 Parishes. Catholics. Not Catholics. Diocesses. 
 
 Ferreter, Dunquin, 1 
 &c. J 
 
 Kellgany, &c. 
 Kilcrohan 
 Dromtariff 
 Listowell 
 
 Union of Kilconne-O 
 
 ran J 
 Loughmore and \ 
 
 Castlelay J 
 Kilcummin and 1 
 
 Holiyford J 
 Clonoulty and Ross- 1 
 
 more J 
 Pallis Green and \ 
 
 T. Bredan J 
 Kilteely 
 
 Union of Doneraile 
 Kildorerry 
 Union of Killeagh 
 Greenah 
 Belanagare and 
 
 Union 
 Ballintubber 
 Killyan and KilroO 
 
 nan J 
 Drum 
 
 Ogala, Kilcooly and 1 
 Killucker J 
 Kilglase 
 Caltra 
 
 Tarmonbarry 
 Union of Bumlin, 1 
 &c. J 
 Athleague 
 
 Oranmore and Bal- 1 
 linacourty J 
 
 } 
 
 7270 18 Ardfert & Aghado. 
 
 4568 118 Do. 
 
 3883 c z0 Do. 
 
 7086 39 Do. 
 
 9781 210 Do. 
 
 4461 8g Cashel and Emly, 
 
 5365 m Do. 
 
 2216 none Do. 
 
 5039 85 Do. 
 
 5716 68 Do. 
 
 4040 15 Do. 
 
 11722 443 Cloyne. 
 
 5578 74 Do. 
 
 7176 46 Do. 
 
 9027 60 Do. 
 
 2210 1 Elphin 
 
 357J 21 Do. 
 
 9105 27 Do. 
 
 40 Do. 
 
 5934 44 Do. 
 
 7759 47 Do. 
 
 3630 88 Do. 
 
 3438 71 Do. 
 
 14514 266 Do. 
 
 3904 90 Do. 
 
 5012 62 Galway* 
 
139 
 
 Parishes. Catholics. Not Catholics. Diocesses. 
 
 Feakle 
 
 8184 
 
 16 
 
 Killaloe. 
 
 BrufF, Grange and] 
 
 [ 7323 
 
 118 
 
 Limerick. 
 
 Glenogra J 
 
 r 
 
 Ardeath, Clonalvy, 1 
 Sec. J 
 
 j> 3221 
 
 9 
 
 Meath. 
 
 Lisdowney, &c 
 
 5982 
 
 41 
 
 Ossory. 
 
 Moincoin and Car- "] 
 
 I ^ <? j. i 
 
 
 Tin 
 
 rigeen J 
 
 
 
 
 Callan including " 
 Newtown 
 
 > o043 
 
 10/ 
 
 UO. 
 
 Thomastown 
 
 9234 
 
 224 
 
 Do. 
 
 Aughagower 
 
 (5373 
 
 152 
 
 Tuam. 
 
 Garumna 
 
 5834 
 
 12 
 
 Do. 
 
 Seskinane 
 
 3000 
 
 1 
 
 Waterford. 
 
 Dunhill 
 
 5465 
 
 14 
 
 Do. 
 
 Kill, Newtown, &c. 
 
 5405 
 
 21 
 
 Do. 
 
 Carrickbeg, &c 
 
 4832 
 
 31 
 
 Do. 
 
 Rathgorman, &c. 
 
 5038 
 
 40 
 
 Do. 
 
 Kilgobinet 
 
 3079 
 
 4 
 
 Do. 
 
 Ringana 
 
 24.64 
 
 20 
 
 Do. 
 
 Ardmore 
 
 7S71 
 
 39 
 
 Do. 
 
 Clashniore 
 
 <5280 
 
 52 
 
 Do. 
 
 Modeligo 
 
 4294 
 
 46 
 
 Do. 
 
 r our M lie >> ater 
 
 6001 
 
 29 
 
 JJO. 
 
 Kilsheelan 
 
 5053 
 
 30 
 
 Do. 
 
 Ballynefll 
 
 4280 
 
 12 
 
 Do. 
 
 Temple Tenny 
 
 4S6i 
 
 36 
 
 Do. 
 
 Rathcline 
 
 2726 
 
 19 
 
 Westmeath 
 
 i 
 
 
 283,261 
 
 3220 
 
 
 There are fifty parishes, containing no less than 2 S3, 261 
 Catholics, and only 3220 Protestants, of all sects and per- 
 suasions bearing that name. The proportion is, I think, 
 eighty-eight to one. Now, by this Act, the power is given 
 to the one to tax, at discretion, the eighty-eight, and this in 
 a country that pretends to be a free State ; and this, note, 
 always in the name of reformed Christianity. But these are 
 not the only melancholy reflections this Act excites. It is 
 obvious, that the few have the greatest possible temptation 
 to raise as much money as possible by assessment, and to 
 distribute it among themselves. Take, for example, the 
 first parish. It is in my own county. It is called the union 
 ofFerreter, Dunquin, &c. There are 7270 Catholics, wad 
 
140 
 
 18 Protestants. Now, is it not obvious, that the 7270., 
 being excluded, the 1 8 Protestants may assemble, and deter- 
 mine on building or repairing a church, and each man, 
 woman and child of them be employed in or about the 
 building, and be maintained by perpetual salaries when the 
 church is built. If the Protestants were not numerous in a 
 parish, they would feel the weight of the taxation upon their 
 own properties ; and if they were numerous they could not 
 all be employed in the expenditure of the money, and they 
 could not ail get salaries as clerks, sextons, pew-openers, 
 beadles, sextonesses, sweepers or vestry-maids, church- 
 servants^ singers, ringers, organists, &c. &c. Where the 
 Protestants are numerous, there may be some check, although 
 even then the majority may, and probably would, have a 
 personal interest in large taxation ; but where the Protestants 
 are few and the Catholics many, all human motives — ava- 
 rice, bigotry — the combined love of power, and love of 
 money, all operate to make the taxation as great as possible, 
 and all these bad passions are amply furnished with super- 
 abundant means of indulgence by this Act of Parliament, 
 brought in by Goulburn, and our friend the Attorney - 
 General. 
 
 But this Act, grievous as it is in point of vexation, is still 
 more abominable in point of principle. It outrages every 
 notion of justice and common sense, to take away from us 
 the power of protecting our own properties. It is bad 
 enough to make us, Catholics, build and re-build churches, 
 and furnish wine for the Sacrament, and pay officers for the 
 regulation of Protestant worship. It is doubly severe, 
 when our ancestors dedicated abundant property to these 
 purposes, and that such property is devoted to other and 
 hostile hands.. But it is the consummation of cruelty to 
 leave it in the power of a few to say, how much of their 
 property they will vouchsafe to leave us. The first princi- 
 ple of common honesty is, the sacred right of private 
 and individual property. The first principle of the British 
 Constitution, is, the sacred right of the individul controul of 
 every man over his own property, to the exclusion of every 
 other interposition. A national tax on any article is lawful 
 only because the owners of property are supposed to assent 
 to it by their representatives in Parliament. Without that 
 assent it would be palpable and avowed robbery. It was 
 the violation of this principle that brought one British 
 Monarch to the scaffold, and would, it is said by our writers 
 on public law, justify revolution. Yet common honesty and 
 constitutional principle are, in this Act of Parliament, vio- 
 
141 
 
 lated and trampled under foot by Goulburn and Plunkett. 
 We have no controul over our own. It is no longer our 
 own. We are the serfs, the slaves of our masters — the 
 Protestants, in vestry assembled. For them we plough — 
 for them we reap— or if any part shall hereafter be allowed 
 to us to use, we will owe it to the courtesy or contempt of 
 the vestry. I do not exaggerate when I say, that if this 
 Act were but a few years in operation, the property of every 
 Catholic in Ireland would not be worth a pin's fee. 
 
 But who are those to w T hom this pow T er has been given by 
 Parliament ? The Protestant vestries. Were those vestries 
 unknown to the Legislature ? Were they unaccused ? Or 
 if accused, were they acquitted — or, at least, unconvicted ? 
 No, Sir, oh ! no. They were accused by us of the grossest 
 peculation and oppression — they were tried before Parlia- 
 ment — no other evidence was resorted to but their own 
 documents, their own books and records. Well, what was 
 the result of the trial ? They were convicted, by the una- 
 nimous consent of the House of Commons, of (in the words 
 of Sir John Newport) corruption, extortion, profligacy, 
 
 AND THE SETTING ALL LAW AND DECENCY AT DEFIANCE. 
 
 But how are they punished — how has British justice, the 
 pride and boast of many a story and many a song — how 7 ha* 
 British justice punished them ? Have any of the persons 
 concerned in this corrupt extortion been punished — have 
 they been compelled to disgorge any of the plunder ? Oh ! 
 no : they have been rewarded — their powers increased — 
 their resources augmented — their means of wealth legalised 
 — the extent of their future rapacity left totally uncontrolled, 
 undefined, unlimited. Such is modern British justice. But 
 if modern British justice has thus convicted and rewarded, 
 attainted and enriched the guilty, what has it done to the 
 innocent and oppressed accusers ? Why British justice 
 turned that severity, which ought to await the guilty, against 
 the innocent and unaccused. It put upon us the u caput 
 lupijium " of ecclesiastical outlawry ; it has stripped us of 
 our birth-right, and taken from us all controul over our own 
 property. There is British justice, the pride and boast of 
 human nature. 
 
 I now turn in melancholy agony to Mr. Plunkett, and 
 ask him, is it thu9 he administers the power of Parliament 
 to Ireland ? As to Goulburn, I am sure he did not possess 
 vicious ingenuity enough to understand the extent of mis- 
 chief he was doing. But I hope our appeal will reach the 
 then Attorney-General for England, now an equity judge ; 
 and that even the sense of shame, if no better motive exists* 
 
142 
 
 will induce him to wipe this foul blot from the Statute- 
 book, 
 
 I have bestowed much tediousness on the meeting, but I 
 have not yet gone farther with this Act than its frightful 
 principle, in its double aspect. It is oppressive in its princi- 
 ple in two ways ; first, as extending, uniimitedly, the 
 powers of taxation to the vestries ; secondly, as totally 
 excluding the Catholics from any controul over their own 
 property. It is, however, my duty to say, that the machi- 
 nery of the Bill is quite worthy of its principles. It is in all 
 its parts oppressive, unjust, and unconstitutional. 
 
 The powers are given thus : By the second section, the 
 unlimited power of taxation or assessment is given to the 
 vestry, being composed exclusively of Protestants, By the 
 13th section, the Protestants are exclusively entitled to 
 appoint any two persons they please to put such relative 
 value as they please on all the property in houses and lands 
 in the parish. This just settles the Protestant dominion over 
 Catholic property. The second section gives the Protestants 
 the entire power to make what charge they please on the 
 parish generally. The thirteenth section gives the Protest- 
 ants the power to assess as much of that charge on the Catho- 
 lics, and as little as they please on the Protestants — because 
 they, the Protestants, alone have the power of valuation. 
 I shall be told that there is a right of appeal if they make an 
 unjust valuation. There certainly is a right of appeal ; but 
 that right of appeal is the most wretched mockery of the 
 entire system. In the first place, it is not an appeal to the 
 Judges of the superior Courts, or to a jury in any way. It 
 is merely an appeal to the Justices at the Quarter Sessions. 
 Who is ignorant of the multitude of clerical magistrates in 
 every county in Ireland ? Who doubts what sympathy they 
 would feel on the bench for a Popish appellant, from the 
 decision of a Protestant vestry ? Is such an appeal a real 
 plan of relief, or an insulting mockery ? But take it as the 
 former — let it be real, See what the forms are which must 
 be gone through before the appeal can be heard on the me- 
 rits, and then I defy any one to deny that the appeal is what 
 I call it — an insulting mockery. Look at the 17th section, 
 the forms are these : — 
 
 I st. The time for appealing is limited to ten or fourteen 
 days. 
 
 2dly. There must be a notice, in writing, given of such 
 appeal, to the Parson or Churchwarden, and to three house- 
 holders. 
 
 3dly. The notice must be not only in writing, but it must. 
 
143 
 
 be a writing signed with the name, and in the hand- writing 
 of the person appealing. — These are the words of the Act 
 of Parliament; so that no man can appeal who does not 
 write. You see how every thing bears on the poor. 
 
 4thly. The notice must state the grounds of the appeal. 
 Observe, that it would require a good practical lawyer to 
 draw such a notice. 
 
 othly. And this alone is sufficient to show what a mockery 
 the power of appeal is— the appellant must, on the day of 
 lodging the appeal, enter into a recognizance in one hun- 
 dred pounds to abide the appeal, and pay such costs as the 
 Justices may award, with two sufficient securities. Need [ 
 go farther. Where is an Irish peasant or an Irish farmer to 
 get two securities in <£l00 each? Aye, and how few coun- 
 try gentlemen could get, on the sudden, such securites. It 
 is therefore an idle mockery to talk to an Irish peasant or 
 farmer of an appeal, which he cannot have without getting 
 two sureties sufficiently solvent to be received in a recogni- 
 zance of <£l00. They might as well have said one million. 
 In truth I must arraign the framers of this Act of intenti- 
 onal delusion, when they gave an appeal with such an im- 
 possible condition annexed. 
 
 Even if the appeal were received, the first thing to be 
 tried, before the merits, is the point of form. That 
 unusual clause is express in this Act, and would defeat 
 ninety-nine out of every hundred appeals in Ireland ; and to 
 crown all, the Sessions are empowered to give such costs as 
 they please against the appellant ; yes, £.500 if they please. 
 It is true that the Justice, on taking the appeal, has a dis- 
 cretion not to require the sureties, if he deems it unneces- 
 sary to do so; but that applies only to cases where the 
 appellant is so wealthy, that he could get the sureties if he 
 required, and is of no importance to the poor peasant or 
 farmer. 
 
 This statute is perfect in all its machinery — the modes of 
 levying the Rates are new and summary. Formerly a man 
 had a chance of escaping oppressive Parish Rates, by shift- 
 ing himself and his property out of the obnoxious parish. 
 This wretched resourse is taken away by this Act ; for by 
 the 20th section, if the rate payable by one individual be 
 less than £20 it may be recovered by civil bill decree ; and 
 by the 21st section, power is given to levy the Church Rates 
 by distress and sale, under the summary warrant of two 
 Justices of the Peace, not only within that parish, but in 
 any ether parish or county in Ireland. There is no escap- 
 
144 
 
 ing the fangs of this vulture — they strike deep and wide, and 
 meet the blood in every fibre. 
 
 This is not all — the act is perfect still. It may be possi- 
 ble that the Protestants of a parish would kindly and con- 
 siderately refuse to inflict this hateful Act and its oppres- 
 sive taxation on their Catholic neighbours. Even that case 
 is provided for — Protestant generosity, or Protestant kind- 
 ness shall not protect our properties ; because, if they ne- 
 glect to lay as much money as the Archbishop, Bishop, or 
 Vicar-General of a vacant diocess, think expedient, the 23d 
 section enables such Archbishop, Bishop, or Vicar-General 
 to interpose to get plans and estimates — to make the parish 
 pay for such plans and estimates, and for all the expences 
 of his proceedings, and to compel by monition the making 
 such assessment, and levying such sum as he deems neces- 
 sary ; and thus even the poor protection of the Protestant 
 parish vestry is taken away, and all our property is left at 
 the disposal of the Magees and Beresfords of the Establish- 
 ment. It is a poor consolation to us that this oppressive Act 
 involves the property of the Protestants in the same domi- 
 nion of the Archbishop, Bishop, or Vicar-General. 
 
 There is another section in this Act, which shews the 
 active and ingenious dexterity that has been used to make 
 all efficient for the purposes of ecclesiastical peculation. By 
 the old Catholic law, the Cathedrals were of course to be 
 repaired out of the Episcopal revenues. Even after the 
 Reformation, the " Economy Fund," as it was called, of 
 the Chapter, was applicable to that purpose. The clergy, 
 however, by degrees, threw part of the burthen on the peo- 
 ple, and this extortion was at length sanctioned to a certain 
 extent, by a statute of the 39th of the late king, Geo. 3, 
 which provided, that when a cathedral was used as a Parish 
 Church, an agreement should be made between the Dean 
 and Chapter on the one hand, and the Protestant Parishi- 
 oners on the other, by which it should be regulated what 
 portion of expense the Parish should bear in future, and 
 how much the Dean and Chapter. In short, the pro- 
 portions were to be settled by an amicable arrangement, in 
 which the Protestant Parishioners met the Dean and Chapter 
 upon terms of perfect equality. But it is totally altered — the 
 42 d section takes away from the Catholic inhabitants all the 
 benefit of the common law, and of the statute law also, and gives 
 the Bishop in each diocess the power, just as he pleases, by an 
 instrument under his hand and seal, to fix and settle how 
 
145 
 
 much the Dean and Chapter shall in future pay, and how 
 much the Parish : that is, he may put one pound, or ten 
 shillings, if he thinks one nound too much, on the Dean and 
 Chapter, and one hundred pounds^ or one thousand pounds 
 upon the parishioners at large. This section is certainly in 
 admirable harmony and keeping with the rest of this Act, 
 and makes its summary despotism over the property of indi- 
 viduals complete, and unmitigated even by the paltry pro- 
 tection of mere forms. 
 
 There remain but two or three observations more. This 
 Act would not be perfect if it did not give the most uncon- 
 trouled power to the persons acting under this statute, to 
 levy any monies they pleased, in any manner they thought 
 fit, and entire indemnity for all acts of abuse or outrage 
 they should commit. It has done so accordingly ; for by 
 by the 53d section it is provided, that none of the proceed- 
 ings under this Act shall be void for want of form, nor 
 shall any irregularity whatsoever create any defect ; and by 
 the 54th section, a short from of avowry or plea is given, 
 setting forth nothing, and putting all questions of pleading 
 at utter defiance. In iEsop's fables the lion reasons thus — 
 " I take this because my name is lion." Such is precisely 
 the form of pleading given to the Churchwardens by this 
 Act. But the Act goes beyond the fable, and gives double 
 costs against any body who shall dare to dispute the autho- 
 rity of Churchwardens. 
 
 There are two cases provided for. In the first all matters 
 are regular in form and substance, and in such a case if the 
 Churchwarden be sued by any parishioner, by whom he 
 has dealt harshly and cruelly, yet the Churchwardens must 
 succeed and get double costs. The second case provided 
 for, is one in which the Churchwarden may have this Act 
 substantially with him, but all the proceedings under it 
 may be so grossly defective and irregular, as to be totally 
 unknown to the parties. Yet even in this case the Church- 
 warden must succeed and get double costs. There is a 
 third case — a case, in which the Churchwarden is wrong, 
 both in form and in substance. A case, for example, in 
 which a Churchwarden may come into your house, under 
 this Act, and knock you down, beat your wife, and fting 
 your children to the right and left, and break or take away, 
 or destroy your furniture or goods. This is a plain and ille- 
 gal trespass — perhaps he owes you an old grudge, and has 
 availed himself of his office thus to indulge it. It is a ma- 
 licious trespass — you bring your action within three months 
 — serve all your notices properly — woe be to you if there 
 O 
 
146 
 
 be anv defect in form in your proceedings — if there be any 
 thing that the lynx eye of an expert special pleader can 
 avail himself of — if there be any thing that an old consci- 
 ence-seared prerogative Judge can lay hold of — you are non- 
 suited in a moment, and have to pay double costs, But sup- 
 pose you are lucky enough to escape all perils of form, and 
 get your case fairly to a jury — the indignant Jury give you 
 £500 damages — that is compensation to you ; but is the 
 Churchwarden punished ? Oh ! no. He laughs in his 
 sleeve at the proceeding. He coolly tots up the costs of 
 his own attorney in defending so unrighteous an Act — he 
 adds to his own costs those, when taxed, of our attorney 
 — he adds to them the £500 damages, and having duly 
 ascertained the sum total, and having adjusted that sum by 
 the nicest rules of Cocker, he takes this statute in hands and 
 reads the 38th section to the parishioners, and then levies 
 off the Parish the full amount of such costs and damages, 
 and then goes away triumphing in his villainny and the mon- 
 strous perfection of this abominable Act of Parliament. — 
 
 I draw to a close of a dull and tedious dissertation ; but 
 this statute is so full of matter, that its interest does perhaps 
 justify my tediousness. I think I have proved that this 
 Act leaves the property of the Catholics completely at the 
 mercy of the vestries, and the forbearance of the vestries is 
 no protection, because the Protestant Bishop can command 
 that spoliation which lay Protestants may be unwilling to 
 commit. It is manifest that this Act will not be a dead 
 letter. If ever a statute was calculated to execute itself, it 
 is this. To those to whom it gives power, it also gives pro- 
 fit ; and if power and profit are not temptations enough, 
 there is the Protestant Bishop to watch over its progress, 
 and to make it impossible to avoid the requisite portion of 
 assessment. This Act of Parliament deprives Catholics of 
 more valuable rights — that is of more of the actual enjoy- 
 ment of their own property than any statute passed since 
 the base violation of the Treaty of Limerick, in the reign 
 of Queen Anne — It enables the Established Church 
 
 TO LEVY AT LEAST ONE MILLION STERLING, ADDITIONAL, 
 PER ANNUM, FROM THE OCCUPIERS OF THE LAN© IN IRE- 
 LAND. 
 
 I had like to forget one more trait of perfection in this 
 Act Formerly there was but one taxing season in the year 
 for Parish vestries — at Easter or thereabouts. That, it 
 seems, was too little ; and this Act, after allowing the ves- 
 tries to tax for every thing, allows them to tax at every sea- 
 s#u ? and in every week of the year. There is a time far 
 
147 
 
 every thing, says the Proverb. There is no time, in future, 
 for Protestant vestries to cease taxing Papists in Ireland. I 
 have done, — This Act was passed to amend the law — it was 
 passed to redress a clearly established grievance, and this 
 — this is the redress. There is but one country in the 
 world in which and to which such a thing could happen. 
 It could happen only to Ireland. 
 
 There is but one country capable of inflicting so compli- 
 cated and treacherous a cruelty. For it has not occurred 
 in France, nor yet in Spain. The miserable Ferdinand is 
 free from such a reproach as this. He never purported to 
 redress a grievance and give such a cure as this. Neither k 
 Algiers or Constantinople stained with oppression of this 
 description. This pre-eminence belongs to England. 
 
 I conclude as I began. This abominable statute cannot, 
 and ought not to be resisted by force, or avenged by out- 
 rage. It never can be repealed, except by open, direct, 
 constitutional means. Let no law be violated. The man 
 who violates the law is the bitterest enemy to Ireland. 
 Respect the law, and then let one voice from the Giant's 
 Causeway to Cape Clear— too distinct to be mistaken, and 
 too loud to be despised, call for its repeal. 
 
 O 2 
 
MR. SHEIX/S 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 ON 
 
 THE DUKE OP YORK. 
 
 I HAVE waited until the Chair had been left, and the 
 meeting of the Association had terminated, in order to intro- 
 duce a subject, which, as it is of a purely political nature, i 
 refrained from mentioning during the discussions of the 
 Association, least it should give them a character of illega- 
 lity, and expose me to the imputation of having violated the 
 law. 1 refer to the recent observations which have been 
 made in the London Papers upon the report of a speech of 
 mine at a public dinner. 1 hope that I shall not be consi- 
 dered guilty of an overweening egotism, in drawing the 
 attention of the individuals, who happen to be assembled 
 here, to what may appear to relate to myself. But the 
 topics on which I mean to address you, are of public as well 
 as of personal interest. The truculent jocularity, and the 
 spirit of savage jest, which have been ascribed to me, in 
 expatiating on the infirmities of an illustrious person, have 
 been regarded as characteristic of the moral habitudes of the 
 body to which I belong. Thus, my vindication (for I do 
 not rise to make an apology) extends beyond myself. Yet 
 let me be permitted to suggest, that it is most unfair to 
 impute to a whole people the feelings or the sentiments of 
 any single man. The Catholics of Ireland have been repeat- 
 edly held responsible for the unauthorised and unsanctioned 
 language of individuals. Every ardent expression, every 
 word that overflows with gall, every phrase uttered in the 
 suddenness of unpremeditated emotion, are converted into 
 charges against seven millions of the Irish people. It is 
 dealing rather hardly with us, to make a loose after-dinner 
 
149 
 
 speech, (the mere bubble of the mind) thrown off in the 
 heedlessness of conviviality , sl matter of serious accusation 
 against a whole community. I am not endeavouring to 
 excuse myself upon any such plea as the Bishop of Kilmore 
 might resort to, in extenuating his late oration in Cavan ; or. 
 the contrary, I am prepared to shew the circumstances, 
 which, in my mind, gave warrant to what I said. But I de- 
 precate the notion that the language employed either by my- 
 self, or by any other individual, should be held to represent 
 the opinions of the Irish Catholics. It has been stated, that 
 laughter was produced by an ebullition of disastrous merri- 
 ment. I will suppose that some two or three dozen of indi- 
 viduals in an obscure country town, did not preserve the 
 solemnity with which any allusion to the maladies of an 
 illustrious person ought to have been received, yet it is 
 wholly unjust to hold the Irish Catholics responsible for 
 their lack of sensibility. Having said this much, in order 
 to rescue my fellow-labourers in the cause of emancipation, 
 from any responsibility for individual demerit, I shall pro- 
 ceed to state, what, in my judgment, affords a justification 
 of the language employed upon the occasion to which I 
 refer. I shall not deny that I entertain a solicitude upon 
 this subject. It is affectation on the part of any man to say, 
 that he holds the censure of the press in no account. I cannot 
 but be sensible that I am, from my comparative want of perso- 
 nal importance, more exposed to the injurious consequence 
 of such a simultaneous assault. But I do not complain ; 
 whoever intermeddles in public proceedings, must be pre- 
 pared for occasional condemnation. It is one of the neces- 
 sary results of notoriety, and I submit to it, as a portion of 
 my fate. I shall not, therefore, insinuate that there is any 
 mock sentimentality in the amiable indignation with which 
 the writers of the Whig Journals have vented their censures 
 upon what they call the barbarous hilarity of an after-dinner 
 harangue. I will not say, that it is easy to procure a cha- 
 racter for high sentiment, by indulging in a paroxysm of 
 editorial anger. Nay, I will give the gentlemen who have 
 put so much sentiment into type, credit for sincerity, and 
 without attempting to retaliate, without referring them to 
 their own comments upon the illustrious immoralities of the 
 distinguished person to whom I have alluded, I shall state the 
 grounds of which I conceive that I have been unjustly assailed. 
 I is right that I should at once proceed to mention exactly 
 what took place. The Chairman of the Meeting in ques- 
 tion, deviated from the ordinary usage at Roman Catholic 
 
150 
 
 dinners, and, in compliance with what, from his mexpm- 
 ence, he considered to be a sort of formula of convma loy- 
 alty, proposed the health of a man, who is an object, to 
 Hse the mildest phrase, of strong national disrelish This 
 I confess, excited my indignation. I felt md *f^! *P* 
 where is the man who has one drop of manly Mo^nihw 
 heart, who would not feel indignation at being called I on _to 
 offer a public homage to the individual, who < has an oath 
 ?n Heaven" against his country. I was tempted at first to 
 llstrate in the language of violent reproof "W* 
 an obnoxious toast, and 1 own that I felt it difficult to re- 
 Sain ?he emotions which, in common with every Roman 
 Catholic, I entertain towards the man, who is the avowed 
 ana devoted antagonist of Ireland. I recollected, howev r 
 that the Chairman had done no more than complj With what 
 he conceived to be a mere form, and I ^re f ore preferred, 
 a mockery of the sentiment to any solemn denunaataon — 
 To the toast the expression of a hope was annexed, that 
 wkh tlie restoration of health, his feelings towards this 
 country should undergo an alteration. " My gorge rose 
 at the no£ of a man! whose hereditary obstinacy has been 
 formed by an adjuration of his 
 
 dinarian convert to liberal opinions The ran mt on from 
 an-er to derision is an easy one, and 1 could not help ► ra- 
 ffing in the luxury of scorn (for it is not without its gra- 
 tification,) and in the spirit of a gay malevo ence, but not of 
 heartless'ridicule, I stated, that I did not despair of seeing 
 a consummation of the pious aspirations m which 1 natt 
 beTcTdtojoin, wheJlrecdl^.thatFr^i™;.. |J 
 nolitics might be as fleeting as those m loye, and that as 
 S Jove laughs at lover's perjuries," I apprehended an un- 
 fortunate stability in « soVlp me God ! It was un- 
 natural that in this mood of unpremedita ted moc kery, I 
 should make citations from certain celebrated ^epistles , wh«e 
 vows of everlasting attachment were Mcceeded by liindeli- 
 ties of so much infelicitous renown. The report of what 1 
 Sd was not full, and although I do not affect to say ^ that 
 the expressions imputed to me were not used, yet they are 
 presS to thepnblic eye, without much cone— ng. 
 ter, which would shew them in, perhaps, a d'ffeient lignt. 
 I am sorry that the references to those cekbrated lettej 
 were omitted. The following were among the P^fS- * 
 which I alluded, and which I think will bear me out How 
 can I sufficiently express to my sweetest, my darling lov 
 Z delight which her dear, her pretty ette * gave »e-* l 
 lions of thanks for it, my angel. Doctor O deliverer 
 
151 
 
 your letter. He wishes much to preach before royalty, and 
 if I can put him in the way of it, I will. What a time it 
 appears to me, my darling, since w T e parted, and how im- 
 patiently I look forward to next Wednesday night. God 
 bless you, my dear love ; ah ! believe me, even to my last 
 hour, your's, and your's alone." Thus, you perceive, that 
 his affection was sealed with as strong a vow as his antipa- 
 thy. The next letter gives vent to still more impetuous 
 emotions. a How can 1 express to my darling love my 
 thanks for her dear, dear letter. Oh ! my angel, do me 
 justice, and be convinced that there never was a woman 
 : adored as you are. There are still, however, two whole 
 nights before I shall clasp my dear angei in my arms. Co- 
 vering is mistaken, my dear, in thinking there are any new 
 regiments to be raised. (Thereby hangs a tale.) Thanks, 
 my love, for the handkerchiefs, which are delightful, and I 
 need not, I trust, assure you, of the pleasure I feel in 
 wearing them, and thinking of the dear hands who made 
 thera for me. Adieu, my sweetest love, until the day after 
 to-morrow , and be assured, that until my last hour, I shall 
 remain your's and your's alone." It would be doing injus- 
 tice to the celebrated writer of these exotic effusions, if I 
 did not add that his recommendation of an Irish Divine, 
 was fully justified by the result, for the Morning Post men- 
 tions, that while the Doctor, with the Irish Omega, in his 
 name, was preaching, the father of the illustrious indivi- 
 dual was very attentive, and his mother and sisters were 
 melted into tears. There is an amusement of a demi lite- 
 rary kind, commonly called "cross reading" I have some- 
 times put the " So help me God" oration, into juxta posi- 
 tion with the amatory lucubrations from which I have given 
 a few extracts, and the reading stood thus : " It was con- 
 nected with the serious illness of one now no more. Doc- 
 tor O' wishes much to preach before royalty. I have 
 
 never seen any reason to regret or change the line which I 
 then took." " Oh ! my angel, do me justice, and be con- 
 vinced that there never was a woman adored as you are — 
 there are still, however, two whole nights before I can clasp 
 my angel in my arms." I feel very strongly on the whole 
 subject — " ten thousand thanks, my love, for the handker- 
 chiefs, which are delightful." .Here he became sensibly af- 
 fected. - e I have been brought up all my life in these prin- 
 ciples, and be assured, that to my last hour, I shall ever 
 remain your's, and your's alone, ' So help me God !' " — 
 This amalgamation of his passions and his politics, in which 
 his vices and his virtues are fused together, presents his cha- 
 
152 
 
 racter in a just light. But I should lay aside the lan- 
 guage of derision. Why have I made these references to 
 transactions, which, but for his relentless anthipathies to my 
 country, I should readily have forgotten ? It is not in the 
 spirit of wanton malignity and inglorious revenge. It 
 is for the purpose of recalling to the commentators 
 upon myself the period at which that illustrious per- 
 son was an object of as much aversion in England, 
 as he is in Ireland at this day.— It is for the pur- 
 pose of branding his protestations about conscience, 
 with all the scorn which they merit ; it is in order to 
 exhibit, in their just light, his appeals to heaven • to put 
 his morality into comparison with his religion, and to 
 tear off the masque by which the spirit of oppression is 
 sought to be disguised. Conscience, forsooth ! It is enough 
 to make one's blood boil to think on't ! That he who had 
 publicly, and in the open common day, thrown off every 
 coverlet of shame — who had wallowed in the blackest stie 
 of profligate sensuality, an avowed and ostentatious adulterer, 
 whose harlot had sustained herself by the sale of Commis- 
 sions, and turned footmen into brigadiers ! that he yet 
 
 hot and reeking from the results of a foul and most dis 
 graceful concubinage, should, without sense or memory or 
 feeling, before the eyes of the whole empire, with the 
 traces of his degradation still fresh upon him, presume to call 
 upon the name of the Great and Eternal God, and in all the 
 blasphemy of sacrilegious cant, dedicate himself with an 
 invocation of heaven to the everlasting oppression of my 
 country ! This it is that sets me, and every Irish Catholic, 
 on fire ! This is it which raises, excites, inflames, and ex- 
 asperates! This it is that applies a torch to our passions. 
 This it is that blows our indignation into flame. And it is 
 this, which, in the eyes of men, who stand the cold specta- 
 tors of our sufferings, and yield us a fastidious sympathy in 
 our wrongs, makes us appear factious, virulent, and feroci- 
 ous. This it is which makes them think that our mouths 
 are foaming with rapid froth, and that there is poison mixed 
 with madness in our fangs. I will furnish our anta- 
 gonists with expressions of condemnation : I will assist their 
 vocabulary of insult — I will allow them to heap contumely 
 upon contumely, and reproach upon reproach, and I will 
 only answer, that if they were similarly situated, they 
 would feel with the same poignancy, and speak with the 
 same turbulent virulence as ourselves, — I will only say, in 
 the language of the great master of human nature — 
 " You should not speak of what you cannot feel." 
 
153 
 
 They cannot feel our condition, or appreciate our injuries to 
 their full extent. I cannot say the same thing of the illus- 
 trious person to whom 1 have alluded. He has been placed 
 in circumstances somewhat analogous. Good God ! that 
 such a man should tell us that we labour under no privation, 
 and are subject to no wrong ! What were his own feelings 
 — how did his heart beat when he was driven by the loud 
 and reiterated cries of the English people, from his high 
 office ! We are told by him that an exclusion from the ho- 
 nours of the State is no substantive injury. Did he forget 
 his own letter to the House of Commons, in which he 
 offered up an Act of contrition for the consequences if his 
 impure connexion, and. acknowledging that his heart was 
 almost broken, resigned his office ! Did the sacrifice cost 
 him no pang ? Did the oblation which he made to the 
 public feeling awake no painful sensation in his mind ? Did 
 not his cheek burn, and was not his face turned into scarlet, 
 when he took the pen with a trembling hand, (for it must 
 have trembled,) and signed the instrument of his resigna- 
 tion ! What a palsy must have seized his arm when he let 
 the truncheon fall ! And if in that dreadful crisis he felt a 
 deep agony of heart, should he not make some allowance 
 for those who, for no other cause than a conscientious adhe- 
 rence to the religion in which they were born and trust to 
 die, are excluded from those honours which are accessible 
 to every other class of British subjects ? What then is the 
 charge against me ? That I have not enough of Joseph 
 Surface in my character, to express a wish that the great ob- 
 stacle to my liberty should not be removed ! My crime is, 
 that I am not a hypocrite so base, as to allow a public liba- 
 tion to his name, to pass without a comment. It was 
 extorted from me, and my observations were not dictated by 
 any cold and deliberate malice toward the individual, but 
 by the feeling of distaste which the annoueement of such a 
 toast produced in my mind. The sarcasm was directed to the 
 sentiment and not to the man. With respect to the indivi- 
 dual himself, I doubt not that in private life he is not 
 destitute of good qualities. It is said that he is a person of 
 honour, and of a kindly dispositon. This I am not inclined 
 to controvert ; and it would be an injustice not to add, that 
 in many particulars, in his official capacity, he is entitled to 
 praise. Diligence, punctuality, and an attention to the 
 interests of the inferior class of persons, who are placed un- 
 der his superintendance, are among his merits. But what com- 
 pensation does good nature afford for the denial of liberty ? 
 The mistakes of men in his condition are equivalent in their 
 
154 
 
 consequences to acts of deliberate criminality. Imbecility 
 of understanding, and obstinacy of character, generate as 
 many evil results as depravity of disposition, and, if I may 
 employ the phrase, tyranny of heart. If I have adverted to 
 conduct, which, in a court, is called folly, but which in 
 lower departments of society is called vice, it is not that I 
 am anxious to exaggerate those weaknesses which exposed 
 him to ridicule, into enormity. The absurdities in love, 
 into which he fell, should rest in oblivion, if he did not, by 
 talking of the pain to which the Royal conscience would be 
 exposed, provoke a contrast between his life and his protest- 
 ations, and make us tear open the tattered curtains of con- 
 cubinage, in order to draw arguments against him from an 
 adulterous bed. Who, we inevitably ask, is the man who 
 appeals to heaven ? Who is the man that entreats the 
 House to consider the torture of conscience in which the 
 Sovereign is thus placed ? Who is it that lifts up his hand 
 and exclaims, "So help me God ?" Is he a man of pure and 
 unblemished life ? Is he a man of bright and immaculate 
 morality r» Is he a man distinguished for his fidelity to his 
 pecuniary contracts, and who never allowed his humble 
 creditors to be the victims of a licentious prodigality? 
 These are the interrogatories which this appeal to Almighty 
 God necessarily forces upon us. We are rendered astute in 
 the detection of errors, by the anxiety to find fault, and look 
 into the life of such a person with a microscopic scrutiny. 
 It is much to be regretted that he has exhibited a solicitude 
 to be hated by the Irish people. He has lost no opportu- 
 nity to gather about his name the antipathies of this coun- 
 try. Witness his having accepted the office of Grand 
 Master of an illegal association of men, combined together 
 for the oppression of their fellow-countrymen, and who, 
 perverting the word of God into the signal of massacre, 
 employed as a motto of their sanguinary institution, " Thy 
 foot shall be steeped in the blood of thine enemies, and the 
 tongue of thy dog shall be red with the lapping thereof/' Is it, 
 then, to be expected, that, for the Ex-Grand Master of an 
 Orange Lodge we should entertain much tendernessand anx- 
 iety, or that any man who has taken the active part which I 
 have, in Catholic affairs, should allow his name, when held up 
 as an object of sympathy, to pass without some reprehensive 
 comment ? I do not exult in any corporal suffering which 
 he may endure. If he suffers pain, and it were in my 
 power to alleviate it, I should obey the instincts of my 
 nature, and, dismissing my political detestations, bear him 
 relief. But if I am asked whether I should desire to see 
 
155 
 
 the misfortunes of my country prolonged, I answer, " the 
 liberty of Ireland is too dear." He is. it is bevond all 
 doubt, the great obstacle to concession. What, then, do our 
 opponents expect from us ? If they require that excess of 
 Christian philosophy, which should teach us to offer up our 
 orisons for the degradation of our country, they ask too 
 much. What would Catholic Emancipation produce ? It 
 would promote a v/hole people to their just level in the 
 State ; it would create tranquillity, and open the sources of 
 national wealth in a land which is impoverished by its dis- 
 tractions, it would bind us in harmony together, and put 
 an end to those dissensions by which w r e are rent asunder, 
 and by which all the charities of life are blasted ; it would 
 remove that spirit of animosity and virulence which fills the 
 hearts of men with the worst passions, and makes them turn 
 with an emulation of hatred upon each other ; it would, in 
 one word, produce a great and permanent national reconci- 
 liation, and fix the stability of the British empire upon an 
 everlasting foundation. These would, in my mind, be the 
 glorious results of Catholic Emancipation : and I am only 
 speaking the feeling of the whole Irish people, when I avow 
 that I do not desire the perpetuation of the chief impedi- 
 ment that stands in its way, and thus obstructs a consumma- 
 tion which every lover of hi* country must most devoutly 
 wish. 
 
MR. SHEIL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 ON THE 
 
 DEATH OF THE DUKE OP YORK. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL rose and said — The Duke of York — (in this 
 crisis of our affairs, let me be excused for the introduction 
 of a subject, which, although it be not immediately con- 
 nected with the question before you, yet occupies the 
 thoughts and absorbs the emotions of the Irish people) — the 
 Duke of York — (the utterance of his name has fixed your 
 attention, and I own to you that I do not speak it without 
 a palpitation of the heart) — the Duke of York, the eldest 
 brother of a childless King, whose hand had almost grasped 
 the sceptre, and whose foot was upon the throne — he to i 
 whom Providence appeared to have assigned the performance 
 of so important a part in the concerns of mankind, who had i 
 gathered so much expectation around him — upon whom the 
 eyes of three nations were turned, and who was at once the 
 source of so much hope and of so much despair — but why 
 should I expand the feelings associated with his name into 
 amplification, when that name itself carries its own commen- 
 tary ? — and it is enough to say, that while I am speaking, the 
 Duke of York is dying — perhaps the Duke of York is 
 already dead The last struggle of human agony may be 
 over — the last gasp may have been heaved — the tongue by 
 which God was evoked, may be silent ; and ere this the arm 
 that was raised to heaven against my country, may lie stiff 
 and cold for ever. It will be asked, wherefore thus abruptly, 
 and in the midst of a debate upon subjects wholly distinct, 
 I enter upon so solemn and momentous a theme? For 
 two reasons — first, because the event itself is one of sur- 
 passing importance ; and, secondly, because I have a 
 sort of peculiar, and some will, perhaps, consider it 
 an unhappy right, to deliver my sentiments in anticipa- 
 tion of an incident, which, when it shall take place, 
 
157 
 
 will make England turn round and inquire, with what emo- 
 tions the announcement will have been received in Ireland? 
 
 You will observe that I speak of this incident, as if it had 
 
 already taken place, or had begun to be. No doubt can 
 any longer be entertained that the illustrious person to whom 
 I refer is, for all political purposes, dead ; and in Courts, in 
 the estimate of Statesmen and of expectants, between the 
 dving and the dead, there is little difference. There is little 
 difference between the death-bed of royalty and its grave. 
 The lamp that lights the chamber of an expiring Prince dif- 
 fuses a gleam as dismal as the glare of those torches with 
 which the vaults of Windsor Castle shortly will be illumi- 
 nated. Of the Duke of York, therefore, 1 may speak as if 
 his dust were already mingled with the remains of the So- 
 vereign, whose faults and good qualities he seems to have 
 inherited. What then shall I now say of him ? This: — 
 
 " Thou art dead, Alonzo, 
 " So is my enmity." — 
 
 Many a man who hears me will be disposed to inquire whe- 
 ther I have entered this assembly for the purpose of making 
 a recantation of what, some months before his death, and 
 when there was much controversy respecting his health, I 
 uttered in his regard. I answer — a recantation may consist of 
 sentiments and assertions. The facts which I stated consti- 
 tute a portion of the history of these countries, and how- 
 ever they might admit of extenuation, cannot be denied 
 with truth. This is not the time to indulge in any contu- 
 melious allusion to infelicities of conduct, connected more 
 with a weakness of the affections, than with any rooted de- 
 pravity of heart. But if I am asked, whether the death of 
 an imprudent, a rash, a precipitate and headstrong, but not 
 a base, dishonest, false and dissimilating antagonist, will 
 afford me matter for savage exultation, and for inglorious 
 triumph, I answer — certainly not; nor should the people 
 of this country follow the example set them by the English, 
 who, at the burial of Castlereagh, shouted at the gates of 
 Westminster Abbey, and commended him with execrations 
 to the grave. While the death of the Duke of York was 
 problematical — while it was asserted upon one hand that he 
 was in no danger, and his danger was only matter of sur- 
 mise on the other — while the balance which contained the 
 destinies of the country was trembling, it was not very un- 
 natural, however it might be regarded as indiscreet, to 
 P 
 
158 
 
 give vent to a desire, when its expression was actually pro- 
 voked under very peculiar and very exciting circumstances, 
 that the chief impediment to the liberties of Ireland should 
 not last for ever. I might have said, in the language of the 
 Lamentations, " My soul was filled with bitterness, and I 
 was drunk with wormwood." But now that doubt has been 
 converted into certainty — now that we hear that a Prince is 
 dying, and expect every instant that a cry will come upon 
 us which shall tell that " that a Prince is dead" — now that 
 death, who, while he levels the great, subdues the animo- 
 sities of the humble, and while he resolves the hearts of 
 Princes into dust, softens the hearts of the lowly into com- 
 miseration — now that the bell of that lofty temple that 
 
 towers over the great city has begun to toll — now 
 
 it is not with affectation that I speak, when I declare, that 
 so far from experiencing any feeling of fierce and truculent 
 hilarity, every emotion of anger, every vindictive and acri- 
 monious sentiment passes away, and the passions by which 
 I confess that I was recently actuated, expire and die within 
 me. Let it not be supposed that I am so poor minded, that 
 I am sufficiently mean, and paltry, and disingenuous to state, 
 that I look upon the death of the Duke of York with 
 regret; I do not. No Roman Catholic in this coun- 
 try does — and if sorrow were affected, it should be re- 
 garded with derision and contempt. I am also sufficiently 
 secure of the good opinion of that body to which I belong, 
 and of which I have received many attestations, to be con- 
 vinced that no pusillanimous or unworthy motive will be 
 attributed to me in doing what I consider an act of justice 
 to one, who having no longer the power to injure, should 
 excite hate no more. If I trust thorns into his pillow, I will 
 not sow thistles upon his grave. I am willing, if it be 
 possible, to forget the anathemas pronounced against my 
 country — I am willing, if it can be made matter for ob- 
 livion, to forget, that wantonly and unnecessarily, and in 
 the spirit of a gratuitous folly, he declared himself the un- 
 alterable opponent of our claims, and not only checked ex- 
 pectation, but extinguished hope ; all this, and more than 
 this, I am inclined to forget, or if I am forced to remem- 
 ber that to which it is impossible not in some degree to re- 
 vert, I am disposed to make allowance for early prejudices, 
 imbibed from a Hanoverian parentage, and sucked in with 
 Lutheran milk. I remember the catechism of the royal 
 nursery, and the perpetual inculcation that it was to their 
 religion that this family were indebted for their throne. I 
 
159 
 
 further recollect how difficult it is for philosophy to find 
 its way into a palace ; and how flattery and subserviency 
 block the minds of princes up ; and, above all, I recol- 
 lect how much that man is to be forgiven, who has the mis- 
 fortune to be surrounded by bad councillors, who is con- 
 verted into the utensil of a faction, and who has Liverpool 
 ejaculating at one ear, and Eldon weeping at the other. It 
 would be unfair and unmanly, not to take these extenuating 
 circumstances into account; and, at all events, nothing should 
 be " set down in malice." Let me be permitted to add, 
 that in his private life the Duke of York exhibited many 
 generous and even noble qualifications. If he had not been 
 born a prince,, he would, in all likelihood, have been a truly 
 good and moral man, and even the imperfections almost in- 
 separable from his education, could not entirely vitiate an 
 originally fine and kindly nature. He was admitted, upon 
 all hands, to have been a man of strict fidelity to his engage- 
 ments, and of high personal honour — a gentleman in the 
 most enlarged and moral sense of the word, frank, open, 
 honest, and unaffected, who never destroyed with a false 
 hope, or ruined with a smile. Easy and accessible — pre- 
 serving the sense of his own dignity, but never offending the 
 feelings of those by whom he was approached — endowed 
 with that lofty gentleness and fine suavity, which ensure 
 attachment while they command respect, the Duke of York 
 must be confessed, even by those who are most inclined to 
 find fault with him, to have deserved no ordinary portion 
 of that popularity which he had acquired. Nor was it to 
 his private life that his good qualities were confined. As Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, he obtained a kind of renown for his impar- 
 tiality, and secured the affections of the army, thro' his care 
 of the interests of the humbler classes engaged in the service. 
 It is no small praise, that the complaint of the meanest sol- 
 dier would not have been dismissed without investigation, 
 and, if he deserved it, without redress. To the comforts of 
 the soldiers he dedicated the most persevering and anxious 
 attention, and many of our poor countrymen, on the sum- 
 mits of the Pyrennees, in wrapping themselves from the 
 sleet and from the blast, had reason to remember the humane 
 anxieties of the Duke of York. Will any of you blame me 
 for speaking thus ? Will any of you consider me a de- 
 serter of my party, or think that I run from my colours ? 
 Will any of you — of you who have Irish hearts and natures, 
 and in whom resentment and bad passion cannot keep an 
 everlasting hold — will anv of vou condemn me for speaking 
 P 2 
 
160 
 
 thus ? You know me too well to suspect me — you know 
 too well, that when it was required either by what I owed 
 to the country or to myself, that I should not recede, that I 
 not only stood my ground, but I bade defiance to all results. 
 What I did speak, I spoke boldly and deliberately ; but the 
 gentlemen connected with the press will do me the justice 
 to admit, that I told them I should take the whole responsi- 
 bility upon my own head ; I therefore can now afford to do 
 what I consider an act of justice, without imputation of 
 either inconsistency or fear, and, I believe, it will be con- 
 fessed upon all hands, that I should be absurd indeed, if I 
 thought there was any thing to gain, But a truce to this 
 egotism — enough of myself. It is wise to consider what 
 course the country ought to take in this important change 
 of circumstances. I am decidedly of opinion, that while we 
 should avoid expressing any false and dishonourable regret y 
 we should, on the other hand, give way to no bursts of 
 exultation. But there is no danger that feelings will be 
 expressed which have no deep existence amongst us. Let 
 us, instead of taking vindictive and angry retrospects, 
 turn to futurity, and lifting our eyes from the grave, look 
 forward to the new prospects which are opening before us. 
 It is better that the faults of the Duke of York should be 
 speedily commended to forgiveness. Indeed it is almost 
 unnecessary to express a desire, which the natural oblivion, 
 that must befal the greatest as well as their inferiors, 
 cannot fail to accomplish. In a month hence the Duke of 
 York will be forgotten. The pomp of death will for a few 
 nights fill the gilded apartments in which his body will lie 
 in state. The artist will endeavour to avert that decay to 
 which even Princes are doomed, and embalm him with 
 odours, which may resist the cadaverous scent for a while. 
 He will be laid in a winding sheet fringed with silver and 
 with gold — he will be enclosed in rich and spicy wood, and 
 his illustrious descent and withered hopes will be inscribed 
 upon his glittering coffin. The bell of St Paul's will toll ; 
 London — rich, luxurious, Baby Ionic London — will start at 
 the recollection that even kings must die. His Royal Bro- 
 ther may shed a tear over his memory, and wipe his eyes, 
 with the kerchief which is yet wet with his parental sorrows. 
 The day of his solemn obsequies will arrive — the gorgeous 
 procession will go forth in its funeral glory— the ancient 
 Chapel of Windsor Castle will be thrown open, and its Go- 
 thic aisle will be thronged with the array of Royalty — the 
 emblazoned windows will be illuminated- — the notes of holy 
 
161 
 
 melody will arise — the beautiful service of the dead will be 
 repeated by the heads of the Church, of which he will be 
 the cold and senseless champion — the vaults of the dead will 
 be unclosed — the nobles, and the ladies, and the High Priests 
 of the land, will look down into those deep depositories of 
 the pride, and the vanity, and the ambition of the world. 
 They will behold the heir to the greatest empire in the world 
 taking possession, not of the palace, which was raised at 
 such an enormous and unavailing cost, but of that ' house 
 which lasts till doomsday/ The coffin will go sadly and 
 slowly down ; they will hear it as its ponderous mass strikes 
 on the remains of its regal kindred ; the chaunt will be re- 
 sumed, a moment's awful pause will take place — the marble 
 vault, of which none but the Archangel shall disturb the 
 slumbers, will be closed — the songs of death will cease — the 
 procession will wind through the aisles again, and restore them 
 to their loneliness. The torches will fade again in the ope* 
 daylight — the multitude of the great, who will have attend- 
 ed the ceremony, will gradually disperse ; they will roll 
 again in their gilded chariots into the din and tumult of the 
 great metropolis ; the business, and the pursuits, and all the 
 frivolities of life will be resumed, and the heir to three 
 kingdoms will be in a week forgotten. We, too, shall for- 
 get and pardon him. But while we are thus willing to 
 drink of that wholesome Lethe, whose drafts are full of 
 such moral salubrity — while we are thus resolved upon act- 
 ing the part which becomes our country and its religion, kt 
 us not be insensible to the great and most important change 
 which has taken place in our political prospects ; and let us 
 recollect, that there is ground for expecting that the Heir 
 Presumptive is not unfavourable to our claims. He is nearly 
 allied with one of the ablest, most enlightened, and lofty- 
 minded Statesmen of the time. Much may be expected from 
 his intercourse with a man, who, akin in spirit, as well as in 
 blood, to the immortal Fox, (for such men cannot altogether 
 die,) — he is not distinguished by that obstinacy of character 
 which was the prominent feature in the mind of his brother. 
 What a splendid occasion, what a noble and illustrious oppor- 
 tunity such as fortune has furnished to few, even of those to 
 whom Providence has left perhaps too much influence upon 
 the destinies of mankind ! He must perceive the fault com- 
 mitted by his brother — he must feel what a mistake it was, 
 to marshal the antipathies, and provoke the hostility of a 
 whole people-— he cannot be insensible of the rashness by 
 which an honest minded, but unthinking man, pledged 
 P 3 
 
162 
 
 himself by an oath to heaven, to resist the claims of seven 
 millions of his future subjects — he must see that this was, 
 to speak of such conduct in the gentlest terms, most ab- 
 surd, impolitic and unwise He has therefore the benefit 
 of a solemn admonition delivered to him in a very striking 
 example. Should he remain neutral as the Duke fe of York 
 should have remained, his neutrality will, at least, rescue 
 him from disrelish. But should he act the loftier and 
 more magnanimous part of embracing the interests of" 
 eon-third of the population of the Empire, and devoting 
 himself to the promotion of a cause, which not only ar- 
 rests the attention of these countries, but has awakened the 
 solicitudes of foreign nations, and is the subject of discussion 
 in every eabinet in Europe — he will obtain for himself an 
 everlasting place in the affections and the' gratitude of the 
 Irish people. Which, then, is the best course ? Which is 
 it wiser or better to secure the adulation of the Parsons, or 
 the devotion of Ireland ? Which is it better to conciliate 
 Peel, Liverpool and Eldon, or, at a moment when the eyes 
 of Europe are fixed upon this country — when the debates of 
 the Erench Parliament turn upon our numbers, our inju- 
 ries, and our determination — when England is taunted with 
 her domestic discords, and she is told that she carries the 
 seeds of ruin in the very foundations of her system — which 
 is it better to deprive the enemies of England of this cause 
 of insolent trinmph and contumelious reproach, and to make 
 the heart of every Irishman beat with an ardent, an en- 
 thusiastic, a devoted, and a grateful loyalty, and marshal! 
 alL the strength and energies of a brave, a fiery, and most 
 martial population in the defence of the Empire — which, I 
 say, is it better and more consistent with just feeling to do 
 all this, or, for the purpose of feeding the passions of the 
 sacerdotal multitude, and pampering the spirit of intol- 
 lerant domination, which rages in the hearts of their Pon- 
 tiffs and High Priests, with nothing to be gained, but the 
 lacrymotory sycophancy of Eldon, the holy plaudits of 
 Liverpool, Bloomfield's apostate panegyric, and the oppro- 
 brious encomium of Magee, to keep this country in a 
 state of perilous distraction, and appalling discontent ; to 
 nurture, if 1 may say so, a cancer in the very centre and 
 bosom of the empire, to raise up a dreadful incompati- 
 bility between our interests and our duty, to make our al- 
 legance effort of our feelings, rather than a voluntary 
 and unbidden effusion of our principles, or, in one word, 
 continue that frightful state of things, which ought to 
 
163 
 
 make every good man shudder — whose is every day 
 hurrying this country to a most alarming crisis, in an- 
 ticipating bloody result, we are justified in exclaiming, 
 " Be it upon them and upon their children's heads r" 
 
MR. SHEILS 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 ON THE 
 
 NEW REFORMATION, 
 
 SPOKEN AT AN 
 
 AGGREGATE MEETING. 
 
 Mr. SHIEJL said, — Peel is out — Batliurst is out-— West- 
 morland is out— Goulburn (but he is not worth mention) is 
 out — Wellington, the bad Irishman, (he was once a pager 
 in the castle, and acquired a habit of thinking as trailing 
 as a Lady Lieutenant's gown) is out— and, thanks be to 
 God, the hoary champion of every abuse— the venerable 
 supporter of corruption in all its forms — the pious antago- 
 nist of every generous sentiment — the virtuous opponent of 
 every liberal amelioration— the immaculate Senator, who 
 wept over the ruins of Grampound ; the incorruptible 
 judge, who declared the Princess of Wales to be innocent, 
 the Queen of England to be guilty— Eldon, procrastinat- 
 ing, canting, griping, whining, weeping, ejaculating, pro- 
 testing, money-getting, and money-keeping Eldon, is out. 
 This, after all, is something. We have got rid of that 
 eandid gentleman, who, for an abridgment of the decalo- 
 gue, would abridge Ireland of her liberties. We have got 
 rid of the gaoler who presided over the captivity of Napo- 
 leon, and was so well qualified to design what Sir Hudson 
 Lowe was so eminently calculated to execute. We have 
 got rid of the authoritative soldier, who has proved him- 
 self as thankless to his Sovereign as he had been ungrateful 
 to his country, and who has been put to the right about 
 
165 
 
 left— and, better than all — better than the presumption of 
 Wellington, the narrow heartedness of Bathurst, the arro- 
 gance of Westmorland, the ostentatious manliness and ela- 
 borate honesty of Mr. Peel, we have got rid of John Lord 
 Eldon's tears. The old hypocrite ! His mind is like the 
 face of the witch in Horace, " stercore fucata crocodili." 
 Yet it were doing him wrong not to admit, that once in his 
 life, his sorrows were sincere, when upon a recent occasion, 
 looking the sympathetic Wetherell, and the renegade Sug- 
 den, in the face, his Lordship wept and blubbered a resig- 
 nation. The whole empire rejoices at his fall, and by that 
 fall much has been already gained by this country. Mr. Can- 
 ning, and his friends, will not relinquish the determination 
 the moment they have acquired the power, to do us justice. 
 I have no distrust of them ; and with respect to the measure 
 which we ought to adopt, I will say but one word, namely, 
 that we ought not to harass and embarrass the men who are 
 still surrounded with difficulties, and who must be allowed 
 time to mature their good intents towards our cause. They 
 have been long convinced that emancipation is requisite to 
 allay our animosities, and every day affords a new illustra- 
 tion of its necessity. In what part of the world is religious 
 rancour carried to such a point of detestation ? — Our evils 
 were already sufficiently great, but a new and a worse cala- 
 mity has lately arisen in the furious spirit of controversy 
 which tias recently broken out in Ireland. In prosecuting 
 their favourite scheme of establishing a New Reformation, 
 (which Leslie Foster, in a paroxysm of unusual eloquence, 
 informed the House of Commons, that it would be as diffi- 
 cult to resist as to stop the falls of Niagara) the itinerant 
 teachers of a new-tangled Christianity disturb the public- 
 peace, sow discord wherever they appear, and exasperate the 
 people, by casting upon their priesthood the most contume- 
 lious invectives with which foul tongues can be supplied by 
 still fouler and baser hearts. The New Reformation ! 
 Though 1 should incur the anathema of the Ex- Secretary 
 to Lord Lansdowne, and Dr. Bloomfield should indulge in 
 a burlesque on the Apocalypse, I cannot but smile at this 
 preposterous undertaking. , In candour, however, I should 
 say, that in one respect these symptoms of renovated Chris- 
 tianity correspond with the circumstances attending its 
 original institution. It is among the poor, the naked, and 
 the destitute, that truth is making its way. It is among the 
 dregs of the community that the premiums of apostacy are 
 successfully applied. It is amidst the smoke of hovels that 
 this new light has broken forth. It is in the exhalations of 
 
166 
 
 pig-sties that the holy spirit has appeared. There is no 
 tack of Magdalens among the converts to this New Refor- 
 mation. This difference, however, exists between the 
 institution of Christianity and the New Reformation — neither 
 Lord Farnham nor Lord Lorton bear any very great resem- 
 blance to the first delegates of Christ, For my part, I 
 conceive that the real interests of religion are deeply affected 
 by the scenes which are going on in this country, and I 
 apprehend, that if the Catholic creed be subverted, infide- 
 lity will rise out of its ruins. By teaching men to explore, 
 you may disturb and weaken the deepest foundations of 
 their faith. Witness the pleasant story told by Mr. Pope upon 
 the adventures of a mouse with the Eucharist. ec Could a 
 mouse run away with the Godhead ?" cries Mr. Pope. 
 £e Did the author of the sun, to whose throne the eye of 
 Galileo could not approach, perish upon a cross ?" This 
 is the impious interrogatory of the infidel, which is analogous 
 to the pious question of Mr. Pope ; and he and his confede- 
 rates, by familiarising the ignorant and unthinking to the 
 contemplation of subjects which are above their reason, and 
 do not fall within the cognizance of the imperfect intellect 
 of man, lend their involuntary aid to those who have set up 
 as apostles of annihilation, and with a passion for atheism, 
 take a disastrous pride in withering the hopes and blasting 
 the moral and consolatory anticipations of mankind. I 
 confess that I look on the recent controversy which has 
 agitated this city, as likely to be injurious to the cause of 
 genuine religion ; for it has made its most sacred mysteries 
 a subject of theological chit-chat. I do not mean to cast 
 the least blame upon Mr, Maguire, who was actually 
 dragged into the combat by his opponent ; on the contrary, 
 I think that Mr, Maguire acquitted himself in a manner 
 which reflects the greatest credit upon him ; for although 
 hitherto unknown, and wholly unpractised in public speak- 
 ing, he entered the lists with the great prize fighter in 
 polemics without dismay, and deriving a genuine eloquence 
 from the consciousness that he spoke the truth, evinced a 
 decided superiority over his antagonist. He was never 
 once betrayed into anger — while his opponent, by his con- 
 tumelious charges, indicated the depth to which his pride 
 had been wounded. He looked at him with the smile with 
 which Calvin ordered Servetus to the flames. It is by the 
 convulsive passions that agitated the evil spirit in the 
 disguise of an angel, that Uriel discovered the enemy of 
 mankind — and it may be said in the language of Milton, of 
 this champion of the New Reformation, that, 
 
167 
 
 While he 9poke, each passion dimmed his face, 
 Thrice changed with pale ire, envy, and despair, 
 Which marred his borrowed visage, and betrayed 
 Him counterfeit — 
 
 For heavenly minds from such distempers foul 
 Be ever clear. 
 
 What a contrast did the poor Priest, the logician of the 
 mountains, present to this modern Apostle ! With the 
 flush of rural health upon his cheek — with the benevalent 
 expression of honest good nature upon his face — with all 
 the evidence of sincerity impressed upon him — he replied 
 with mildness to the charges brought against his truth and 
 honour, and exhibited the true spirit of a christian by hold- 
 ing forth a tender of amity, and begging that they should 
 part in peace. It would be doing Mr. Pope an injustice not 
 to say, that his good feelings got the better of his religious 
 rancour, and he merged the animosities of the theologian in 
 the honest emotions of the man. This was the only circum- 
 stance which could promote the cause of true religion in the 
 whole of the six days' discussion. It was altogether a most 
 fantastic scene. A wandering dealer in inspiration, a sort 
 of rider to the great manufacturies of religion in the metro- 
 polis, takes it into his head that he can put an end to the 
 dispute which has agitated the world, by putting down a 
 country Priest to whom he gives a challenge. Mr. Maguire 
 is forced into it — two seconds are chosen. — Paulus JEmilius 
 Singer, on whose head a tongue of fire seems to have de- 
 scended, and to have left its traces behind, is selected by 
 Mr. Pope, while the Philosopher of Belfast, from the spirit 
 of genuine piety by which he is distinguished, is nominated 
 as bottle-holder to St. Peter. The renowned Commodore of 
 the Floating Chapel, Admiral Oliver, is appointed Chairman 
 to the Protestants, while Mr. O'Connell, who was casually 
 there, was much against his will compelled to take a joint 
 command with the Admiral. — Thus an honorable competi- 
 tion is established between the Navy and the Bar. God for- 
 bid that I should attempt to detail the various incidents of 
 the theological encounter, I should not, however, omit to 
 mention that I was greatly edified by the numerous atten- 
 dance of the loyal portion of the bar, among whom were to 
 be observed three eminent gentlemen who had signed the 
 Anti-Catholic petition under the influence of premature anti- 
 cipations. They came to listen to Mr. Pope, in order to 
 apply to their calamities the consolations of religion, and, 
 
168 
 
 indeed it was truly delightful to see, when the orator expa- 
 tiated on the spiritual dangers incidental to office, how Mr. 
 Serjeant Lefroy turned up the whites of his eyes to Heaven. 
 But the person most deserving of note was Doctor Magee, 
 who exhibited a strange alternation of feeling, for when a 
 blow was made by Mr. Pope at " the Church without a reli- 
 gion," the Doctor forgot that the gentleman belonged to " a 
 religion without a Church," while, when the Priest knocked 
 the mitre from the head of the Establishment, the Doctor 
 exhibited no little uneasiness. " Had St. Paul ten thousand 
 pounds a year ?" said the Priest. The Doctor gave a start. 
 tf Had the teachers of the Gospel two millions of green acres in 
 Palestine?" — The Doctor shifted his seat. " Show me an 
 authority for the drawing-room and the levee ?" — the Doc- 
 tor bit hifr nails. " Shew me a text for your equipages, and 
 your banquets, and your chariots, and your pride, and your 
 pomp, and your titles, and your tithes, and your cesses, 
 and your Church rates, and your fines, and all that system 
 of grinding taxation, by which the sacerdotal power and 
 
 splendour are preserved. Shew me" The Priest was 
 
 proceeding in this strain of formidable expostulation, when 
 I turned to look at his Grace, and I found that the Arch — 
 (what shall I call him?) The Archbishop had disappeared. 
 I wish that Mr. Pope would take up this strain of interro- 
 gation, and that instead of trying to convince Roman Catho- 
 lic peasants to adopt the tenets, he would endeavour to per- 
 suade some Protestant Bishops to follow the precepts of the 
 Gospel, He ought to be tolerably well satisfied after his 
 recent experiment, that he cannot obtain any very conside- 
 rable renown by engaging in controversial contentions with 
 our clergy. In order, therefore, that he may not be left 
 destitute of occupation, I beg leave to point out to him ano- 
 ther and a better path to fame, namely, the glorious enter- 
 prise of teaching certain High Priests of the Establishment 
 to adopt a more apostolic fashion of life ; and if he feels that 
 there is no ordinary difficulty in the undertaking, he should 
 remember that his merit will be enhanced by the arduous 
 obstacles which he will have to encounter. He has admira- 
 ble qualifications for this enterprise, and should take care to 
 apply them in the most effectual and impressive manner. I 
 beg leave to suggest to him the following exploit. Having 
 ascertained on what day a Bishop gives a cli rier, let him 
 procure a copy of Hudibras, and study with precision the 
 exact attire of a genuine teacher of the word. — I would not, 
 however, have his hair too closely cropped, after the mati- 
 
169 
 
 ner of the roundheads, It were better that it should stream 
 loosely, wildly, and prophetically, as a type of his mind 
 and his opinions. If he were to attend the theatre when 
 Mr. Liston performs that part of Maw worm, it might assist 
 his fancy, though, I must confess, that nature has done so 
 much for him, that he hardly requires any extraneous aid 
 in order to make him look the appropriate herald of the 
 other world. When he shall have completely rigged himself 
 out, and put on the ghastliest aspect of inspiration, let him 
 go forth and ascend the steps of his Lordship's palace, and 
 having gained admission by a knock louder than a curate's 
 tap, let him rush at once to the banquet room, and throw- 
 ing open the doors, advance into the midst of the episcopal 
 festivity. Let him march, with spectral strides, and when 
 every eye shall have been fixed upon him, let him, with his 
 deep and sepulchral voice, demand, whether it was after 
 such a fashion that the Apostles dined — whether the silver 
 and gold, the crimson tapestry, the Asiatic carpet, the 
 blaze of splendour, the multifarious luxury, the costly 
 wines, the din of revelry, and tumultuous joyance, are in 
 accordance with the lessons of poverty and self-denial pre- 
 scribed by the Scriptures ; and shaking his phantom hand 
 at my Lord the Bishop, let him ask, how, with his pam- 
 pered paunch, his bloated cheek, his swimming and volup- 
 tuous eye, he would dare to appear before that God, of 
 whom he professed himself the minister? But let not Mr. 
 Pope stop here. After he shall have uttered his denuncia- 
 tions, and turned the Bishop pale, let him walk forth, and 
 proceeding to the chambers where he hears the sound of the 
 harp and the tabor, let him rush into the centre of the dance, 
 and after he shall have cast his lurid eyes around, when the 
 sound of the fiddle shall have died away — when the asto- 
 nished musicians shall have stood aghast and mute — when 
 the Bishop's wife shall have got into hysterics, and the Bi- 
 shop's daughters shall have sought refuge in the arms of 
 their partners — then let this modern Isaiah exclaim — " Woe 
 unto the daughters of Zion, because they are haugfctty, and 
 walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, winking 
 and mincing as they go ; therefore the Lord will take away 
 the bravery of their tinkling ornaments, and their cauls, and 
 their round ties like the moon, the chains, and the bracelets, 
 and the ruffles ; the bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, 
 and the head-bands, and the tablets and the ear-rings, the 
 changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, snd the wim- 
 ples, and the crisping-pins, the glasses, and the fine linen, 
 
 Q 
 
170 
 
 and the hoods, and the veils ; and it shall come to pass, that 
 there shall be, instead of well set hair, baldness, and instead 
 of a stomacher, a girdle of sack-cloth, and burning instead 
 of beauty." It will be strange if Mr. Pope does not succeed 
 in putting waltzing, and all other importations of German 
 attitude down. But it is not to the interior of the Pontifi- 
 cal Palace that he should confine his efforts for a genuine 
 Reformation. Let him go forth into the public streets, and 
 with all the intrepidity that becomes his heavenly mission, 
 denounce the anti-christian abuses that prevail every 
 where around us. Let him stand at the door of Kildare- 
 street Club, for example, and enquire of the Deans, and the 
 Archdeacons, and the Rectors, whether the chambers of 
 indigent, the dungeons of the captive, the death-beds of 
 the sinful, would not be more appropriate places of ecclesias- 
 tical resort — let him, if he sees some wealthy and luxurious 
 Dignitary rolling in his carriage with his wife and daugh- 
 ters to the Castle, stop the driver, and enquire whether the 
 way to heaven is not too narrow for a coach and four. And 
 when he sees a certain arch Priest cantering through the 
 streets, let him seise his horse by the bridle, and cry out — 
 " Good, my Lord, it was not after this fashion that Christ 
 entered into Jerusalem on the meek and humble animal with 
 which patience and suffering are associated." But it is not 
 my intention that Mr. Pope should limit his spiritual achieve- 
 ments to this country ; and after he shall have acquired the 
 plenitude of such provincial celebrity as Ireland can confer, 
 let him set of for London, and on some night when the 
 Minister shall have written circular summonses to the Bi- 
 shops to attend, let Mr, Pope take his station at the avenue 
 of the House of Lords, and as the lawn-sleeved succes- 
 sors of the Apostles descend from their gilded chariots to 
 the assemblage of the great, and the powerful, and the 
 princely of the land, let his voice issue from the vaults of West- 
 minster, and let him exclaim as they go by — <c Are you the 
 Priests of him who said that his kingdom was not of tin* 
 world?" 
 
 I have, I fear, pursued this topic too far, and intermingled 
 too much levity with subjects of solemn and awful conside- 
 ration ; but I own I cannot help regarding Mr. Pope and 
 his fellow-labourers in the New Reformation with a feeling 
 of combined censure and derision. It shocks every notion 
 of religion and of common sense, that these scatterers of 
 the word of God should howl damnation in our ears, be- 
 cause we believe somewhat more largely and steadfastly 
 than they do, while the opulence of the Established Church, 
 
171 
 
 for which, at all events, there is less authority than for 
 Transubstantiation, passes not only without censure, but 
 without comment ! In any observations which I have made 
 on the Clergy of the Established Church, I have not refer- 
 red to them as a body, but rather alluded to individual 
 cases ; and I am free to confess, that recently the Protestant 
 Priesthood have undergone, in conduct and morals, a salu- 
 tary amelioration. On them I do not mean to cast any re- 
 flection ; but I do insist, that the vast wealth possessed by 
 individuals is a crying grievance, and repugnant to every 
 conception which we can form, from the precepts of its Di- 
 vine Author, of the Christian Religion. I therefore do most 
 strenuously blame Mr. Pope and his associates, for their in- 
 vectives against the Catholic Priesthood and the creed of 
 the majority of the people, when the riches of the estab- 
 lishment, which are so unequally and disproportionately 
 distributed, demand so much retrenchment in their extent, 
 and so much modification in their allotment. A wealthy 
 Priesthood, whether Catholic or Protestant, is a glaring and 
 hideous anomaly ; yet when did we ever hear Mr. Pope or 
 Captain Gordon — (that Scotch sower of dissension, who 
 scatters the thistle seed of controversy wherever he goes) — 
 or when did we hear Mathias or any one of them, deliver a 
 single sentence in condemnation of the luxurious endowment 
 of the Established Church ? And who can doubt that it is 
 utterly anti-christian, and repugnant to the whole tenor and 
 spirit of the system of creed and conduct which is incul- 
 cated in the New Testament ? I protest it is almost enough 
 to drive men into utter infidelity, to hear church-men talk 
 from their pulpits of meekness, poverty, self-denial, the 
 contempt of riches, the remembrance of death, and the 
 worthlessness of life, while they are themselves wallowing 
 in the enjoyments of unbounded affluence, and engaged in 
 the ardent and unremitting pursuit of the pleasures, the 
 pomps, and the vanities of the world. What a mockery it 
 is to tell us that the Church is a state engine. Gracious 
 heaven ! Is the cross on which our Redeemer died to be 
 employed as a prop to sustain the leaning fabric of Govern- 
 ment ! They first put the Scriptures into our hands — they 
 bid us read them over, and imbue our minds and impress 
 our hearts with their tenets, and then, they have the auda- 
 city (for is it not the height and top of presumption ?) to 
 tell us in the very teeth of every text in the New Tes- 
 tament, that the Pontiffs of this poor and humble religion 
 are to be invested with political authority, and to stand 
 Q % 
 
172 
 
 upon a level with Princes and Nobles,, and are to have their 
 five, their ten, their twenty thousands a-year— that the in- 
 ferior clergy are in a regular gradation to be maintained at 
 a corresponding cost — that the highest departments in the 
 Hierarchy and the Priesthood are to be filled up by the 
 sons of Peers and Boroughmongers and that the whole 
 business of religion is to be made subservient to the end of 
 legislation, and even of court intrigue — that we should be 
 told all this, and to make the matter worse, and more in- 
 sulting to common decency, and to common sense, that 
 we should be told it by the very men who inform us that we 
 are in damnable error, that we are misbelievers and 
 idolaters, that our clergy are impostors, and that we are 
 either infidels or fools — that all this should be said by 
 the very men who bid us search the Scriptures, and call 
 themselves the servants and the delegates of a crucified 
 God — this, I do honestly confess, provokes indignation ; 
 makes one stamp the foot, and cry out cc monstrous I" at 
 every word ! The Church of Christ, it is said, should lift 
 up its head in the midst of courts and palaces. When 
 did Christ himself do so ? But I am wrong — He did — he 
 stood in a court where he was hailed as king — he was 
 clothed in purple— he held the emblem of empire in his 
 hand, and he had a crown— but it was a diadem of thorns, 
 which was planted in his bleeding temples, and pierced his 
 
 bursting head— and it is in his name that But I have 
 
 done— I would to Heaven that the advocates for reading 
 the Scriptures without note or comment would give a 
 little reflection to all this. I would that they considered 
 whether in the bosom of Protestantism itself, there are not 
 abuses which will afford scope for their zeal, before they set 
 up as knight errants against Popery, and put us all at vari- 
 ance with each other, by dint of their wild and fanatical spe- 
 culations. Let them leave the the people and their religion 
 alone, and no longer molest us with the absurd jabber 
 and the unintelligible jargon of their fantastical theology ; 
 and if they are still determined to persevere in their orato- 
 rical vocation, let them, in place of wandering through the 
 country for the diffusion of acrimony, and the dissemination 
 of discord, endeavour to instruct the people in the great 
 principles of morality ; let them enforce the practical 
 injunctions, rather than contend about the mysterious tenets 
 of religion ; let them inculcate habits of industry, and sobri- 
 ety, and subordination ; let them reconcile the higher and 
 lower classes by habituating the rich to mercy, and the poor 
 
173 
 
 to patience and submission; let them bind us together in 
 the bonds of christian brotherhood and natural affiliation,, 
 and never let them forget the " tidings of great joy " with 
 which the coming of Christ was told to shepherds abiding 
 in the mountains, in which, while the glory of God was 
 celebrated, the angelic messengers proclaimed as among the 
 results of the event which they were sent to announce from 
 heaven, the peace, the tranquility, and the happiness of 
 mankind. 
 
MR. SHEXIAS 
 
 REPLY TO LORD ROSSMORE, 
 
 AT THE 
 
 AGGREGATE MEETING, 
 
 Held lgtk Dec, 1826. 
 
 Lord ROSSMORE, on rising, was received with tumul- 
 tuous applause. The Noble Lord said, he thanked them 
 most sincerely for the honor which they had done him. 
 They would allow him to state, that in being present here 
 he did not claim the right to do so, but he claimed it as a 
 privilege, having been one of the sixty-nine Peers who 
 signed resolutions in their favour — he claimed the privilege 
 in consequence of his endeavours, during the last twenty 
 years, to render them every service which his humble abili- 
 ties could afford. Might he, then, take the liberty to saying 
 a few words on the subject for which they were assembled 
 here this day ? Knowing as he did the host of talent by 
 which he was surrounded, he felt a diffidence how he should 
 proceed — he feared that he might fail, or perhaps that he 
 might go too far. He had taken a step this day which would 
 be condemned by many. But he trusted that this Meeting, 
 and their future proceedings, would bear him out in the act. 
 In any thing which he would say, he begged to be consi- 
 dered more as a witness to facts, than as attempting to 
 advocate, their great cause. It rests upon its own intrinsic 
 justice, and could not in ajiy way be assisted by him. It 
 had been advocated by the greatest men this or any other 
 Country ever saw. He hoped he might be allowed to give 
 it a negative support, by stating that if he entertained on 
 this question opinions different from the great minds that had 
 advocated this measure, he would consider himself a hardy 
 man indeed. He had been for some time in England — be- 
 fore he left it he endeavoured to ascertain the feelings of all 
 classes of people there upon this subject, and he now felt it 
 
175 
 
 his duty to state the result to this meeting. If what he 
 should state differed from the opinions of some gentlemen 
 present, they would attribute his doing so to the best mo- 
 tives. He had ascertained to a certain extent the feelings 
 of the English People in this respect, and he would state to 
 them what is the real fact. The People of England say, that 
 though they approve of the object which the Catholics had in 
 view, they do not exactly approve of the measures taken to at- 
 tain that object. The enemies of the Catholics are active on 
 the other side. It behoves the Catholics, to be extremely cir- 
 cumspect. The English forget what good has been done by 
 the Catholics ; they forget the blood which has been spilled, 
 and the treasure expended, by the Catholics of Ireland. 
 Many excellent speeches, on the part of the Catholics, have 
 passed away with the day which has given them birth, but 
 their errors are anxiously seized upon and published. It 
 was in the humble hope that he might contribute to remedy 
 any errors into which they might fall, that he took the 
 liberty of presenting himself here this day. Their enemies 
 are active. An impression has taken possession of the 
 public mind of England, that they are violent and intempe- 
 rate. On some occasions he has met Englishmen who dis- 
 approved altogether of their proceedings, though they 
 approved of the great object which they had in view. He 
 appeared here as an evidence to go before the eyes of the 
 people of England. He should hope that any violence or 
 intemperance in debate, which was the act of two or three 
 individuals, should not be attributed to the whole body. 
 They cannot be responsible for the assertions of a man when 
 he is carried away by the torrent of his eloquence. It is 
 also said, that those sentiments of certain individuals, have 
 never been denied by the Catholics in public documents. 
 To that he would answer, that division amongst the Catho- 
 lics would be fatal to their cause, and that if such cireum- 
 stances had taken place as did not meet with the approba- 
 tion of the great body of the Catholics either in England or- 
 Ireland, the acts of one, two, or three individuals should not 
 be matter of impeachment against the Catholic body in 
 general. He stated this here, that it might go as evidence 
 before the eyes of the people of England. Whether right 
 or wrong, the impression there against the Catholics is such 
 as he had stated. Their principal opponents in this country 
 are of the Established Church. If there be intemperance 
 and violence on the part of the Catholics, they are the 
 injured body, and some allowance must be made for them. 
 It was not for him in any manner to advocate or to defend 
 
176 
 
 intemperance. But if the Catholics were guilty of it, they 
 had wrongs to complain of. But the party opposed to them 
 have no cause to complain. He would say, that the circum- 
 stance of party spirit raging so high in Ireland, w T as fright- 
 ful evidence before the British Ministry, that it will never 
 cease till put an end to by justice on the part of the Legis- 
 lature. Even Clergymen of the Established Church have 
 interfered in political matters, in a manner which no words 
 can describe. They who should solely devote themselves, 
 as Christian ministers, to the service of religion, have 
 descended from the pulpit, thrown aside the cassock, and 
 assumed the military garb of the bigot. It is high time that 
 the Legislature, when it perceives party spirit in a countrv 
 carried so far, to interfere. He was not acquainted with 
 the individuals to whom he had been alluding — one of them 
 he had been told, was an excellent character in private life, 
 and an able preacher of the gospel — so much the better for 
 his (Lord Rossmore's) argument. When persons of that 
 description fall victims to the party mania of the day — when 
 party spirit runs so high, all should deprecate it, and lend a 
 helping hand to extinguish it. The war in which Britain 
 was about being engaged, has been alluded to. Now was 
 the time for the Catholic body, and he called on them to do 
 so, to assume an attitude which would plead strongly in their 
 favour in the eyes of the British Legislature — to shew by 
 their conduct that they are worthy of the cause which they 
 maintain, and of that freedom after which they so fervently 
 aspire. By their conduct now they will be enabled to gain 
 upon the minds of the English nation, whose generosity and 
 benevolence displayed towards other countries, should at 
 length be extended towards this. War has been touched 
 on. It is hailed as a glorious opportunity to have your 
 claims attended to, and your grievances redressed. The 
 influence of a meeting like this was undoubted over the 
 people of Ireland. Prove that — show your power to the 
 English nation and the English minister, not by taking- 
 advantage of England's distress, but send forth an address 
 to the people of Ireland, and they will obey. They were 
 an honest and a warm-hearted people, He (Lord Ross- 
 more) had lived amongst them with his family during 
 twenty-five years, and they were perfectly indifferent all 
 that time whether they locked or bolted their doors by night. 
 He would recommend that they would seize this opportu- 
 nity and apply it to their advantage — thus employed it will 
 speedily hasten their claims. Let them send their orders to 
 the people to remain peaceable and quiet. Let them prove 
 
177 
 
 to that British minister., their most eloquent advocate, who 
 has now sent forth the thunder of Briton in arms, that they 
 keep this country quiet, and w T ho will say that they will not 
 then be emancipated ! Sure he was that he will not be 
 disappointed in them. He begged leave to add one word 
 more. He would request them to take into consideration 
 the situation in which their Protestant friends are placed. 
 Let them bear him and their other Protestant friends right 
 in advocating their cause. He had for years advocated 
 their cause — he had signed the petition in their favor, and 
 attended at the great dinner to the friends of civil and reli- 
 gious liberty at the Rotunda. He had identified his feelings 
 almost with their's. He would never despair of them, 
 when he saw one man leap after his brother on the battle- 
 ment to support him, though he cut down the bridge behind 
 him. This was a moment for healing all differences. He 
 did feel enthusiastic in their cause. If what he anticipated 
 takes place, their cause will be greatly advanced, The 
 golden opportunity presented by war now approaches to 
 plant the olive branch in their native land, to expel all 
 internal dissensions — that it may take root, and that under 
 its shelter all may recline hereafter. In taking his leave of 
 the meeting, he hoped he might be allowed to anticipate 
 that the hour is fast approaching when the conflicting floods 
 of party will meet in a common channel, and be mingled in 
 the general w T aters of oblivion, harmony, and peace. The 
 Noble Lord sat down amidst great applause. 
 
 Mr, SHEIL rose immediately after Lord Rossmore, and 
 said — To Lord Rossmore, for the manly frankness with 
 which he has given us advice, we are much indebted. I 
 greatly commend him for the candour with which he lias 
 :old us that our proceedings were marked with too strong a 
 character of violence. But what is violence? I wish it 
 were defined. Will Lord Rossmore forgive me for telling 
 m anecdote, which contains an argument ? f4 I have been 
 wronged," said the client of a celebrated orator of antiquity, 
 n a gentle tone, and with much subjugation of gesture. " I 
 lo not believe you," said Demosthenes. " Not wronged !** 
 ixclaimed the client — " I tell you that my enemy met me in 
 he public way, flung me to the earth, and trampled upon 
 ne ! I tell you that"— " Hold !" replied the Athenian, " I 
 relieve you now — your hand is clenched, your lip quivers, 
 rour eye is on fire, you speak and look like a man who had 
 )een wronged." Does my Lord Rossmore conceive that we 
 should speak in the tone and manner of men who labour 
 inder no real grievance ? But enough for the present upon 
 
178 
 
 this topic. I shall revert to it before I conclude and turn 
 from any general consideration of the propriety of our pro- 
 ceedings to the great incident which has arrested the atten- 
 tion of the whole empire. I pass at once to Portugal. 
 Shall Portugal be free? Shall the banner of hberty be 
 unfurled from her bleak and blasted hills ? bhall W^nd 
 stretch forth her arm, and put her own security and the 
 peace of the world into hazard on behalf of a people whose 
 manners, habits, and institutions are abhorrent from her 
 own ? Shall England, with a view to establish an assimi- 
 lation to her own insular forms of government, though laden 
 with debt, with her credit on the verge of dissolution, and 
 with a national bankruptcy staring her in the face, fly, in 
 the spirit of political romance, to arms— or, (to lay aside the 
 language of amplification, and put at once the soul-stirring 
 question)-shall Portugal be free, and must Ireland contmue 
 a slave for ever ? I have, perhaps, thrown myself too pre- 
 cipitately, and with too headlong a spring, into the deep and 
 dark current of emotion which rises out of the great events 
 that are passing about us. I ought, perhaps, to have intro- 
 duced this most momentous subject with some calm prefa- 
 tory remark-I ought to have pointed out jn their detai i s, 
 and enlarged upon the consequences of which the intelli- 
 gence recently received in this country is likely to be pro- 
 ductive—I ought to have proceeded gradually and delibe- 
 rately to shew how important it must be to England, m this 
 crisis of our ardent and fevered passions, to recon- 
 cile the people of this country, and to consolidate the 
 strength of the empire. But it is impossible— there is 
 such a concourse of exciting circumstances m the great 
 events which are going forward, as to produce almost 
 an incapacity of deliberation; and when I am about 
 to enter into calm discussion, and to take a wide and ample 
 survey of all the political results of these momentous tidings, 
 the same question comes back upon me; and while the 
 drum repeats its peal, and the trumpet sends forth its blast, 
 I cannot refrain from bursting again into the vehement and- 
 impassioned interrogatory, and exclaiming— Shall I op 
 tugal be free, and shall Ireland still continue a slave? 
 Why does England rush again to arms, and precipitate 
 herself into the field? WhydoherMinisters bid dehanceto s, 
 many awful results? Why does Canning-Canning th 
 pupil of Pit, and his successor— why does the eleve of th 
 mighty Tory evoke the spirit of republicanism, and arra; 
 the genius of jacobinism (as if it were England s on y hope 
 against the confederated royalty of the world ? In adnc 
 
179 
 
 rence to an ancient Treaty, and a worm-eaten contract ; 
 from a point of diplomatic chivalry, and a punctilio of fan- 
 tastical honor ; and yet, (Gracious God ! what an insult to 
 the understanding, and what an outrage to the heart !) at the 
 very moment that the Ministers are indulging in these effusi- 
 ons of Cabinet sensibility, the cries of seven millions of op- 
 pressed, betrayed, and indignant subjects of Great Britain 
 are ringing in their ears, and the men, who talk of treaties, 
 of compacts, and engagements, and expatiate upon national 
 faith, and truth, and honor, persevere in the perpetration 
 of a deed of perfidy towards this country, which stands 
 without a parallel in the annals of the world. Methuen, 
 the Treaty of Methuen is remembered, and Limerick is for- 
 gotten. Oh ! shame ! shame ! shame upon them ! Talk of 
 treaties indeed ! Talk of compacts ! Talk of national ho- 
 nor ! Tell the People of England tkat, however hazardous 
 the war, an ancient and faithful, aye, and a Catholic ally 
 must be supported ! What did the King say when his 
 Message was laid before him ? Did not his hand tremble, 
 and was there not a tear in his eye, when the recollection of 
 Ireland came upon him. Did not the Prince, by whom Ire- 
 land was loved, and who was once adored by Ireland — did 
 not the Prince to whom Ireland was faithfully and fondly 
 true — did not the man who, if he has a heart in his bosom. 
 
 must have melted at all that he saw and felt amongs us 
 
 Did not the King, when he sat down to con over and annex 
 liis regal inicials to a piece of diplomatic sensibility, bring 
 back the recollection of Ireland to his mind ? and did he 
 not remember that there were Treaties made, and compacts 
 sealed, and promises given, and hopes held out, and that 
 :hose Treaties had been violated, and that those compacts had 
 >een cancelled, and that those promises had been broken, and 
 hat all those hopes had been blasted? Portugal, old, decrepid, 
 lebauched, vitiated, exhausted, unavailing, and palsied 
 Portugal, is to be free, and her liberty is to be accomplished 
 it the risk of interrupting the tranquility of the world ; and 
 reland, knit as she is to England by ties which nature ap- 
 pears to have formed, and which her civil institutions have 
 onflrmed — Ireland, which she has incorporated with her 
 impire, and which she affects to regard as a noble portion 
 )f herself, the country which, in her utmost emergency, sup- 
 )lied her witli so many a strong arm, and so many a gallant 
 leart — the country which filled her stores with food, her 
 egions with valor, and her fleets with enterprise — Ire- 
 Mid, who gave her heart's blood as the fountain gives 
 Is waters — Ireland, young, devoted, glowing, ardent, 
 
180 
 
 impasioned, enthusiastic Ireland, is to be I do confess 
 
 the thought unmans me— the recollection of the misfortunes 
 of my country, and of my own degradation, and that of 
 every man who hears me— the remembrance of ail the 
 perfidy, the baseness, the turpitude, the cruelty, the 
 utter heartlessness with which my unfortunate country 
 has been treated, subdues my spirit, converts angre 
 into anguish, and is almost enough to dissolve indig- 
 nation into tears— and yet it ought not to be so. No, 
 no If tears must be shed, let them be the steam of burn- 
 ing hearts, and let the hand that brushes them away be 
 clenched. The time gives a better lesson than despair. 
 The events which are passing before us, give us many glo- 
 rious intimations, and as they advance in their majestic pro- 
 gress, they wave and beckon us on, and if I may say so, 
 << Marshall us the way that we are going." It is then in a tone 
 of exultation that I reiterate the question, and exclaim, 
 « shall Portugal be free, and shall Ireland be a slave for 
 ever ? " To whom should that question be addressed ? To 
 two parties— to the oppressors and to the oppressed. To 
 England 1 would say. " shall Portugal be free, and shall 
 Ireland be still a slave ? " Shall treaties be sacred for Por- 
 tugal and be nullities for us ? Shall treaties be chains of I 
 adamant for Portugal and be ropes of sand for us ? I would 
 ask of England whether this be fair dealing ? I would en- 
 quire whether it be wise, or reasonable, or even decent ? I 
 would ask in a loud tone, and in the language of indignant 
 expostulation if it be just— and I would whisper in the ear, 
 and inquire if it be safe? 99 I would implore of her to be 
 honest, before she is generous, and not to be lavish of free- 
 dom and munificent of liberty abroad, while she is plunder- 
 ing her own subjects of their franchises, and robbing us of! 
 our rights. 13ut it is not to England alone that 1 would 
 put that question. I put it to you, and I ask it of your 
 heart's core— aye, of your " heart of hearts/' whether it is 
 to be borne that at a moment when England is labouring, 
 and that for a Roman Catholic People to accomplish their 
 freedom— whether it is in human nature to endure— whether 
 it be in the power of the soul of man to suffer— But let me 
 not press these questions too far, especially as the events to 
 which I thus passionately refer (and who could speak of them 
 without emotion?) afford ground for high and legitimate 
 expectations that England will, of her own wise accord 
 with a view to maintain a consistency of conduct and of 
 character, adopt a more enlarged and comprehensive policy 
 
181 
 
 in relation to this country. — With what force, and sheltered 
 by what pretence, will it be henceforward urged, that there 
 is any thing in the Roman Catholic Religion, at variance 
 with the spirit of the British Constitution, when England 
 selects a country so utterly and unequivocally Roman Catho- 
 lic, as Portugal, in order to make a deposit of those princi- 
 ples upon which her own freedom has been raised up, and 
 to produce a shadow of herself. If Eldon, or Liverpool, 
 or Peel, shall say, that the religion of Ireland is not compa- 
 tible with the Constitution of Great Britain, may not Can- 
 ning start up and demand, wherefore they become his con- 
 federates in favour of Portugal and South America, and 
 stand up as antagonists against Ireland ? The conduct of 
 England in regard to her Peninsular ally, is not the only 
 precedent in her political measures to which we can vehe- 
 mently appeal. I perused with a feeling of high sympathy, 
 the wise and lofty boast (for magnanimity in politics is ge- 
 nerally united with wisdom) to which Mr. Canning recently 
 gave utterance, when he referred to his vigorous, determined, 
 and noble efforts in favour of the South American Colonies of 
 Spain. He admitted that it was to the disparagement of 
 England, that French troops had possessed themselves of 
 Spain, and confessed his humiliation ; but at the same 
 time this eminent and over topping man, exulted in a mea- 
 sure of noble retaliation, and appealed amidst the cheers of 
 the House of Commons, to the republican institutions which 
 he had sustained in another hemisphere. Well may he pro- 
 claim in a tone of triumph, the feats of lofty-minded policy 
 which it has accomplished in South America. Weil may 
 he stretch out his hand and say, that it was ^\ith that hand 
 that the cradle of democracy was rocked in the regions in 
 which it had been so recently and illustriously born. The 
 condition of South America does indeed present a most glo- 
 rious spectacle, and offers a prospect of interminable splen- 
 dour to the mind of any man who takes a large survey of the 
 interests of mankind. It has been said by the great Poet 
 of our time, that the genius of the Andes surveys a whole 
 hemisphere from his lofty residence. It is from the summits 
 of the highest mountains in the world, that the spirit of 
 democracy lifts up its sublime and sacred ensign, and it 
 may, I think be said, without incurring the charge of exag- 
 geration, that liberty has taken its place upon the loftiest 
 elevations upon the earth, and, 
 
 u With meteor standard to the wind unfurled, 
 Looks from her throne of clouds o'er half the world. " 
 R 
 
182 
 
 But how, it will be asked, perhaps, do I connect the re- 
 generation of mankind in the South American Colonies, with 
 the subject which we have most at heart, and on which we 
 are assembled to deliberate ? Let me not be accused of de- 
 viating into a remote search of new topics upon an old and 
 worn out theme, when I say, that these matters are not un- 
 linked together. The charge against our religion is, that it 
 is ill adapted to freedom, and is abhorrent from the free and 
 popular part of the Constitution of these Countries. What 
 answer do I -give to that imputation ? I do not enter into 
 themes and speculations — I do not appeal to remote events, 
 and distant illustrations — I do not go back to the republics of 
 Italy, and to the ancient constitution of the Catholic Cortes 
 of Spain ; but I refer to the events that are passing beneath 
 our eyes, of which our senses have the cognizance ; I ap- 
 peal to those events which are singing through the world, 
 and I put this simple question : " What is the religion of 
 South America?" Away, then, with the base and most op- 
 probrious imputation, that the people of Ireland are dis- 
 qualified for the enjoyment of true liberty, by the princi- 
 ples or the practices of their religion. It is false, utterly 
 and completely false— and it is a falsehood of which every 
 new event that crowds upon us, carries along with it the ir- 
 resistible refutation. The people of Ireland disqualified by 
 their creed, for the enjoyment of civil freedom! The peo- 
 ple of Ireland, cast by the essential spirit of slavery inhe- 
 rent in their creed, from the privileges of British Citi- 
 zens ! Vile and abominable calumny. But it is not neces^" 
 sary to travel beyond the limits of our own country to repel 
 it. Where is the man who surveys the present moral and 
 political condition of Ireland, who will venture to assert, 
 that there exist a spirit of servility in the Irish people ? So 
 far from there being any such tendency, perhaps, we have 
 been hurried into an almost opposite extreme, and, in our 
 struggles for liberty, have acquired a spirit, that goes be- 
 yond the golden mean of constitutional independence, and 
 scarcely becomes the mixed and composite order of Go- 
 vernment which belongs to the civil institutions of the coun- 
 tries in which we live, I do fearlessly assert, that the 
 whole body of the Catholic population of Ireland, includ- 
 ing the aristocracy, clergy, aye, and the humblest peasan- 
 try in this country, are actuated by emotions which do not 
 barely render them worthy, but have infused into their 
 hearts and souls an intrepid determination, and a fearless 
 resolution to be free. And here let me be permitted to re- 
 vert to the observations of my Lord Rossmore, and inquire 
 
of him from whence that improved condition in the political 
 morals of the people is derived ? Whence has originated 
 that ardour and enthusiasm which are displayed in every 
 part of Ireland ? Whence has arisen that spirit which 
 overthrew Leslie, and Forteseue, and Beresford ? Whence 
 has been derived that power of the people, of which Mo- 
 naghan, with which he is familiar, presents such noble re- 
 sults ? I answer — from that violence, of which he com- 
 plains. The Catholic Association is the source from which 
 all these important consequences have flowed. It was ne- 
 cessary to rouse and excite the people, to awaken in them 
 a consciousness of their rights, and the courage to assert 
 them. It was with that view that vehement harangues were 
 uttered, and flung like flaming torches among the people. 
 I, therefore) do not coincide in his views, and in an- 
 swer to all that may be urged against the interference 
 by either our antagonists or supporters, I triumphantly ap- 
 peal to the union of the Clergy, the Aristocracy, and the 
 People — the number of petitions which are pouring in from 
 every parish in the country — the readiness with which money 
 is subscribed by even the lowest order of the people — the 
 rapid progress which the census in making — and, above all, 
 to the insurrection of the Catholic tenantry against their 
 Orange masters in every part of Ireland. Independently, 
 also, of these considerations, there has been a most noble 
 and lofty spirit excited amongst the whole mass of an enor- 
 mous and daily encreasing population. Are those emo- 
 tions of a temporary or evanescent nature ? The feel- 
 ings of the people are under the influence of a steady and 
 continuous principle of agitation, and as Lord Byron has 
 expressed it : — 
 
 " Roll like the waves before the settled wind/' 
 
 R 2 
 
MR. SHEIL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 AT AN 
 
 AGGREGATE MEETING, 
 
 HELD 
 
 ON THE 7TH SEPTEMBER, 1826. 
 
 THE principal object in calling this meeting, is to de- 
 vise measures for the relief of the forty shilling freeholders, 
 and it is sufficient to state that object, in order to impress 
 you with the importance of the occasion on which we are 
 assembled. I rise at the very opening of the discussion, 
 because I have been instrumental in summoning you toge- 
 ther. Nothing excepting a conviction of its paramount ne- 
 cessity, would have induced me to exert myself for the pur- 
 pose of procuring this meeting, when so many of the per- 
 sons who take an active share in our proceedings are absent 
 from Dublin. But when the work of ruin and of oppres- 
 sion is going on — when the severest process of the law is in 
 full and active operation—when from Waterford, from 
 Louth, from Cavan, and from Westmeath, a call for suc- 
 cour is so earnestly made— when I feel that relief, in order 
 to be effectual, must not only be prompt, but immediate ; 
 in one word, when the cries of the forty shilling freeholders 
 are in my ear?, I cannot listen to any cold-hearted disquisi- 
 tions upon the inexpediency of meeting at this particular 
 season, nor do 1 require that the sun should be in any par- 
 ticular sign of the zodiac, in order to do an act of common 
 humanity and justice. It is enough for me to know, that 
 the high-minded peasants, who have bidden defiance to the 
 " tyrants of their fields," are under the active infliction of 
 
185 
 
 calamity, to make me overlook every consideration of time 
 and place — to dismiss all legal quibbles from my mind, and 
 if I may so say, rush through every impediment to their 
 relief. I cannot allow common humanity to be frustrated 
 by a forensic disputation, and obvious justice to be delayed 
 by legal sophistications. I will not take up an Act of Par- 
 liament, in order to determine whether it is safe to be ho- 
 nourable, and whether humanity is made a misdemeanour 
 by the law. I will not ask, whether the application of the 
 Rent to the succour of the freeholders may be tortured into 
 a violation of the statute, but I will inquire of my own 
 heart, whether it would not be utterly base and abominable 
 to have excited the forty-shilling freeholders into a revolt 
 i gainst their superiors, and then leave the wretches, whom 
 we have wrought into acts of desperate patriotism to the 
 compassion of the landlords and of the winds. These, Sir, 
 ere my feelings, and I think that I may add, that there is 
 not a man in the Catholic Body who does not participate in 
 them. There is, in truth, no difference of opinion, respect- 
 ing the propriety of doing every thing in our power for the 
 relief of the freeholders, and the only question relates to 
 the means through which assistance ought to be afforded. 
 I trust that the series of resolutions which will be proposed 
 to-day, and which 1 have taken very great care in framing, 
 will meet the views of the most adverse to the application 
 of the Old Catholic Rent. I am very sensible that disunion 
 amongst ourselves is to be avoided, and if once we separate 
 upon a single topic, it is not improbable that our differences 
 might excite a spirit of acrimony and contention, which 
 would extend to all our discussions, and ultimately render 
 us, as it did before, the scorn of our enemies, and ob- 
 jects of compassion to those who wish us well. An inti- 
 mation lias been sent from Waterford, that the Old Rent 
 should remain untouched. It is somewhat remarkable that 
 nearly at the same time a demand for £400. should have 
 been made by Waterford, in answering which, the whole of 
 the New Rent has been exhausted. Yet, I am the first to 
 acknowledge, that the greatest respect ought to be attached 
 to any expression of their wishes, which may come from 
 the citizens of Waterford; and we should endeavour to 
 accommodate ourselves as much as possible to their views, 
 The resolutions have been drawn in that spirit. The first 
 of them recommends, in case of necessity, (but not 
 otherwise) an application of the Old Rent. It distinctly 
 limits the application to a contingency. I think, that 
 from these observations, it is scarcely possible that pay man 
 R 2 
 
186 
 
 should dissent. Let me put this plain question, in order to 
 illustrate the propriety of the measures in contemplation ; 
 Suppose that the New Rent should be inadequate to the ef- 
 fectual succour of the forty-shilling freeholders, and that 
 we should be informed that a certain sum was necessary, in 
 order to rescue them, in any particular district, from their 
 landlords. Will any man say that rather than touch the 
 Old Rent, we should abandon the freeholders ? I am con- 
 vinced that there is no man here with so bad a heart. If a 
 deputation were to be sent from Monaghan to Dublin, and 
 the delagates of the freeholders were to come forward and 
 declare that a sum of £500. was requisite, and must be im r 
 mediately advanced, what answer should be given to them ? 
 Should we say, that the Old Rent is inviolable ; that it is 
 the Ark of our cause, and that no hand should be laid up- 
 on it ? Should we answer, that the New Rent was the 
 only fund out of which an Act of justice could be perform- 
 ed, and that the forty-shilling freeholders must wait until 
 the public coffers shall be replenished ? But, Sir, this is 
 not mere hypothesis. There are actually in this assembly 
 three Priests from Monaghan, and two Presbyterians, who 
 have been deputed to enforce the resolution which I pro- 
 pose. They will tell you, (I leave it to them who have had 
 the occular proof) how much calamity has been, and is still 
 being inflicted on their county. I shall venture to illustrate 
 my views of our situation by a comparison. What would 
 you think if the governor of a besieged city, in which there 
 was an old and abundant well, were to direct, in a time of 
 great exigency and drought, that the chief fountain should 
 be sealed up, and that until a new well was complete, none 
 of the soldiers should be allowed to drink ? If the soldiers 
 were to come hot from the thickest fire of the enemy, and 
 exhausted by wounds and sufferings, what would you think 
 of the governor who said, <c Go drawfrom the new shaft which 
 has been sunk for water ?" The soldiers might justly re- 
 ply, " There is no water in it yet, and while it is sinking 
 we shall die of thirst. Do, pray, good governor, give us 
 a drop from the old fountain ; enough only to save us from im- 
 mediate death — it is all we require." Have I in this illus- 
 tration presented a very unfair similitude, and are there not 
 some amongst us who give a reply to the forty-shilling free- 
 holders of a very analogous kind ? We tell them to resort 
 to the New Rent and to wait until it shall be collected. In 
 the interval, their cattle are driven, they are ejected by Civil 
 Bill, they are expelled from their houses, and they are reduced 
 to starvation — what then is the proposition which I make ? 
 
187 
 
 Dig the new well, make every effort to render it abundant, 
 deep and full ; don't unseal the old fountain as long as there 
 is a drop in the new source. But if the latter is exhausted, 
 or if there be any delay in the rising of the water, then open 
 the old fountain, and give out an adequate supply. But let 
 me abandon the language of parable, and in a case which 
 hardly requires any enforcement, refrain from resorting to 
 these elaborate arguments in order to satisfy your reason, or 
 to awaken a just sense of duty in your minds. There is, 
 however, one objection to the application of the Old 
 Rent, which as it has (to my surprise I confess) made an 
 impression on some good-meaning persons, deserves to be 
 encountered. It is said that an Aggregate Meeting has no 
 power to allocate the Old Rent to any such purpose. When 
 people are anxious to avoid doing any particular thing, they 
 are often a little too astute in devising reasons to justify 
 their conduct. If no part of the Old Rent can be voted 
 away, in order to assist the forty- shilling freeholders, how 
 has it happened that so much of it has been disposed of upon 
 other occasions, for other and very distinct purposes ? How 
 does it happen that when salaries are to be given to public 
 officers — when large sums are to be paid for newspaper 
 advertisements, and other expences of a similar nature are 
 to be defrayed, no objection is made to the plenitude of 
 power vested in an Aggregate Meeting. But when an act, 
 which wisdom and honour concur in recommending, is to be 
 performed, the authority of an Aggregate Meeting is, for the 
 rirst time, disputed — and we are told that for all ether pur- 
 poses such an assembly is omnipotent, but that the relief of 
 the freeholders is an excepted case. Are not meetings of 
 this description habitually designated as " the assemblies of 
 the Catholics of Ireland and have they not uniformly 
 exercised the powers which that designation would imply ? 
 The truth is, that there cannot be an} 7 other organ of the 
 national sentiment employed, but an assembly of this nature, 
 and it would be wholly impossible to carry on the public- 
 business, unless a meeting which every individual is at 
 liberty to attend, could act on behalf of the whole of Ireland. 
 Do not the petitions of the Catholics emanate from Aggre- 
 gate Meetings — and are not resolutions constantly passed at 
 these assemblies, in which the same national authority is 
 assumed ? And what is to be done ? Are the counties to 
 be called together ? What, in the mean time, is to become 
 of the forty-shilling freeholders ? I shall ask another ques- 
 tion, which may be equally well applied to the suggestion 
 that they should be relieved out of the New Rent. What 
 
188 
 
 Is to befal them, if a deficiency should take place ? Another 
 argument has been urged, which is refuted by fact. It is 
 said that the collection of the New Rent will be impeded by 
 the application of the Old, The answer which I shall give 
 to that suggestion appears to me to be triumphant. The 
 County of Louth has passed a resolution in favour of the 
 application of the Old Rent, if necessary. But, I hold in 
 ray hand a series of resolutions, passed on the 6th of this 
 month, at a meeting in which Sir Edward Bellew was in the 
 Chair, by which Committees have been named for seven 
 parishes, in order to raise the Catholic Rent, and the Priests 
 of each parish are placed at the head of their respective 
 Committees, You thus perceive the same County calls for 
 the application of the Old Rent, if necessary, and takes the 
 most active measures in order to raise a new fund. And, 
 observe, the money is only required by way of loan. I also 
 received, this morning, a letter from a most respectable man, 
 and who has a very large fortune in Louth, (Mr. Thomas 
 Fitzgerald, of Fainvally) inclosing me a considerable sub- 
 scription of the New Rent, but at the same time approving 
 strongly, in the event of necessity, of the allocation of a part 
 of the old fund to the freeholders' relief. The deputies 
 from Monaghan will inform you, that a resolution to the 
 effect which I have mentioned, will inspire the people of 
 that County with the strongest confidence, and will give a 
 fresh zeal to their exertions in the collecting of the new 
 fund. In truth, the main object of the resolution is to 
 impart a perfect trust to the people, and infuse into them a 
 confidence in the integrity of those who are invested with 
 the management of the national money. A further objec- 
 tion has been urged, which, if it were founded in fact, 
 would deserve attention. It is grounded on the supposition 
 that the persecution has ceased. This is certainly not the 
 case. It has been stated, that in Monaghan tyranny had 
 relaxed its energies. There cannot be a more eggregious 
 mistake. I am authorized by the deputies from that County 
 to state, that oppression is in full activity. The series of 
 miseries detailed to me, would move the feelings of a man 
 the least prone to sensibility. In Louth, the amiable and 
 highly spiritualized Lord Roden has exhibited a practical 
 exemplification of the effects of Bible reading upon his 
 heart, and has commenced the work of retribution. It is to 
 be wondered, at, that a man whose mind should be " as 
 smooth as the brow of Jesus," to use an expression of 
 Jeremy Taylor, should have shown himself so susceptible to 
 the worst passions by which our miserable nature is afflicted. 
 
189 
 
 l repeat it, then, the hand of oppression is yet uplifted in 
 Louth. We must paralyse it before it descends — we must 
 fiy to the succour of the people. With respect to Water- 
 ford, the bare fact of that County having demanded £400, 
 establishes, beyond all question, that persecution is not at 
 an end. I am assured, that in Westmeath the rebellious 
 tenantry are suffering the greatest hardships, and we are 
 well aware of the measures of severity adopted in the 
 County of Cavan. That election was remarkable for a 
 disclosure of character in a person who was once notorious 
 for his patriotism, (for he has been hurried by the impetu- 
 osity of youth, into a dangerous extravagance of political 
 virtue,) but has since given proof that a chivalrous love of 
 country was not the domineering passion of his mind. His 
 great wealth is the result of his own labour, and affords a 
 proof how little intellect is required to take advantage of 
 some fortunate accident, and to become a rich man. When 
 he had acquired great wealth, he was told that liberalism in 
 politics and in religion, was a proof of mental superiority, 
 and in order to pass for a philosopher, he continued a 
 patriot for some time. At length, he purchased an estate 
 in Cavan, and observed, that all persons of the Patrician 
 class were addicted to the principles of ascendancy. While 
 he remained in Dublin he had the countenance of some men 
 of rank as a warrant for his liberality, but in Cavan there 
 was hardly a gentleman who was not a good Protestant. A 
 trait of character which had not been formerly discovered, 
 at lenth appeared in this worthy burgher, who may be 
 designated as the " Sir Balaam * of Merchant* s-quay. He 
 became anxious for a reputation for good breeding, and 
 found a terrible obstacle to his ambition in his former poli- 
 tical addictions. His efforts at Patrician elegance were 
 ineffectual. " The yellow clay still broke through the 
 plaister of Paris/' At a ball, which was not long ago given 
 in Cavan, Lady Lucy M'Swadlum, and Miss Celestina Far- 
 intosh observed, that the gestures of Mr. — — were in a 
 state of continual rebellion against propriety, and his limbs 
 were insurgents against grace. Finding himself in this de- 
 plorable condition, he consulted a certain Noble Lictor, who 
 is distinguished for a prodigal use of the *• Fasces/' and 
 inquired what in the world he should do to become genteel ? 
 "Whip me a boy or two, (said his Lordship,) or at all events, 
 turn Orangeman. It is a passport into good society, and 
 will make as good a gentleman of you as most of us/' It was 
 with some compunction of spirit that Sir Balaam ac- 
 ceded to this process of transformation. His old recol- 
 
190 
 
 lections, the reminiscenses of Bridge-street, and the spec- 
 tres of his friends, with halters about their necks, came 
 upon him. But at length his love of country prevailed, 
 and he made a sort of compromise, by determining to play 
 the patriot in Dublin, and the Orangeman in Cavan. — 
 Did any of you ever see the " Siege of Belgrade ?" Do 
 you remember Yusef ? If ever Lady Lucy gets up a pri- 
 vate play, " Sir Balaam " should perform the worthy ci- 
 tizen of Belgrade, who becomes Turk and Christian with 
 such a philosophic facility of transition, by her Ladyship's 
 particular desire. When " Sir Balaam " had come to the 
 determination to abandon his old principles, he resolved to 
 display no ordinary alacrity in his new vocation, and saw 
 that at the election, an opportunity was offered to him for 
 the manifestation of his zeal. He exhibited all the enthusiasm 
 of apostacy. He was peculiarly " genteel ;" in ether words, 
 in harshness towards his miserable dependants, he surpassed 
 the more legitimate Orangemen of Cavan. Bring up the 
 cattle," was his familiar phrase at the hustings. " Pray, 
 Sir, what cattle?" said his agent. " The freeholders, to be 
 sure," replied Sir Balaam, astonished at his not knowing, 
 that he referred to the useful and industrious class to which 
 he himself originally belonged. The cattle, however, got 
 restive, and Sir Balaam's reputation for gentility was much 
 injured. This was a wound in the most vital point, and ac- 
 cordingly he has been relentless towards the wretched men 
 who refused to sacrifice their consciences to his pleasure. — 
 But enough of him. I would not, I protest to God, for all 
 his hoarded thousands, and ten times his estate, be capable 
 of any of the acts of oppression with which he has taken 
 vengeance on his unhappy tenants. I would not take the 
 heart of such a man into my bosom, for all that fifty years 
 of accumulation has piled in his coffers. I thank God, how- 
 ever, that the wretches on whom he trampled, were not left 
 without succour. From whom did it come ? It is with a 
 most pleasurable sensation — it is with that feeling of thril- 
 ling admiration with which a noble action is always told and 
 heard, that I am about to recount to you an example of 
 lofty and spirit-stirring virtue. I pray you to attend to it, 
 lor it does good to the heart to hear such things. There are 
 two Priests in that county, the name of one of whom in 
 Egan, and the other Reilly. They belong to that class of 
 our Clergy who fall within Goldsmith's definition of opu- 
 lence, and pass for " rich with forty pounds a-year." — They 
 had out of the humble contribution of their flocks, in the 
 lapse of many years, saved a sum of about £200. each, and 
 
191 
 
 when they heard that " Sir Balaam 7 was grinding his te- 
 nants to powder, these teachers of the Gospel — these hum- 
 ble imitators of Him by whom Christianity was first 
 propagated through the world, gathered their flocks about 
 them and said, " you gave this money to us — you are now 
 in want and misery — we come to give it back to you — we 
 look for no re-payment but in Heaven. " " The Lord hath 
 given, and the Lord hath taken away — Blessed be the name 
 of the Lord," I do not wonder that you hear this statement 
 of a most honourable fact with enthusiasm; I shall not attempt 
 to praise these humble and unostentatious ministers of God. I 
 should travel in vain through all the language of panegyric 
 — I should exhaust the whole repository of encomium. — 
 Glorious and lofty minded men, you do not seek the praise 
 of the world : you ask for no tribute of applause such as 
 we can confer — your own hearts supply the exalted consci- 
 ousness of surpassing virtue, and the eye of that God, by 
 which those hearts are read, rests in pleasure upon two ob- 
 jects of his approbation as noble as ever issued from his 
 hands. Shall we permit examples of this kind to be 
 lo3t upon us? Shall we allow the poor Priests to give 
 away their miserable pittance, and to leave themselves 
 destitute in their old age ? They make no claim upon 
 us, but shall we take advantage of the silence of bene- 
 volence, and allow them to remain unpaid. God for- 
 bid, and God forbid that we should abandon the free- 
 holders, and permit the wretches upon whom we have en- 
 tailed so much disaster, to remain without hope ? For God 
 Almighty's sake let us not do any thing so base, so degrad- 
 ing, so utterly vile and bad as this ! But independently of 
 these considerations, let us remember, that even common 
 policy requires that we should remove every feeling of dis- 
 trust from the people, and that we should thoroughly con- 
 vince them of a determination to give them effectual relief. 
 If they are not saved from immediate oppression, with what 
 face can we hereafter appeal to the spirit of patriotism, of 
 which they have given such noble manifestations, and call 
 upon them to perform the same part ? Will they not justly 
 say to us : " You worked upon our passions ; you impelled us 
 into rebellion against our landlords ; you invoked us in 
 the name of our country and of our religion, and you 
 abandoned us ; and, with the means of succour in your 
 power, you refused to stretch out your hands to save us ! 
 You told us that we must wait, and that the time was not 
 come, and that the Old Rent was a sacred fund ; you put 
 
192 
 
 us off with excuses, and quibbles, and you left us and 
 our wives and children to perish/' It is therefore our 
 interest, with a view to preserve the use of the great 
 engine which we have obtained, to strain every nerve 
 in the support of the peasantry. However familiar the ci- 
 tation of the poet's celebrated lines may be, they cannot be 
 more appropriately applied than to the freeholders of Ire- 
 land, and we may justly say, — 
 
 C4 A bold yeomanry, their country's pride, 
 
 u When once destroyed, can never be supplied." 
 
 The peculiar applicability of the quotation rescues it from 
 the triviality of common place. Never, indeed, can the 
 spirit which has been awaked be supplied, if once we allow it 
 to be extinguished. If the flame which has been raised 
 through this country be once put out, every effort to re- 
 kindle it, will be idle. But let it be only kept alive, and 
 how noble and wide an illumination will it diffuse. How 
 admirable will be the results upon the moral character of 
 the people ! With a sense of independence they will acquire 
 that sense of dignity which is the source of virtue ; and the 
 meanest in the country — 
 
 " W T ill learn to venerate himself a man." 
 
 That high consciousness of their personal and political 
 rights, which imparts so much elevation to the character of 
 the English people, will grow up amongst them. They 
 will no longer bow down before their landlords as if they 
 were not compounded out of the same earth, and were not 
 to be tried by the same God. Those exhibitions of degrad- 
 ing tyranny, which are so dishonourable to human nature, 
 will no longer appear, and the aristocracy of Ireland will 
 be themselves participators in the great national improve- 
 ment. The representation of the country will be thoroughly 
 reformed, and no man whose claims do not rest upon public 
 virtue, will take his seat in the House of Commons. Catho- 
 lic Emancipation is not the only measure which would result 
 from this glorious liberation of the people, but a new prin- 
 ciple would be grafted upon the government, and a fresh 
 supply of life and vigour would be infused into the Consti- 
 tution. These are splendid, but not visionary projects. — 
 Their realization depends to a great extent upon the course 
 which we ourselves adopt. Not an instant ought to be lost 
 in affording them assistance. It would be cruel and inhu« 
 
19* 
 
 man to bid them look to the New Catholic Rent, and let 
 months pass over their heads without relief. Wait till No- 
 vember, indeed! Alas! their distresses are^at present suf- 
 ficient to excite our commisseration, without waiting for the 
 additional incentive to compassion which would be given 
 by the winter wind. The spectacle of calamity which is al- 
 ready exhibited is sufficiently moving to awaken our sensi- 
 bility, and we ought not to tarry until the rain shall descend 
 on their beds of straw, and the storm shall howl through 
 their hovels, and their naked children shall stand shivering 
 in groups of misery, with frozen hands and faces, at their 
 doors. Is there a man amongst us w T ho, with such an anti- 
 cipation of calamity before his mind, and who forms even 
 the faintest image of the wretchedness of these poor peo- 
 ple, will hesitate for an instant to fly to their relief? — 
 What ! shall we permit these miserable wretches and their 
 families to be turned out of their habitations without Are, or 
 food, or raiment? Shall we allow them to be cast forth to 
 the mercy of the elements, and to be flung upon the public 
 way to die ? I put it to myself — I made use of every effort 
 which I could employ to induce the peasantry to rebel 
 against their landlords in the county of Louth. If, in the 
 course of the succeeding winter, I should have occasion to 
 pass through that county, and I should meet a wretched 
 man with his family in the public, road, how should I feel, 
 if, after asking him what could have brought him to such a 
 pass, he told me, that " he was a forty-shilling freeholder, 
 that he had voted for the country, and that the country had 
 left him on the road — that he did not care for himself, but 
 that when he looked upon his children, and on the mother 
 of them, his heart was broken, and that the Association 
 had desired him to wait for the New Rent, and to starve 
 upon a point of law?" Let me not be accused of exagge- 
 ration. Instead of heightening the pictures of distress by 
 any fictitious colouring. I have no pencil with which I can 
 do justice to the melancholy reality. You will hear from the 
 worthy clergymen who are at present in this meeting, how 
 much has already been suffered, and how much, it is pro- 
 bable, must be still endured. In the name of every gener- 
 ous and honourable feeling — for the sake, not only of the 
 poor freeholders, but for your own sakes, and as you value 
 your own dignity and character, and prize the future inde- 
 pendence of your country, come forward, and by one si- 
 multaneous exclamation, signify your assent to a measure 
 which will not only have the effect of rescuing the peasantry 
 from ruin, but of rescuing your own character from i&rto- 
 S 
 
194 
 
 miny and disgrace. Do it in the name of justice — do it 
 in the name of humanity — do it in the name of Ireland, and 
 I trust I do not take his name in vain, when I say, do it in 
 the name of God. 
 
RECONCILIATION 
 
 BETWEEN 
 
 LANDLORD AND TENANT. 
 
 WESTMEATH QUARTER SESSIONS, 
 
 Moate, October 12, 1826. 
 
 GREAT interest was excited at the Westmeath Sessions, 
 held for the district of Moate, by the number of civil bill 
 ejectments brought by Sir Thoma9 Chapman, to eject the 
 freeholders of his estate, who had voted in the late contest 
 against his desire. Sir Thomas Chapman, who is a very 
 extensive proprietor, had divided a part of his property into 
 small tenements, with a view to increase his influence at the 
 election ; he was, how r ever, deserted by many of his tenan- 
 try ; and, in order to rid his estate of persons who had not, 
 in his mind, fulfilled the tacit contract into which they had 
 entered, he took summary proceedings against them. Many 
 were served with ejectments for one penny ; the effect of 
 such ejectments would have been, to crush the tenant under 
 the costs, which, on every hearing, would amount to one 
 pound twelve shillings. The landlord considered this pro- 
 ceeding perfectly justifiable, as the end of it was, to remove 
 the obnoxious individuals, who had not manifested that 
 compliance with Sir Thomas's wishes which was expected. 
 The popular party remonstrated against what they regarded 
 as an effort to obtain a dominion over the consciences of his 
 tenants. The consequence of this collision w r as, an unusual 
 excitation of the public mind. The Court was crowded by 
 the gentry of the county, and by great numbers of the 
 lower orders. Mr. Sheil attended as Counsel on behalf of 
 all the freeholders who had been served with ejectments, 
 and Mr. Cummins was employed specially for Sir Thomas 
 Chapman. 
 S 2 
 
196 
 
 On the first case being called on, Mr. Sheil begged, 
 before the Counsel for the plaintiff went into his statement, 
 to be allowed to make a proposition, which, he earnestly 
 hoped, would be received in the spirit of conciliation in 
 which it would be made. 
 
 The CHAIRMAN — You are, of course, at liberty, Mr. 
 Sheil, to make any proposition you may deem advisable. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL — I rise, then, in order to propose what I am 
 convinced it is equally the interest of Sir Thomas Chapman 
 and my clients, to make the basis of an adjustment between 
 th em. I am not deterred from making such a proposition 
 by the formidable preparation which I perceive on the part 
 of Sir Thomas Chapman, and in which no ordinary spirit of 
 resentment is evinced towards the horde of miserable beings, 
 for whose very existence I may be said to plead, Look at 
 the heap of civil bill ejectments which lie before me, most 
 of which are brought for inconsiderable sums, which it can- 
 not be the object of Sir Thomas Chapman to recover. The 
 tables of this Court have never exhibited a mass of litigation 
 which can be paralleled to this. 
 
 [Here Mr. GUNNING, the Attorney for Sir Thomas 
 Chapman, rose and said, he hoped Mr. Sheil did not refer 
 to him ; he had been much blamed for merely acting in his 
 professional character ; he had done no more than discharge 
 the duty which he owed to his client.] 
 
 The CHAIRMAN — I take this opportunity of stating, in 
 consequence of some reflections which have been thrown 
 on Mr. Gunning elsewhere, that I have known him for 
 sixteen years whilst he practised in this Court, and that I 
 never knew an instance in which he did not conduct himself 
 with the most perfect propriety. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL — I am greatly misinterpreted by Mr. Gun- 
 ning, if he conceives that 1 intend, either directly or by 
 insinuation, to throw the least reflection upon him ; so far 
 from being disposed to do so, I am free to admit that he has 
 only acted as every professional man is, in some measure, 
 bound to do, by obeying the instructions of the Gentleman 
 by whom he is employed, Sir T. Chapman has a right to 
 his rents, and when he has recourse to the remedies provided 
 by the statutes, his agent cannot be condemned for lending 
 him that professional aid which he might readily have found 
 elsewhere. I beg to assure Mr. Gunning, that, from all I 
 have heard of him, I entertain for him a sentiment of 
 respect and of esteem. I do not mean to speak in the lan- 
 guage of reproof either of Mr. Gunning or of any other 
 
197 
 
 person. I have risen with far different views than to irri- 
 tate the passions of those around me ; and I am well aware 
 that it is not by exciting any acrimonious feelings, that I 
 shall be likely to prevail in the honest and conciliating pro- 
 position which I shall take upon myself to make. If I 
 referred to the mass of civil bill ejectments which are piled 
 upon the table, it was only to impress upon those whom I 
 am addressing, a sense of the very peculiar circumstances 
 under which not only the poor freeholders, but a baronet of 
 great fortune and distinguished rank is situated. It is 
 impossible that he should adopt these proceedings without 
 reluctance. However exasperated he might have been, in 
 the first moments of disappointment, he cannot persevere in 
 anger against these miserable defendants, for whom some 
 allowance ought to be made. He cannot — no man can 
 contemplate all the misery that must ensue from a vindictive 
 perseverance in this system of retribution against his tenan- 
 try, without pain. That hundreds of wretches should be 
 turned, with their families, upon the public road, and that 
 they should be driven in the winter, with their wives and 
 poor little children, from their hovels, is most painful to 
 think upon ; and I own that I feel a more than ordinary 
 anxiety to succeed in the proposition, or rather in the 
 entreaty which I am going to make in their behalf. Without 
 reference to these considerations of common humanity, 
 which I do assure you I am now most unaffectedly and 
 sincerely urging, let me be forgiven for adding, that the 
 public peace is concerned. W hat are all the wretched and 
 starving men to do, when they are left without a roof over 
 their heads ? What will become of them when the fierce 
 passions which belong to the ardent temperament of our 
 country shall have been stimulated by famine and despair ? 
 What are all these fathers, husbands, sons, and brothers to 
 do ? I do not, therefore, exaggerate when I say, that the 
 public tranquillity is at stake. Having said this much, 
 (and I hope 1 shall be forgiven for so doing)— 
 
 The CHAIRMAN— Go on, Mr. Sheil, I cannot interfere 
 in enforcing any proposition ; but I hope that any fair one 
 will not be rejected. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL — I owe an apology to the Bench for this 
 deviation from the course which is usually adopted on those 
 occasions ; but I do really feel most strongly and deeply on 
 this subject. It is better, however, that I should at once 
 make my offer. The costs will overwhelm the tenants; 
 they will be ruined by their accumulation. Now, in the 
 
 o 3 
 
198 
 
 name of common humanity, with a view to the peace of the 
 country, in which every one here is concerned, and, let me 
 add, in order to restore Sir Thomas Chapman to that place 
 in the people's regard, which it is impossible that he should 
 not desire to hold, (no wise man can despise the opinion of 
 the public,) I ask him, and those who are acting for him, 
 to give up the costs, and every shilling of the rent will be 
 at once discharged. 
 
 Mr. GUNNING — I wish this proposition had been 
 made before we came into court, and special Counsel for 
 Sir Thomas Chapman had been retained for the Sessions. 
 Great expense has already been incurred. Five shillings 
 have been paid on the entry of each ejectment; I* do not 
 speak of any costs of mine, but the money out of pocket is 
 considerable ; this offer comes on us quite by surprise. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL — We have now the means of paying the 
 rent, which we had not before ; but let not an offer, made 
 in a sincere spirit, be rejected on account of its not having 
 been previously proposed. Sir Thomas Chapman's wealth 
 is too great to ailow him to give a moment's thought to the 
 expences already incurred ; those expences would ruin his 
 tenants, but cannot weigh upon him ; he will not miss 
 them : and be it remembered, what advantage may be pur- 
 chased by an act of forbearance and of magnanimity. It is 
 most desirable for both parties that a reconciliation should 
 take place between the landlord and tenant ; I quite feel 
 the importance of that reconciliation to my own clients, and 
 how much it is their interests that those bonds by which 
 they are connected with their superior, should not be lace- 
 rated and torn asunder. The vengeance of Sir Thomas 
 Chapman may be baffled in a single instance ; but although 
 they should escape him on this occasion by legal objections, 
 (and I can see a great number on which I expect to insist 
 with success,) yet, at least, the rent must be paid, w ith some 
 costs, and a repetition of the same system may be resorted 
 to. 
 
 Mr. CUMMINS— 1 am Counsel for Sir Thomas Chap- 
 man, and I own it gives me the greatest satisfaction to find, 
 that in pressing this proposition, my Learned Friend, Mr. 
 Sheil, has taken so sound, so rational, and so constitutional 
 a view of the interests of his clients, I attach much value 
 to his sentiments, because I regard him as standing here 
 as the representative of a great body, and, in some mea- 
 sure, as a public functionary. He has spoken as every law- 
 yer ought to speak, when he said, the bonds between land- 
 
199 
 
 lord and tenant ought not to be dissolved, and insisted upon 
 the advantages of a relation, which ought not to be inter- 
 rupted. Sir Thomas Chapman is not here, but I am con- 
 vinced that if he were, he would be induced to take the 
 proposition into his consideration, from the manner in 
 which it has been made, I have consulted with his At- 
 torney and his Land Agent, and I will take upon myself 
 to say, that if Mr. Shields clients will pay half the costs, 
 we will accept the rent, and let there be an end to the 
 matter. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL — I trust that Mr. Cummins will not force 
 me into any political controversy, from which, upon a pro- 
 per occasion, I will never shrink. Let me not be misun- 
 derstood when I said, that I considered the amicable rela- 
 tion between landlord and tenant as desirable ; I laid down 
 an abstract proposition, without referring to any particular 
 case. It is obviously the interest of both landlord and te- 
 nant, that neither party should regard the other with an 
 evil eye ; but I think it my duty to add, that however de- 
 sirable the permanence of that relation may be, yet there 
 may be cases in which it must yield to circumstances, and 
 in which a sacrifice of principle may be demanded of the 
 tenant by the landlord, which he ought not to make ; but 
 iet us not enter into subjects which might lead to angry 
 disquisitions My object is to heal, not to exasperate, 
 wounds which are stiil fresh and green. I am as prompt 
 ;is any man, upon fit occasions, to throw myself into poli- 
 tical debate, and to assert my opinions without qualification 
 or restraint ; but this court-house is not an appropriate are- 
 na for political contentions, and the fiercest combatant, on 
 entering the sanctuary of justice, should sheath his sword. 
 Let us, then, keep clear of topics which have, indeed, been 
 only slightly glanced at, but which, if pursued, can only 
 have the effect of impeding that reconciliation in which I 
 have been met half way. But, for God's sake, let us not 
 fly off upon such a miserable difference as the halving of 
 the costs. Let not Sir T. Chapman weigh a little gold dust, 
 [if 1 may use the phrase) against all the benefit which will 
 result from his total abandonment of his claims for legal ex- 
 oenses. He will mar every thing by a paltry demand. — 
 We are not now making a bargain and splitting differences, 
 >r endeavouring to combine the honour with the economy 
 >f benevolence. He will gain no credit if he still insists 
 ipon a moiety of his costs ; it will be said he only relented 
 jy halves. Mercy is not to be broken into halves. Sir Tho- 
 
200 
 
 mas Chapman has a splendid opportunity of ingratiating 
 himself with the people, and of removing every senti- 
 ment of a hostile kind which has recently attached to his 
 name. He will immediately regain that place in the gene- 
 ral regard which kindness and liberality always ensure, and 
 which hard dealing towards the lower classes is sure to for- 
 feit. There is, after all, something better than money, and 
 no man with either good sense or good feeling, would weigh 
 some hundred or hundred and fifty pounds, against a truly 
 generous action. Again, I entreat the Gentlemen opposed 
 to me, for the sake of Sir Thomas Chapman, not to allow 
 any petty consideration to obstruct that restoration of amity 
 and good will between a great proprietor and the peasantry 
 of the county, which can be so readily or so honourably 
 effected. 
 
 LHere the Counsel for Sir Thomas Chapman consulted 
 with his Attorney and Land Agent, and after a little de- 
 liberation, intimated that they would give up all costs, 
 make no demand for the expenses to which Sir Thomas 
 Chapman had been put, and which Mr. Discon, his Land 
 Agent, said he would pay out of his own pocket, and that 
 nothing should be required but the rent. This intimation 
 was received with loud and repeated plaudits ] 
 
 Mr. CUMMINS — I trust that this applause is not the ex- 
 pression of triumph, for there is no cause for any, We have 
 relinquished a portion of our rights, not from any fear, for 
 we must have succeeded, but in consequence of the appeal 
 which was made by Mr. Sheil, on behalf of Sir Thomas 
 Chapman's tenants. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL — Let not Mr. Cummins mistake the expres- 
 sions of thankfulness for those of triumph. The people 
 appreciate this act of forbearance, by which previous seve- 
 rity is repaired. Sir Thomas Chapman has been greatly 
 raised in the estimation of this great auditory ; and with a 
 feeling of exultation, which has broken forth in reiterated 
 plaudits, a sentiment of unaffected gratitude is intermingled. 
 I thank Sir Thomas Chapman on behalf of my clients ; he 
 will receive a two fold reward: the first and best will be, 
 the consciousness of having done a good and humane action, 
 (and what pleasure can be compared with it?) and the 
 second will arise from the assurance which he may hence- 
 forward entertain, that any animosity with which his con- 
 duct has been regarded, will be converted into a feeling of 
 unaffected, and, I trust, permanent regard. This example 
 cannot fail to be followed, and I expect that every vindic- 
 
201 
 
 tive proceding towards the free-holders of this county will 
 ;erminate with this day. 
 
 The Chairman intimated his satisfaction at the manner in 
 which these differences were adjusted, and the whole Bench 
 )f Magistrates seemed to participate in his feelings. 
 
 The whole of the rent due by the tenants was mnmedi- 
 itely discharged out of the money advanced by the Associ- 
 ition. Securities were passed for its repayment to the 
 Parish Priests. 
 
MESSRS. 
 
 O'CONNELL & SHEXLS' 
 
 SPEECHES 
 
 ON PROPOSING AN ADDRESS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 LOWER ORDERS. 
 
 Mr. O'CONNELL said, he would read the draft of an 
 Address designed as an admonition to the lower classes of 
 the Irish People ; the first duty of the framers of that ad- 
 monition was the fitness of the terms through which advice 
 and caution were to be conveyed. Information had been 
 laid before the Association, that attempts were made to 
 create disturbances ; distinct intelligence was given, that 
 emissaries, selected from the lower order of Police, were in 
 active service under the arrangements and directions of an 
 Orange Lodge, of Dublin. There is information upon this 
 serious subject from most respectable Catholic Clergymen, 
 and it is the duty of this Association to guard the People 
 against the snares laid, and to apprise the Government of 
 the Country of the works of the Conspirators. He had on 
 that day been informed by a gentleman, that in the oath 
 administered to the deluded Ribbonmen in the King's 
 County and in the adjoining part of the County Tipperary, 
 was to be found an injunction to be faithful and true to the 
 Association ! — It is an imperative duty on us, said the 
 learned Gentleman, to disabuse the poor people ; their and 
 our enemies are abroad, and nothing could meet with our 
 strong disapprobation more than their entering into illegal 
 combinations. Our allegiance is pure and unqualified? it 
 knows not any restriction but that which is marked out by 
 
203 
 
 the Constitution and that Revolution of 1688, so glorious 
 to Englishmen, but so fraught with disasters to us. We 
 have respect for the laws. When I see a paltry fellow of 
 the London Press calling on Government to put the six Acts 
 in force against us, I laugh him to scorn when I turn to 
 the Statutes. We do not come under the Act ; it has no 
 application to any meetings but those held in the open air ; 
 we meet in a room without any tie or obligation ; our dis- 
 cussions are above board and open to investigation ; we do 
 not seek to evade penalties by low subterfuge ; we are ame- 
 nable to the laws, and look for our rights through the legi- 
 timate channels of the Constitution, and we are opposed to 
 those who are openly arrayed against the welfare of that 
 Constitution. They talk of a proclamation to put down the 
 voice of the Catholic People. Oh ! how the Orange fac- 
 tion would yell, if Mr. Plunkett set about putting down the 
 Catholics. We laugh at their impotent threats — we violate 
 no law. The Constitutional James Daly was almost mad at 
 the violence of the proceedings against the Orangemen ; the 
 dear man said not a word, when Saurin was found to have 
 taken like proceedings ; he paid very little regard to the 
 preservation of the constitution, when he found that Saurin 
 had set the example. I well remember when Dr. Sheridan 
 was dragged before the Court of King's Bench, the faction 
 would govern us as the slaves of the West Indies, not by 
 law, but by proclamation. If we were governed as the 
 Negroes, perhaps the Quakers would come forward and 
 petition for us then ; they petition for the Negroes, and, 
 in the overflowing of their humanity, pass their Catholic 
 neighbours by. A fortnight shall not elapse, till we are 
 able to trace home a conspiracy in existence to coerce the 
 Government of this country ; this is high treason ; the 
 Orange Lodges of Dublin have planned it ; they have an 
 emissary out, who can get up meetings in Court-houses ; 
 there is an unfortunate maniac, the Rev. Sir Harcourt Lees, 
 who says, that the Government is actually afraid of him ; 
 he is committing a breach of the peace, that goes to the extent 
 of high treason ; the desperate acts of the Orange faction are 
 as despicable as they are criminal ; the People laugh at them ; 
 they are not able to meet us in argument. Our worthy 
 Lord Mayor, Drury Jones, an importation from Wales, 
 took affidavits, prepared at a meeting got up for the pur- 
 pose of presenting the Association as a nuisance. The 
 dressing of the Statute was always attended by riot. Per- 
 sons came there in garbs that rendered them liable to trans- 
 portation, under the Whiteboy Act. 1 knew hundred* 
 
204 
 
 tranported for a like offence. They came in arms, firing 
 and causing great alarm in College-green. They were put 
 down by affidavits being made of the nuisance. Here the 
 swearing was safe, but as to the Association, who will say, 
 that there was not the most flagitious perjury committed ?— 
 Not able to put us down by violence, they would cut our 
 throats, and have recource to conspiracies. If the consta- 
 bulary force would require help to keep the public peace, 
 they could command the services of four hundred Gentle- 
 men here, who would go at the risk of their lives. The 
 peace of the city and country has not better friends than the 
 Association. This address will let the people know their 
 friends and their enemies. The Orange faction are tasteless 
 and talentless — there is not one amongt them that has the 
 lea3t pretensions to genius — they are as grovelling in intel- 
 lect as in genius. I went on Circuit with Tom Ellis, for 
 eleven years; he gave £13,000 for his office; the Judges 
 heard him with great attention, and I insisted on being 
 heard by them ; he totally and miserably failed. His is 
 tried, ascertained, and experimented incapacity. When I 
 was preparing to bring my bag into Court, his mind was 
 occupied upon his dancing shoes. We must guard against 
 the plotting of the faction, and appeal to the people in 
 terms of affection, and of reprobation of their cruel op- 
 pressors. 
 
 Mr. O'CONNELL then read the Address, (which was 
 composed by him) in the following words : — 
 
 TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND. 
 
 Fellow-Countrymen — We are your friends — your sin- 
 cere friends, desirous to protect and serve you ; we ad- 
 dress you from motives of pure kindness and disinterested 
 affection. 
 
 Listen to us, because we are your friends ; attend to us, 
 because we are most desirous to be of use to you; weigh 
 well and deliberately what we offer to your consideration : 
 consider it carefully ; we appeal to your good sense and 
 your reason ; make use of that common sense which Pro- 
 vidence has, in its bounty given you, in a degree equal, 
 and perhaps superior, to any people on the face of the 
 globe ; think coolly and dispassionately upon the advice 
 which we give you, and you will find it consistent with 
 good sense and honesty, and strongly recommended by 
 every principle of morality, and by all the sacred dictates 
 of religion. 
 
205 
 
 We advise you to refrain totally from all secret societies ; 
 from all private combinations ; from every species of White- 
 boyism, or Ribbonism, or by whatever other name any se- 
 cret or private association may be called. We would not 
 attempt to deceive or delude you ; we could not obtain 
 your confidence if v/e were to state falsehoods ; and, if we 
 could, we would not purchase confidence at the expense of 
 truth. 
 
 We do not come to tell you, that you have no grievances 
 to complain of, or that there are no oppressions to be re- 
 dressed ; we are sorry to be obliged to admit that you have 
 just cause of complaint, and that there exist many and bit- 
 ter grievances which ought to be redressed ; we know that 
 these grievances and oppressions are the excuses which too 
 of the uneducated classes of our countrymen have 
 given for turbulence, violence, and the forming of secret 
 associations ; but we also know, that proceedings of that 
 kind only aggravate the mischief and increase the quantity 
 o." suffering which they pretend to redress. 
 
 It is to this, that we call your particular attention ; it is 
 to this, that we request your deliberate and full conside- 
 ration. 
 
 We most solemnly assure you, that secret and illegal so- 
 cieties — that Ribbonism, and Whiteboyism, and viol ence, 
 and outrage, and crime, have always increased the quantity 
 of misery and oppression in Ireland, and have never pro- 
 duced any relief or mitigation of the sufferings of the peo- 
 ple. Every one of you have heard of, and many of you are 
 old enough to have seen, the effects of secret societies, and 
 of various descriptions of Whiteboyism, and of much ille- 
 gal violence, and many minor crimes, as well as horrible 
 outrages and murders. 
 
 Now, setting aside for the present, all other objections, 
 we will ask you, whether any good has been ever produced 
 by such proceedings or atrocities ? You must answer in the 
 negative. You must perceive that the people have never 
 derived any benefit from them. Many individuals have suf- 
 fered long imprisonment by reason of them — they have 
 caused multitudes to be severed from their families and 
 nearest connexions — they have crowded the decks of the 
 transport vessels, and they have thronged the gallows with 
 victims. 
 
 There are other evils which have attended Whiteboy and 
 Ribbon disturbances — and, in particular, the innocent fre- 
 quently suffer for the guilty. When property is burned, or 
 otherwise destroyed, the value is levied off the parish, Eu- 
 T 
 
206 
 
 irony, or County. The person intended to be injured gets 
 as high, and frequently a higher price for his property than 
 he probably would otherwise obtain for it. But, who are 
 they who pay for it ? Why, nine-tenths of them must be 
 persons who had no share in the crime — and who is it that 
 can make restitution to the innocent people who are thus 
 obliged to pay their money ? What a load of guilt does 
 not this bring home to the persons who commit the crime, 
 they can never make adequate restitution for— and how 
 can they ever expect to obtain mercy from the all-just 
 Providence, while they are the means of uncompensated 
 injustice ? 
 
 Again, wherever Whiteboy or Ribbon offences are com- 
 mitted, many innocent persons will inevitably be convicted 
 of crimes which they never committed. How many inno- 
 cent persons have we known to suffer transportation ? and 
 how many have we seen suffer death by reason of Whiteboy 
 crimes ? Some may blame the administration of the laws 
 for these frightful results — but good sense will soon con- 
 vince every dispassionate man, that they are necessary 
 results from the passions which are naturally excited by 
 Whiteboy and Ribbon outrages and crimes, and from the 
 rewards which at such periods are justifiably offered to in- 
 formers, amongst whom will be found the very basest of 
 mankind. 
 
 Fellow-countrymen we tell you nothing but the truth. — 
 No goad, no advantage, no benefit, has ever been produced 
 in Ireland by Whiteboyism or Ribbonism, or any other 
 species of secret association. Such associations are forbid- 
 den by the law of man — and as they are necessarily produc- 
 tive of crimes, they are more powerfully forbidden by the 
 law of God. 
 
 By the law of the land, any man who joins a secret asso- 
 ciation, bound together by an oath, or any engagement or 
 promise whatsoever, is liable to be transported. Any per- 
 son who joins such meeting by day, is liable to fine, impri- 
 sonment, and whipping. Any person who joins them by 
 night, is liable to transportation. Any person who joins 
 them at night, in rapping at a door, or even verbally de- 
 manding arms, or ammunition, or horses, or uses any 
 threats or menaces against the inhabitants of the dwelling- 
 house, is liable to be executed, quite as much as if he had 
 committed robbery or murder. And, besides all these 
 punishments by the regular course of law, there is the 
 Insurrection Act, which can be applied by the Govern- 
 ment to any disturbed district, and by the means of that 
 
207 
 
 Act, any person who is out of his dwelling-house from 
 sun-set to sun-rise, may be transported without Judge or 
 Jury. 
 
 We have given you this brief abstract of the legal pu- 
 nishments that await the disturbances produced by secret 
 societies. Every act done by them is illegal, and liable to 
 punishment. — We deem it a duty we owe to you, to put 
 you on your guard against incurring either the guilt or 
 punishment. 
 
 There is another and a more important object. These 
 secret societies, and the outrages which they generate, are 
 forbidden by the awful voice of religion. Your religion 
 directs you to be submissive to the laws — it orders you not 
 to do an injury to any man whatsoever. It tells you that 
 you are not to commit any crime whatsoever, however 
 small, even though such crimes were to produce the greatest 
 possible good. Your religion informs you, that if you take 
 or injure the property of any man, you cannot obtain for- 
 giveness of the offence, without making restitution to the 
 full extent of all the property you are possessed of. We 
 need not tell you how your religion abhors every thing that 
 approaches to robbery, murder or blood. You cannot 
 really be Catholics — you cannot really be Christians, if you 
 do not feel or know, that what we say to you is literally 
 and exactly true. 
 
 There are other matters which equally deserve your atten- 
 tion — these disturbances not only have never produced any 
 good effect, but they can never possibly be successful ; they 
 usually produce some robbery of arms, some plundering of 
 houses, the destruction of corn, cattle, and other property ; 
 and they also cause many murders ; but no human being 
 ever was or is benefited by them ; and beyond these crimes 
 it is not possible that any success can attend the perpetra- 
 tors ; they are totally unable to face the Constabulary force 
 in open contest ; half a dozen Policemen are quite sufficient 
 to put down the strongest Whiteboy force in any thing like 
 a regular attack ; and, if they were not, the Police are 
 reinforced by the Yeomanry corps, and these again by the 
 regular army. The Government has at its command upwards 
 of one hundred thousand Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery ; 
 and, if it wanted foreign aid against domestic disturbances, 
 it could easily procure one hundred thousand more — so that 
 all notion of being successful by means of Whiteboyism, or 
 secret societies, is as ridiculous and absurd as it is wicked and 
 criminal. 
 
 Let it be recollected, too, that in all those disturbances 
 T 2 
 
208 
 
 and secret societies, no person of education, character, or 
 property takes a part ; they are condemned by every honest 
 and every intelligent person, and above all, they are -repro- 
 bated by your truly amiable, intelligent, laborious, pious, 
 and beloved Clergy, How is it possible that you can forget 
 the admonition and advice of that Clergy? Do not you 
 know that they have no other interest but your's ; and no 
 other object but \our temporal, as well as eternal wel- 
 fare ? 
 
 Fellow-countrymen, attend to our advice — we advise you 
 to abstain from all such secret combinations ; if you engage 
 in them you not only meet our decided disapprobation, in 
 conjunction with that of your reverend Clergy, but you 
 gratify and delight the basest and bloodiest faction that ever 
 polluted a country — the Orange faction. The Orangemen 
 anxiously desire that you should form Whiteboy, and Rib- 
 bon, and other secret societies ; they not only desire it, but 
 they take an active part in promoting the formation of such 
 societies ; they send amongst you spies and informers ; first 
 to instigate you to crime, and then to betray you to punish- 
 ment. They supply their emissaries with money, and they 
 send them to different parts of the country, holding out to 
 the people the pretence of being friends and fellow-sufferers. 
 The instances are not few, nor remote of such instigation, 
 and it is quite natural that the Orangemen should adopt 
 such measures. When the country is disturbed it is the 
 Orangeman's harvest ; he is then employed in the Consta- 
 bulary force and in the Police, and he obtains permanent 
 pay in the Yeomanry Corps. He shares the rewards with 
 the informer, and often helps him to mark out his victim,, 
 He is also able to traduce the People and the religion of the 
 land. The absence of Constitutional law enables the Orange- 
 man to exert ruffian violence with impunity — and thus, by 
 means of secret and Whiteboy Societies and outrages, the 
 fell Orangeman is able to gratify his predominant passions 
 of avarice, oppression, and cruelty. 
 
 You could not please the Orangemen more than in 
 embarking in secret societies, Whiteboyism and out- 
 rage. 
 
 On the other hand, you could not do any thing that 
 could more afflict your sincere friends. You could do 
 nothing that could give greater grief to the Catholic Asso- 
 ciation, that now affectionately and anxiously address you. 
 We are struggling to obtain your rights by constitutional 
 and legal means. We are endeavouring to procure redress 
 through the proper and legal channel, for the oppressions 
 
209 
 
 which aggrieve you. We are anxiously desirous to obtain 
 from Parliament a great diminution of the Tithes — a total 
 abolition of the Church-Rates — a great reduction of the 
 Grand Jury Cess — the abolition of the odious oppressions 
 and heavy Tolls, raised by bigotted and narrow-minded 
 Corporators — a more pure Administration of Justice, more 
 especially as it affects the lower and poorer classes of the 
 Community ; and, above all, the extension of equal 
 laws and equal Rights to all Classes of his Majesty's 
 Subjects. 
 
 Engaged in these sacred duties, our success for the Peo- 
 ple is highly probably, unless we are thwarted by the People 
 themselves. We have no idea of acting for persons who 
 would be so foolish as to put themselves in the power of 
 their enemies ; and we now, and for ever, disclaim any kind 
 of alliance with persons who could be so w icked as to com- 
 mit crimes — besides, our power to do good is necessarily 
 weakened by any disturbance on the part of the People, 
 whilst the strength of their enemies is thereby augmented 
 and reinforced. 
 
 Thus, Fellow-Countrymen, we have submitted to your 
 judgment and reason, these topics — 
 
 1 st. That no good has ever been the result of WTiiteboy 
 disturbances and Secret Societies. 
 
 2d. That the Persons engaged therein are liable to the 
 severest punishments — to imprisonment, whipping, trans- 
 portation, and death. 
 
 3d. We have shown you that your Religion distinctly, 
 and loudly prohibits and condemns all the outrages and 
 crimes which are produced by Whiteboyism and other 
 Secret Societies. 
 
 4th. That it would be quite foolish and absurd to expect 
 any kind of success from Whiteboy disturbances or Secret 
 Societies. 
 
 5th. That such disturbances give great pleasure and many 
 advantages to the Orange faction, and are, in general, 
 secretly instigated by that foul faction. 
 
 6th. That these disturbances and Secret Societies are 
 reprobated and condemned by your excellent and matchless 
 Clergy — a Clergy whom you ought not only to esteem 
 and to love, but whose advice you are bound to respect and 
 obey. 
 
 7th. That these disturbances and Secret Societies are 
 most distinctly and emphatically condemned by your 
 most sincere friends the Catholic Association of Ire- 
 land. 
 
 T 3 
 
210 
 
 8th. That the necessary consequences of such dis- 
 turbances and Whiteboy Societies,, is to impede our le- 
 gal and constitutional exertions in our progress to put 
 down the Orange faction, to obtain redress for many 
 of the oppressions and grievances under which you 
 labour, and in fine to achieve Catholic Emancipa- 
 tion. 
 
 There remains but one topic more, and that is peculiar 
 to the present times — we have at length an Attorney -Gene- 
 ral who exposes faction, and is anxious to do his duty im- 
 partially to all the King's subjects. We have, for Lord 
 Lieutenant, an Irish Nobleman, who loves the land of his 
 birth, of which he is a bright ornament, and who is sin- 
 cerely solicitous to give her peace, quiet, liberty, and hap- 
 piness; but above all, and greatest of all, we have now 
 upon the Throne a Monarch, to whom the People of Ire- 
 land ought to look with affectionate hope ; a Monarch who 
 had the good sense and manliness to commence his reign by 
 that noble declaration, "That power W T as a trust for the 
 good of the People." The first British Monarch who ever 
 visited the shores of Ireland in the sweet garb of peace, 
 and for the purposes of benevolence and kindness ; a Mo- 
 narch who has often declared his warm affection for his 
 Irish subjects, and of whom we have every reason to believe 
 that the leading wish of his patriotic and cultivated mind is, 
 to see dissension cease, and cordial unanimity of sentiment 
 prevail in Ireland. 
 
 In the name, then, of common sense, which forbids you to 
 !• eek foolish courses — by the hate you bear the Orangemen, 
 who are your natural enemies — by the confidence you repose 
 in the Catholic Association, who are your natural and zea- 
 lous friends — by the respect and affection you entertain for 
 your Clergy, who alone visit with comfort your beds of 
 sickness and desolation — by all these powerful motives, and 
 still more by the affectionate reverence you bear for the gra- 
 cious Monarch who deigns to think of your sufferings with 
 a view to your relief — and, above all, and infinitely beyond 
 all, in the name of Religion, and of the living God, we con- 
 jure you to abstain from all secret and illegal Societies, and 
 Whiteboy disturbances and outrages. 
 
 So shall you permit us to seek by peaceful, legal, 
 and constitutional means the redress of your grievances 
 and oppressions ; and so shall you enable us to obtain 
 for our beloved Country, those constitutional privileges 
 raid blessings which can alone make her what she ought 
 to be — 
 
211 
 
 (( Great, glorious, and free, 
 
 First flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea/' 
 
 Mr. LANIGAN said, before the question was put, he 
 had a word to say upon it ; he perfectly agreed with the 
 views and objects of the address ; he [knew the part of the 
 country, pointed out by Mr. O'Connell, where there were 
 persons who, to his own knowledge, used all the means 
 they could possibly employ, to oppress the people, but they 
 had* been successfully opposed by many highly respectable 
 Gentlemen. He knew there were plots hatched and brought 
 to maturity, and that the victims of those plots were nu- 
 merous ; nevertheless, in cautioning the people it was right 
 to use temperate language; every word of the address 
 would be carefully analysed by the enemies of the people ; 
 if any words were found in it that would have the least ten- 
 dency to produce a different effect from that which was in- 
 tended, he would hope that they should be expunged. — 
 There were two expressions in the Address objectionable on 
 that principle, namely, that part were it mentions, that 
 trials under the Insurrection Act are without the guidance 
 of Judge or Jury ; though the Insurrection Act gives to a 
 King's Counsel the same powers as those exercised by a 
 Judge of Assize. In the part where the expression, " hate 
 to Orangemen," occurs, he should like to know if such ex- 
 pressions were not contrary to the principles of the Christian 
 Religion ; if the clergy, whom the people love, say, take 
 and read the Address with such words in it, will they not 
 be breathing hostility to their fellow -men ? He would there- 
 fore move an amendment. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL said, my friend Mr. Lanigan is a little prone 
 to hypercriticism. The Address is an exhortation to peace, 
 wise, cordial, and sincere. It is not by a minute admea- 
 surement of isolated phrase, but by its whole tenor, that 
 its value ought to be tried. The labour of Mr. O'Connell 
 ought not to be requited with ingenious sophistications. It 
 is matter of astonishment that he should be able to devote 
 so much of his mind to the public service. Oppressed as 
 he is by his professional engagements, it is surprising that 
 he should have made such an allocation of his faculties be- 
 tween his Clients and his Country. We are told by Mr. 
 Lanigan, that hatred to Orangemen should not be distinctly 
 intimated in an Address which is intended for the pacifica- 
 tion of the people. I do not coincide with Mr. Lanigan, 
 There is no reference to individuals in the document before 
 Ms. It is to the principle which has drawn them into league 
 
212 
 
 that the expression is applied, and in the whole com- 
 pass of diction there is not a word so deeply fraught 
 with execration, as to convey, with any sort of adequacy, the 
 sentiment of unqualified abhorrence with which that bloody, 
 that unnatural and detestable confederacy ought to be con- 
 veyed. In the name of human nature, and of that God 
 who has endowed the heart with emotion — in the name of 
 the passions and of the instincts, that reside in the breast of 
 man, w T hat other sentiment is it possible for a Roman Catho- 
 lic to entertain towards that abominable Association ? Let 
 us not be told of the charities of the Christian religion — we 
 are enjoined by Scripture to hold our cheeks to the buffet — 
 but not to stretch our necks to the knife. Forgive and for- 
 get, forsooth. " Forgive, forget ! I must, indeed, forget, 
 when I forgive !" What is to be forgiven ? The thirst for 
 massacre, which, I trust in God, we shall not give them an 
 opportunity to quench I And what is our invocation ? Do 
 we call upon the people to turn upon their oppressors? — 
 No ; this address is a proclamation of peace — it enlists the 
 popular passions in the cause of national tranquillity — it en- 
 joins the people to disappoint the ferocious avidity for 
 blood — it bids them seek revenge in peace. We tell them, 
 " Do not gratify your antagonists by letting them cut your 
 throats — irascimini sed notite pjccare." W T e tell the peo- 
 ple, " The Orangemen are crouched to leap upon you — 
 they watch every movement with a tiger vigilance, and want 
 but a single indiscretion to make you their prey — they en- 
 deavour to goad you into rebellion, that they may bathe 
 themselves in your blood." Is it not notorious, that the 
 Orangemen of Ireland wish for a public convulsion ? I do 
 not speak of the individual members of that body, but of 
 the spirit that prevails through that ferocious incorporation. 
 They long for a renewal of QH — they sigh for the era of 
 triangles, and the epoch of pitch caps — they carouse to the 
 whip and to the torch, and in the midst of their cups, after 
 offering libations to the slavery of their country, <<r fight 
 their battles," or I should rather say, they wade through 
 massacre again. Methinks I see the northern yeoman re- 
 counting his achievements in the slaughter of defenceless 
 women and of aged men ! The flames of the burning ho- 
 vel flash upon his imagination, and as he draws his rusty 
 sabre, clotted with the blood of the orphan and the widow, 
 he mingles the pleasures of hope with the gratifications of 
 memory, and anticipates the recurrence of the glorious day 
 when every house was in flames, and every ditch was red 
 with blood. I do not attribute this sanguinary speculation, 
 
213 
 
 to the better class of the Orangemen of Ireland, but that 
 this nefarious desire rages among the inferior order of that 
 vile confederacy, I entertain no doubt. It was the maxim 
 of Machiavel, that slavery was rivetted by unsuccessful in- 
 surrection. " Create a rebellion, crush it, and then/* says 
 Machiavel, " you are a despot indeed." Some of his Flo- 
 rentine policy may be found in Dublin, and we should omit 
 no efforts to counteract so detestable a design, 
 
MR O'CONNELL'3 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 AT THE 
 
 ASSOCIATION, 
 
 ON 
 
 WEDNESDAY; FEBRUARY 2^ 1827. 
 
 Mr. O'CONNELL said, that he had prepared a Petition 
 of great importance, and which, in his mind, would ope- 
 rate towards obtaining for the Catholics a full measure of 
 redress. He entreated the attention of the Meeting while 
 he detailed the principles on which the Petition was found- 
 ed, and the purposes for which it was intended. These pur- 
 poses were to obtain for the Roman Catholics seats in Parli- 
 ament, and a participation in the legislation of the country. 
 He had heard a rumour of an intention to concede to the 
 Catholics such portion of their claims as did not come with- 
 in the privilege of sitting in Parliament — but, although the 
 Legislature would confer considerable boons by doing 
 so much, and although the Catholics, as creditors, had to 
 deal with a reluctant debtor, and it was, therefore, their in- 
 terest to take any instalment proffered, on account of their 
 demand, yet they would not accept of such instalment in 
 discharge of the whole, or give a release of their claims till 
 they had been fully paid off. It was infinitely more impor- 
 tant that the Catholic gentry should be admitted to the pri- 
 vilege of a seat in the Commons House of Parliament, and I 
 the Catholic nobility to seats in the House of Peers, than - 
 any other of the immunities that might be conceded to them 
 — for, until this should be accomplished, we could never be 
 sure, that our Rights would be faithfully guarded, or the 
 encroachments of the Established Church vigilantly watch- 
 
215 
 
 ed. The Established Church, since the Act of Union, had 
 obtained forty distinct grants, confirming their prerogatives, 
 and so facilitating the collection of their various claims, that 
 it became impossible to resist their demands for Tithes, 
 Dues, or Church Rates. With such a system as this in ope- 
 ration, fraught as it is with the most evil consequences — a 
 system in which the Established Clergy, who, if not over 
 alive to their spiritual, could not be accused of any inatten- 
 tion to their temporal interests — a system in which the 
 Clergy were permitted to make their inclinations the scale 
 of their encroachments — under such a system, he said, it 
 was impossible for the people to preserve themselves from 
 oppression, unless they were made partakers of the Consti- 
 tution. The fundamental principles of that Constitution 
 demonstrated that it was a solecism in politics, that any 
 class of men should be capable of electing others to an office 
 to which they were ineligible themselves. There was one 
 office in which this rule was reversed, and to which Catho- 
 lics might be elected, although they could not exercise the 
 privilege of electors — he meant the office of Churchwarden. 
 But the reason of this was, that a Catholic was accountable 
 for the receipts of the office, and if he either does not 
 receive them, or does not account for them, his successor in 
 office, as well as the Bishop, may sue him for the amount. 
 This was the enviable office to which a Catholic was eligible, 
 but that same Catholic who might fill the office himself was 
 obliged to walk out of the vestry as well as the Church- 
 warden himself. Under these impressions he had prepared 
 the draft of a Petition from an ancient document which he 
 would presently read to the Meeting. Their measures were 
 not tumultuous, nor their objects disaffected. They designed 
 to procure for the country peace, tranquillity, and a Consti- 
 tutional union. He meant such a union as existed at the 
 latter end of 1782, which he hoped he might again see 
 restored, and which might continue unimpaired till the end 
 }f time. The object of the Catholics was conciliation. It 
 ivas to add the strength of Ireland to the power of England. 
 Let England perform an act of justice to Ireland, and Ire- 
 and becomes a source of her strength. This is not specu- 
 ation, it is not fancy, but it is fact ; or it is rather prophecy 
 n a different spirit from that of Pastorini. The Eldons, the 
 Peels, and the Liverpools would again say, appeal not to 
 heory, but give us facts. Then he (Mr. O'Connell) would 
 ; ppeal to facts. It was the practice of lawyers to cite cases 
 n questions of law, and to produce witnesses in matters of 
 act. In conformity with this plan, the first witness he 
 
216 
 
 would call was Scotland, which his friend Mr. Lawless had 
 so justly eulogised in the beautiful language of Curran, not 
 less eloquent than his own. For more than a century Scot- 
 and was the most turbulent part of the empire. She 
 did not exhibit the self-control of Ireland, nor pati- 
 ently suffer herself to be trampled on, while her oppres- 
 sors rode by in triumph. She hewed down with the sword 
 of the Lord the Archbishops and Bishops ; and when the 
 force of the British arms became too strong for her people, 
 they retired to their mountains, and after renovating their 
 vigour, they returned to carry desolation to the very dwell- 
 ings of their assailants. The Scots rose in repeated insur- 
 rections, and retaliated on their foes by more than one 
 successful effort. They got possession of their King, and they 
 sold him into the hands of his enemies. The scene of car- 
 nage and devastation was renewed after the Restoration ; 
 and if the Scots fell, their only consolation was, that they 
 dyed their avenging swords with the blood of their ene- 
 mies. England at length saw that she could not convert the 
 Presbyterians. She established the Presbyterian religion as 
 the religion of the country, and the consequence was, that 
 Scotland grew in greatness, and became a source of strength, 
 power, and glory to Great Britain. He now dismissed this 
 witness to be cross-examined by whoever pleased. The 
 more the question was canvassed, the more it demonstrated 
 the weakness and impolicy of governing a nation by oppres- 
 sion and constraint. Scotland was fierce, ungovernable, 
 bloody battling and ferocious ; she became at once tranquil, 
 industrious, and peaceable. The one state of things termi- 
 nated, and the other commenced with the concession of an 
 act of justice. The next instance he would adduce was less 
 familiar, and he owed it to the writings of Burke. While 
 England exercised an exclusionary dominion over Wales, 
 the effects were equally disastrous. In Wales political 
 exclusion was, in itself, sufficient to create all the horrors 
 of inveterate and rancourous hostility. He would now 
 read a passage from Mr, Burkes' s speech on Conciliation 
 with America : — 
 
 " Wales was said to be reduced by Henry HI. It was 
 said more truly to be so by Edward I. But though then 
 conquered, it was not looked upon as any part of the realm 
 of England. Its old Constitution, whatever it might have 
 been, was destroyed, and no good one was substituted in its 
 place. The care of that tract was put into the hands of 
 Lords Marshers — a form of Government of a very singular 
 kind ; a strange heterogeneous monster — something between 
 
217 
 
 hostility and government ; perhaps it has a sort of resem- 
 blance according to the modes of those times, to that of 
 Cominander-in-Chief at present, to whom all civil power is 
 granted as secondary. The manners of the Welch nation 
 followed the genius of the Government ; the people were. 
 ferocious, restive, savage, and uncultivated ; sometimes 
 composed, never pacified. Wales, within itself, was in per- 
 petual disorder, and it kept the frontier of England in perpe- 
 tual alarm. Benefits from it to the State, there were none. 
 Wales was only known to England by incursion and inva- 
 sion." 
 
 In a late number of the Times, he saw the passage — 
 " Ireland is known to England only by insurrection and 
 massacre." 
 
 " During that state of things Parliament was not idle. 
 They attempted to subdue the fierce spirit of the Welch, by 
 all sorts of rigorous laws. They prohibited, by statute, the 
 sending of all sorts of arms into Wales, as you prohibit, by 
 proclamation, (with something more than doubt on the 
 legality) the sending arms to America. They disarmed the 
 Welch by statute, as you attempted (but still with more 
 question on the legality) to disarm New England by an 
 instruction. They made an Act to drag offenders from 
 Wales into England for trial, as you have done (but with 
 more hardship) with regard to America. By another Act 
 where one of the parties was an Englishman, they ordained 
 that his trial should be always by English." 
 
 There is a statute at this moment on the roll which pre- 
 scribes, that in cases in which the Penal Laws are applica- 
 ble, all the Jurors shall be Protestants. 
 
 " They made Acts to restrain trade, as you do ; and they 
 prevented the Welch from the use of fairs and markets, as 
 you do the Americans from fisheries and foreign ports. In 
 short, when the statute-book was not quite so much swelled 
 as it is now, you find no less than fifteen of the Acts of 
 penal regulations on the subject of Wales." 
 
 Mere we rub our hands — a fine body of precedents for the 
 authority of Parliament and the use of it ! I admit it full} ; 
 and pray add likewise to those precedents, that all the 
 while Wales rid this kingdom as an incubus ; that it was 
 an unprofitable and oppressive burthen ; and that an Eng- 
 lishman travelling in that country could not go six yards 
 from the high road without being murdered. 
 
 i{ The march of the human mind is slow. It was not until 
 after two hundred years discovered by an eternal law, that 
 Providence had decreed vexation to violence, and poverty to 
 U 
 
218 
 
 rapine. Your ancestors did, however, at length open their 
 eyes to the ill-husbandry of injustice. They found that the 
 tyranny of a free people could, of all tyrannies, the least be 
 endured ; and that laws made against a whole nation, were 
 not the most effectual methods for securing its obedience. 
 Accordingly, in the 27th year of Henry VIII., the course 
 was entirely altered. With a preamble stating the entire 
 and perfect rights of the Crown of England, it gave to the 
 Welch all the rights and privileges of English subjects. A 
 political order was established ; the military power gave 
 way to the civil — and the marshes were turned into coun- 
 ties. But that a nation should have a right to English 
 liberties, and yet no share at all in the fundamental security 
 of these liberties, the grant of their own property seemed a 
 thing so incongruous, that, eight years after, in the 35th of 
 that reign, a complete, and not ill-proportioned representa- 
 tion by counties and boroughs, was bestowed upon Wales 
 by Act of Parliament. From that moment, as by a charm, 
 the tumults subsided ; obedience was restored ; peace, 
 order, and civilization followed in the train of liberty — 
 when the day-star of the English Constitution had arisen in 
 their hearts, all was harmony within and without — 
 
 . simul alba nautis 
 
 Stella refulsit, 
 Defluit saxis agitatus humor ; 
 Concidunt venti, fugiuntque nubes, 
 Etminax (quod sic voluere) ponto 
 Unda recumbit." 
 
 Mr. O'CONNELL resumed — he said, that at this moment 
 we cost England three millions annually more than the total 
 revenue of the country, while, according to the rule of pro- 
 duce in England, we ought to contribute 17 millions; thus 
 a positive loss of 20 millions is incurred. When religion 
 was set at liberty in Scotland, the Peels and the Eldons of 
 that day, no doubt, wept and blubbered most pathetically. 
 W T hen Wales was admitted within the pale of the Constitu- 
 tion, the Bankes* and the other small fry of corruption 
 were in a terrible consternation. But what were the results 
 to the country at large? Peace, strength, and prosperity. 
 — These were the effects in Scotland and Wales ; and who 
 shall tell that it is chimerical to anticipate similar results in 
 Ireland. The Petition which he had prepared is taken 
 from the third instance, that of the Palatines of Ches- 
 ter, who were likewise excluded from the benefits of 
 
219 
 
 the Constitution. Mr. O'Connell here read the follow- 
 ing extract : — 
 
 " The very same year the county Palatine of Chester 
 received the same relief from its oppressions and the same 
 remedy to its disorders. Before this time Chester was little 
 less distempered than Wales. The inhabitants without 
 rights themselves, were the fittest to destroy the rights 
 of others; and from thence Richard II. drew the standing 
 army of Archers, with which, for a time, he oppressed 
 England. The People of Chester applied to Parliament 
 in a petition." 
 
 " What did Parliament with this audacious address ? 
 Reject it as a libel } Treat it as an affront to Government ? 
 Spurn it as a derogation from the rights of the legisla- 
 ture ? Did they toss it over the table ? Did they bum 
 it by the hands of the common hangman ? — They took the 
 petition of grievance, all rugged as it was, without sof- 
 tening its temperament, impurged of the original bitter- 
 ness and indignation of complaint ; they made it the very 
 preamble to their act of redress ; and consecrated its prin- 
 ciple to all ages, in the sanctuary of Legislation." 
 
 He had now three distinct precedents to show that Eng- 
 land was three times unjust, and three times was that injus- 
 tice followed by tumult and crime — the consequences re- 
 bounded on England. Let England, then, but unite us 
 to themselves, by doing justice to Ireland, and where is the 
 power, from the scorching heat of the torrid zone to the 
 everlasting snows of the antarctic pole, to whom we would 
 not be more than a match, in arts, in arms, and all the 
 excellence of civilized refinements ? — But we are not to attri- 
 bute solely to religious animosity, the evils entailed by the 
 Peels, and the Eldons, and the Liverpools. In Wales poli- 
 tical rancour alone was the source of the bitterest dissensions. 
 In Scotland the evil was aggravated by the excitements of 
 religious discord. It appears that the Peels, and the Eldons, 
 and the Liverpools, were hostile to Irish franchise, even 
 before the Reformation. In the 10th year of Henry VI. an 
 Act was passed, whereby it was provided, 
 
 " That no merchant, or other persons, liege or alien, 
 should use, in time of peace nor war, any manner of fair, 
 market, or other place, amongst the Irish enemies, with mer- 
 chandize, or things to be sold, or send there to them, if it 
 were not to acquit any prisoner of them that were the 
 King's liege men ; and if any liege man did the contrary, he 
 should be holden and adjudged a felon ; and that it should 
 be lawful for every liege man to arrest and take such mer- 
 U 2 
 
220 
 
 chants and persons with the merchandize and things, and to 
 send them to the next gaol, there to remain until they should 
 be delivered as law requireth ; and the King to have one-half 
 of the said goods, and he or they that should take them the 
 other half/' 
 
 And the unfortunate English culprit was to get nothing, 
 Indeed, when we find the English making Acts to hold no 
 communion with the Irish, even for the purpose of receiving 
 money from them, we may conclude that they hated them 
 most cordially. The next is an Act giving power to seize 
 Irish spies : — 
 
 " It shall be lawful for every liege man to take all man- 
 ner of Irish enemies, which, in time of peace and truce, 
 shall come and converse amongst the English lieges, to spie 
 there secrecies, force, ways and sublities, and to make 
 of them as of the King's enemies." 
 
 In time of war it might be very natural to put their Irish 
 enemies to death, but it was rather a severity to put them t6 
 death for holding a conversation in time of peace with their 
 English neighbours. The next Act provides against the 
 marrying with any Irishman, or fostering the child, whe- 
 ther legitimate or illegitimate, of any Irish Nobleman or 
 Captain, under the pain of high treason. It has been com- 
 plained that the Irish were turbulent ; may we not very justly 
 plead that the English took means, from the very commence- 
 ment of their connexion with us, to make us so. So early 
 as the time of Henry II., what the Irish Chieftains petiti- 
 oned for was, an admission to the share of the Constitution. 
 This was what they asked, and for this purpose they sent 
 ■■'or ward their petition thirty different times. It suited the 
 views of the exclusionists of those days, to defeat their just 
 claims. The fact was, they were persecuted in order to give 
 to an eternal faction, the dominion of the country. Our po- 
 verty was put under contribution, to support the richest 
 Church Establishment in the world, with the smallest num- 
 ber of Incumbents. We cherish no rancour or hostility 
 against the Established Clergy. We are quite content that 
 the Archbishops and the Bishops, and the Deans, and all 
 the other Dignitaries down to the lowest Parson, should en- 
 joy their tithes and their benefices ; but we do struggle, that 
 we may not be obliged to support their enormous, their 
 gorgeous riches — for which we are to expect no other value 
 than calumny. Our opposition to the Church does not arise 
 from any turbulence of disposition peculiar to the Irish peo- 
 ple. It is grounded on a principle implanted in the human 
 breast — nay, it proceeds from an instinct that extends to 
 
221 
 
 the meanest animal in the creation. Even the crawling 
 worm will turn upon the foot that tramples it. It is equally 
 apparent, that the resistance of our claims does not proceed 
 from any religious animosity entertained by the people of 
 England ; for, do we not see every day myriads of English 
 capital transferred to the Catholics of South America i Do 
 we not see upon the Throne of England a Monarch who, in 
 the dominions which he can call his own, has proclaimed 
 religious equality to all his Subjects ? It is important that 
 these truths should be infixed in the minds of the people of 
 England. They may be blinded by prejudice, and their 
 ears may be stunned by the falsehoods of our calumniators. 
 It is essential that we should open their eyes, by letting in 
 upon them the light of truth, and that we should say to 
 them, you oppressed Chester, and it became alienated — you 
 relieved it, and it turned to fidelity — you proscribed the 
 Welch, and they were ready to murder you — you reconciled 
 them, and they augmented your strength — you persecuted 
 the Scotch, and they did murder you by wholesale — yon 
 conciliated them, and they became your allies and your 
 friends. You have oppressed Ireland, Oh ! let past expe- 
 rience teach you a lesson of policy, and tranquillize her by 
 doing her justice. Never was there a moment so propitious, 
 so inviting as the present, when all are unanimous — when 
 the Protestant is calling aloud to the Legislature to do jus- 
 tice to his Catholic countryman. Even in the midst of the 
 Corporation, the focus of rancour and animosity, a Protes- 
 tant Jury has done justice to one of the most turbulent of 
 your agitators. All the pre-disposing symptoms of health 
 and soundness are amongst us. A disposition exists in the 
 heart of every man to embrace his fellow-countryman with 
 affection and regard. The Parliament have the leisure to 
 consider our claims, and, while they do us justice, they 
 may add to their own dignity aud strength. No one now 
 threatens the English Parliament ; they may sit under the 
 »hade of their laurels, with the vine, the emblem of peace, 
 flourishing around them. All is harmony. The respectable 
 Protestant evinces a liberal feeling, while the Catholic meets 
 the advances of the Protestant with cordiality and grati- 
 tude. Irishmen, thus united, will proclaim to the congre- 
 gated despots of Europe, the impossibility of fettering the 
 faculties, or maiming the liberties, of a generous and united 
 people. 
 
 Mr. O'CONNELL then read the Petition, which was as 
 follows : 
 
 U 3 * 
 
222 
 
 To the lit. Hon, and Hon. the Knights, Citizens, and 
 Burgesses, in Parliament assembled, 
 
 The humble Petition of the undersigned Catholics of Ireland, 
 
 " HUMBLY SHEWETH, 
 
 "That whereas the Catholic Inhabitants of Ireland are, and 
 have long been, exempt, excluded, and separated out and 
 from your High Court of Parliament, to have any Knights 
 and Burgesses (being Catholics) within the said Court, by 
 reason whereof the said Catholic inhabitants of Ireland 
 hitherto sustained manifold disherisons, losses and damages, 
 as well in their lands, goods and bodies, as in the good, 
 civil and politic governance and maintenance of the common- 
 wealth of their said country ; And forasmuch as the said 
 inhabitants have always hitherto been bound by the Acts and 
 Statutes made and ordained by our most gracious Sovereign 
 and his most noble progenitors, by authority of the said 
 Court of Parliament, as far forth as other persons have been 
 that have had their Knights and Burgesses within your said 
 Court of Parliament, and yet have had neither Knight nor 
 Burgess there of the Roman Catholic persuasion, the said 
 inhabitants, for lack thereof, have been oftentimes touched 
 and grieved with Acts and Statutes, made within the said 
 Court, as well derogatory unto the most ancient jurisdic- 
 tions, liberties, and privileges of your said Petitioners and 
 their ancestors in this land, -as prejudicial to the common- 
 wealth, quietness, rest and peace of His Majesty's most 
 bounden subjects, being Catholic, inhabitants within the 
 same. 
 
 " May it, therefore, please this Honorable House, to take 
 such measures, in its wisdom, as may enable His Majesty's 
 most dutiful subjects (being Catholics) to sit and vote in 
 this Honorable House, when duly elected and returned 
 
 thereto." 
 
MR. O'CONNELL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 AT THE 
 
 FREEMASONS' TAVERX. 
 
 FEBRUARY 26, 1826. 
 
 Mr. O'CONXELL rose, and spoke to the full owing 
 effect :— 
 
 May I ask the favour of gentlemen to be seated, I pro- 
 mise them that they shall all hear me, and I much fear that 
 I shall trespass so long on their patience as to require their 
 indulgence. I have promised, my Lord Duke, to speak at 
 some length, and that is a promise which I have never 
 known a public speaker violate. It has happened that 
 those who have risen to say a few words, made speeches of 
 hours' length, but he who promises to bestow his tediousness 
 on. an assembly, is never found to break his engagment. 
 I did not come to this country I will not say willingly nor 
 icily; I left my home, and it is a happy home — 1 Left my 
 profession, and it is that which engages me much — I left 
 my clients, in whose fate my interests, and in many of 
 whose fortunes my better feelings were deeply engaged. I 
 have made (1 do not boast of it) a considerable pecuniary 
 sacrifice to come here. I wanted to be heard by English 
 justice. I preferred my humble petition, that, before I was 
 convicted, they might listen to my case. I made that 
 prayer to English justice, and English justice has spurned 
 the petitioner and refused the claim. Let it be told through- 
 out Europe, that those seven millions (for they are seven 
 millions) whose interests are committed to my feeble voice, 
 made no other entreaty than this, " Strike if you please, 
 but first hear — punish if it be right, but first try the qtuttfe 
 
224 
 
 lion, 9 ' But that petition, on the face of Europe, and in the 
 presence of the God of Justice, has been rejected ; and I 
 must return to tell the seven millions, that they must seek 
 the abode of justice elsewhere, for in England she has made 
 an adjournment. But perhaps there is something in the 
 constitution of our intellect — something in the Irish charac- 
 ter, which makes it right to treat the Irish nation thus ; 
 perhaps the mark of Cain is upon us, and that that which 
 would be injustice towards the African slave — that which 
 would not be done to the brutal negro (brutalised by slavery,) 
 is quite right when adopted against Irishmen. Perhaps so 
 — well, we must endure it, and we will endure it. But 
 while we suffer, we will not suffer in silence, nor add to the 
 shame of slavery the turpitude of enduring without at least 
 clanking our chains, although the noise of them may ring 
 discordantly in the ears of our oppressors. I came here, my 
 Lord Duke, to vindicate the Catholic Association. I came 
 here to prove the negative — for we are ready to prove it — 
 to prove that there was no justifiable reason for inflicting an 
 additional penal law upon us. In ordinary cases, he who 
 asserts that there are grounds for new legislative enactments, 
 it is his duty to prove the affirmative. Although English 
 justice, throughout her tribunals, has sanctioned, as one of 
 the first principles of human right, that he who makes the 
 assertion is not to be taken at his word — for if he were, 
 whose property or life would be secure? — yet we made a 
 present of this sacred maxim to the administration of Eng- 
 lish justice and the Legislature ; for we came prepared to 
 prove the negative, and to demonstrate that no grounds did 
 exist to authorise, nay, even to palliate the injustice which 
 they were about to commit. And they refused to hear us. 
 In that humble effort there were many things to be done. 
 The first, my Lord Duke, would have been to show the 
 necessity for the existence of the Catholic Association. The 
 second, would have been to prove the constitution and 
 nature of the Association. The third, to meet seriatim the 
 assertions upon which we were sought to be crushed. The 
 fourth would have been to canvass the measure — the man- 
 ner of the thing — the nature of the instrument by which we 
 were to be suppressed. And then would remain the pleas- 
 ing duty which brings me to the fifth branch of my subject, 
 that of appealing through this Meeting, and on the wings of 
 the Press (which will still, in spite of every effort, illumine 
 the public mind, and give to truth a final triumph over inte- 
 rested bigotry,) to appeal thus to the hearts and the judg- 
 ments of Englishmen at large ; and as their virtual repre- 
 
225 
 
 sentatives, and some actual ones have refused to listen to us, 
 to lay our claims before the tribunal of the mighty people of 
 this great empire, and appeal to the conscience, the huma- 
 nity, the sense of honour, and, above all, to the generosity 
 of the English people. I shall proceed then, in that order; 
 first, showing that it was necessary to form some such 
 society as the Catholic Association. But how shall I com- 
 press, within a reasonable compass, what I have to say on 
 that subject ? I know not how I shall epitomise the history 
 of six centuries and a-half of goading oppression, and perpe- 
 tual rapine, with renewed instances of mockery of civil 
 right. How is it possible, within the limits, wide as they 
 are, which I have chalked out for myself, to sum up all 
 that mass of guilt which has inflicted misery upon the Irish 
 people, and made them, in the most fruitful part of the 
 world, with the most excellent harbours, with navigable 
 rivers intersecting their lands, with a soil teeming with fer- 
 tility, with mountains green with growing herbage that feed 
 thousands of flocks — made a people, I say, amidst all that 
 natural wealth, in the midst of that scene of plenty, the 
 most wretched, poor, impoverished, clotheless, houseless 
 race that ever yet inhabited the globe. How is it pos- 
 sible for me to bring before you the multitude of facts 
 which have produced that disastrous result, and which 
 made it not only a right, but a sacred duty for every man 
 who respects liberty and loves human kind — for every 
 man who has a Christian or charitable feeling, to exhaust 
 every effort of his life, and to be ready to lay down that 
 life, if necessary, in a legitimate struggle, to alter the face 
 of things, and give happiness, and comfort, and wealth, se- 
 curity and peace to the oppressed, but faithful, and feel- 
 ing, to the starving, but yet gay and hearty people ? Let 
 me, however, begin. From the year — I begin far after the 
 deluge — from the year 1172, when the first invasion took 
 place in Ireland, down to the Reformation, the Irish inha- 
 bitants repeatedly petitioned to be admitted to an equality 
 of rights, and to have the benefit o: English law. They 
 were repeatedly refused. Why was it ? because the people 
 of England had an interest in that refusal ? No ; it was 
 because there was a party in Ireland which would wish to 
 enrich itself without labour in the spoils of others — to be 
 wealthy by means of the services of their helots. It was 
 that Spartan principle which made the rejection permanent, 
 constant, universal. At the period of the Reformation, my 
 Lord Duke, — at that period when Ireland was called upon 
 at the will of the monarch to change its' religion, the Irish 
 
226 
 
 petitioned again to have the benefit of English law. Oh ! 
 who knows, amongst the enthusiasts of the various sects and 
 persuasions of Christianity, which of them can tell, that if 
 that request had been acceded to, that if English law had 
 been extended to the Irish — who can tell that the Protestant 
 religion would not have found as easy an access amongst the 
 English ? and Bigotry herself may weep over the rejection, 
 and may be as fresh as ever to repeat her experiments. I own 
 it candidly, I am not sorry it was rejected. Much as I value 
 English liberty, there is one thing, let it be the badge of 
 my slavery or not, which I value still more for myself, and 
 that is in my person the preservation of that faith which I 
 sincerely believe, and which I do love and revere the more 
 because 1 know and feel, and protest in the presence of 
 Him who measures my words and shall judge me, that it is 
 quite consistent with the most perfect charity to all, and the 
 most complete equalization of civil rights in every age and 
 in every clime. Perhaps there are many here, who will 
 hear for the first time, that it was only in the year 1612, now 
 213 years ago, that the distinction between English subject 
 and Irish enemy was abolished for the first time in Ireland, 
 and that it was in that year it became any offence at all to be 
 a mere Irishman ; so that if I had lived 213 years ago, there 
 is not a man present who would not be at full liberty, with- 
 out offending any law of man, instead of stopping my mouth 
 by a gagging bill, to stop my existence by striking me to 
 the earth, because I do admit that I am, in the language of 
 that day, " a mere Irishman." It was in the year before 
 that Sir John Davis, an English lawyer of eminence and 
 humanity, went that Munster circuit, and at Limerick, tried 
 a man for the murder of a person styled in the indictment 
 to be William Thompson. What did the man in the dock 
 plead ? He did not deny that he had committed the base 
 murder — he did not deny that he had broken, in the silence 
 of the night, into the dwelling of his neighbour — he did not 
 deny that his hands were red with the blood of assassina- 
 tion — he denied not one, or any, of these propositions im- 
 puted against him. He merely denied that the deceased 
 man's name was Wm. Thompson ; he pleaded that that was 
 an assumed name — that his real name was Timothy O'He- 
 deriscoll — that he was merus Hibernians, from which he de- 
 duced the perfectly legitimate conclusion in point of law, 
 pro qnod, it was lawful for him to put him to death. Did 
 the prosecutor, as we say in law, demur to that plea ? No, 
 my Lord Duke, he did not; he admitted that the law was 
 so, and he took, what we call, a collateral issue on the fact. 
 
227 
 
 He said, true it is, the man was named Timothy O f Hede- 
 riscoll, at his baptism ; but he came into the allegiance of 
 our Lord the King : he ceased to be merits Hibernicus — he 
 became Hibernicus domini regis. And what conclusion did 
 he draw from that ? i( Inasmuch, as you have admitted the 
 killing of the man, yet you shall not go scot free, as for a 
 mere Irishman ; but you are liable to a fine of three marks." 
 The case went to trial. It is reported by Sir John Davis. 
 Oh ! you imagine 1 am painting from my fancy, drawing 
 from my invention : I am talking of a matter of fact ; it is 
 recorded in one of the dullest books imaginable — a law 
 book. The fact was proved at the trial ; but Timothy 
 O'Hederiscoll had changed his name to Wm. Thompson, 
 and was admitted to the allegiance of the King ; and the 
 fellow who cut the throat of the poor man did not go scot 
 free, for he was sentenced to pay three marks, and not to 
 be discharged from prison until he had duly paid the fine ! 
 That was the state of Ireland up to l6l2. A new ingredi- 
 ent in the cup of dissension had, in the interval, been thrown 
 in. A poisonous ingredient had been mixed in the cup, 
 around which the nation should have communicated in 
 peace and harmony. Religious distinctions had been estab- 
 lished ; the distinction between Englishmen and Irishmen 
 1 was put an end to by the statute of 1612 ; I believe the 6th 
 of James I, But religious dissension prevented the possi- 
 bility of union. It only prevented it through the medium of 
 those who were interested then, as they are interested now, 
 in keeping up division ; for it is the same baneful influence 
 of private interest which still poisons the sacred cup. — 
 Those who were interested found the other ingredient in the 
 cup — religious dissension. But there had intervened a pe- 
 riod when the Catholic religion became once more the domi- 
 nant one. King Henry the Eighth could demolish 
 the monasteries, and strike down the splendid cathe- 
 drals, and we who live beside their ruins can see the miser- 
 able samples of wretched architecture (they do not deserve 
 the name) which now usurp their places. And we are told, 
 forsooth, the men who raised these edifices, and whose 
 ninds seemed warmed into an elevation almost participating 
 )f the sacred functions to which these structures were dedi- 
 cated — those men, we are told, were savages, uninformed, 
 iliterate; and we behold the wise and the mighty of modern 
 imes building near them something which resembles a pig- 
 tye tied to a sentry-box. Henry and Elizabeth made the 
 Votestant religion, the religion of the English portion of the 
 ommunity. But the Plunketts, the Prestons, and the Es- 
 
228 
 
 mondes, and many other of the English families, adhered, 
 with desperate pertinacity, to the faith of their sires ; and, 
 although persecution reigned around them, and although 
 their princely honours were often struck to the ground, and 
 although their blood (shed in many a struggle) was a mar- 
 tyred testimony to the sincerity of their belief, yet they per- 
 severed in their ancient religion, until, by a revolution in 
 that respect, Queen Mary mounted the throne, and the per- 
 secuted Catholic religion obtained the ascendancy in Ire- 
 land. Prcesentibus odiis was truly applied to the feelings of 
 the men who then became predominant. For the reign of 
 hatred was fresh ; persecution was still reeking in her gory 
 garments — she was still stalking around the land ; — and 
 what was the conduct of the Irish Catholics at that period ? 
 Did they retaliate persecution for persecution ? Did they 
 take up the sword which had been unsheathed against them 
 and plunge it in the bosom of their Protestant neighbours ? 
 Oh ! I thank my God that I am an Irish Catholic ; for, 
 though the Catholic religion was restored to power and 
 splendor, and united to the state, — and though armed with 
 the means of vengeance — yet there was not a single instance 
 of Protestant punishment. Let any one consult page 30 of 
 Sir Henry Parnell's " Historical Account," and he will find, 
 by that amiable Protestant Gentleman, the fact triumphantly 
 stated, and this conclusion drawn (which was the source of 
 their only consolation in after times) that the only religion, 
 Protestant or Catholic, which, from a state of fear and per- 
 secution, had been raised by momentary success into power, 
 and that did not retaliate persecution, was that embraced 
 by the Irish Catholics, But the times changed ; Elizabeth, 
 and her courtiers devastated Ireland, while she was frugal 
 and thrifcy at home. The wasteful swords of domestic war 
 went over that beautiful land — ancient English families 
 were proscribed. The Fingalls and the Desmonds were 
 too rich to be subjects — and their English blood was no 
 more spared than that which flowed through the veins of 
 the O' Nei^s of Clandaboy. In one promiscuous confisca- 
 tion these properties were consumed. I would not de- 
 tain you in reciting individual instances of the bar- 
 barous cruelties, where those who surrendered on the faith 
 of treaties, met the death of felons in the teeth of 
 express stipulations. Let us pass over these scenes. They 
 dwell upon my mind, not for purposes of vengeance, but 
 to be called now and then to my remembrance, that we 
 might all join in one universal execration — in one universal 
 hatred — for I will use the word of the principle which die- 
 
229 
 
 tated such measures. However, the force of numbers 
 preserved power, property, and government, and a more 
 mitigated spirit prevailed in the House of Stuart — the un- 
 fortunate and often guilty, but perhaps over-condemned 
 House of Stuart. It may be allowable to drop a tear over 
 their virtues ; even in those who execrate the arbitrary 
 principles they would have introduced into the British 
 Constitution, had they not been luckily hurled from the 
 throne. The Cromwellian usurpation came next to aggra- 
 vate the dissensions by national hostility. The sword of the 
 Lord and Gideon smote the wild Irish. — They were hunted 
 to their mountain dens by those who drenched the sacred 
 Word of God in the glowing blood of their fellow-creatures. 
 Desolation spread through the land ; confiscations and 
 forfeitures followed ; a fortunate restitution gave stability to 
 the throne, and took away from lawless ambition that im- 
 mense prize in the lottery of life, which the chances of 
 supreme power gave to every man who thought he had 
 talents to raise himself above his fellow-creatures — a prize 
 of which the wisdom of succession deprives that lawless 
 ambition, which I trust in these realms it will ever continue 
 to do. The restoration was marked by this : — the Duke of 
 York, afterwards James the Second, took 30,000 acres of 
 the forfeited property of the Irish Catholics — forfeited in a 
 war which they carried on for his father, as long as he lived, 
 and for his brother as soon as the martyred Mood of his 
 father was spilled on the scaffold. He came to the throne — 
 he continued holding the property of the Irish Catholics, 
 It was the opinion of the people of England to reject him ; 
 it was the principle of the people of Ireland that they ought 
 not to reject him, for they had fully imbibed those mistaken 
 principles of divine and indefeasible right — they did not 
 make the distinction which every rational mind should draw 
 between hereditary right and that claim which was capable 
 of being broken through for atrocious crimes against the 
 Constitution. They^had, in fact, embraced the-principles of 
 modern legitimacy. They rallied round his throne — they 
 drew the sword for him. They assembled their Parliament ; 
 Ireland was in their power, and the Irish Catholics were 
 again triumphant. What was their conduct? Did they 
 persecute their Protestant brethren— did they inflict severi- 
 ties on their persecutors? No. They were the descendants 
 of those Catholics who had been in power before in the 
 reign of Mary, and who had, for the second time in the 
 history of mankind, enabled this fact to be recorded, 80 
 honorable to the Irish Catholics — that the second time th»F f 
 X 
 
220 
 
 were in power, their power was never stained by one par- 
 ticle of persecution. James the Second fled the field — he left 
 them to fight the contest out. He procured the unnatural 
 alliance with France. There was no cordiality in that alli- 
 ance. The French flag, not the Royal standard, floated on 
 the walls of Athlone, where Irish hearts were its principal 
 barrier. It threw coldness over the Irish nation, and in the 
 apathy produced by that galling insult, the fatal field of 
 Aughrim was lost by treachery, mixed, no doubt, with 
 British valour. Limerick was surrounded,— the assailants 
 advanced twice. Twenty-eight thousand men in arms were 
 in the city, and would have been capable of defending it for 
 half a century, until congregated Europe might have assist- 
 ed the fallen brother ; for in every age the doctrine of 
 indefeasible right is dear to kings. However, fair terms 
 were offered. William, whose character stood high, offered 
 fair and just terms. " Your King," he observed to the Irish, 
 ce has left the field. He has not stood the battle's brunt — 
 he does not deserve that brave men should fight his cause 
 whilst he is absent." The Irish listened to him. They said, 
 <e we are ready to join with the English ; we are ready to 
 give you a title; we are ready to become your willing sub- 
 jects ; all we stipulate for is liberty of conscience. ,, — The 
 terms were heard and received, but with hesitation. The 
 Eldons, the Liverpools, and the Peels of the day were in 
 the Cabinet— the horror of such worthy persons, at the bare 
 mention of such liberty of conscience, created a pause, but 
 the good sense of William over-ruled their petty scruples. 
 The tears were shed, the speeches were spoken, the public 
 purse was handled, still William persevered. He told the 
 Irish they should have liberty of conscience. That promise 
 was hastened by the certain knowledge that the French fleet 
 had doubled Cape Clear, and were sailing with a western 
 wind for the mouth of the Shannon. The Irish were igno- 
 rant of that fact. A promise was made by King William-— 
 the offer was accepted — terms of a treaty were drawn up— 
 Commissioners were appointed for that purpose. The 
 ancestor of that gentleman who now so worthily represents 
 the city of Limerick, Sir Stephen Rice, was one of those 
 appointed by the Irish. The very moment before the con- 
 tract was signed, before the terms were agreed to, the French 
 fleet arrived and anchored beyond Tarbert, with reinforce- 
 ments of men, cavalry, ammunition, and arms. Some of the 
 more fiery spirits of the Irish at that time were for suspending 
 the treaty. They exclaimed, "we have signed no treaty; fortu- 
 nately the terms are not agreed upon; here is a force which wil 1 
 
231 
 
 enable us in three days to send King William back to Dublin/' 
 But what said the general army? "No; Irish honour is 
 engaged, it cannot be — it is a sacred bond." They sent 
 instantly, and with a generous impatience, to tell the 
 French Admiral that he might return back to his King, for 
 that they had chosen their's. The treaty was ratified ; it 
 was signed and sealed — public faith was pledged to it ; it 
 had the solemn sanction of Royal authority ; it remains en- 
 rolled in the Tower of London, a record of Irish fidelity — 
 and, oh, let me not be called bigotted or narrow-minded, 
 when I am obliged to add, of English shame. For the 
 treaty performed by us is not performed by them ; and I 
 came here to England, a petitioner, to claim the benefit of 
 that treaty, and to proclaim, as I do now, that it is trea- 
 chery to violate it, and it is a crime to continue it. — There 
 is a reluctance even in the faction that governs Ireland to 
 plunge suddenly into guilt. It was violated in proportion 
 as it was safe to violate it. When the victories of Marlbo- 
 rough placed England upon the pinnacle of glory — I believe 
 they called it so in those days, as they do at present — and 
 when it was certain that the English Ministry were perfectly 
 secure from foreign foes, they turned with kindness towards 
 Ireland, and in the excess of their soft compassion, they 
 enacted that code of laws called the Penal Code, the ema- 
 ciating cruelty of which was the theme of many a brilliant 
 oration of the Grattan over whom we have wept, and the 
 characters of which Montesquieu has described as being all 
 traced in letters of blood. That code divided the husband 
 from the wife — that code divided the son from the father. 
 It stript property from every man who should attempt to 
 to earn it, reversed the commandment of "let husband and 
 wife be united," and reversed the sacred command of God, 
 delivered in thunder, which directed the child " to honour 
 its father and mother," for it rewarded the child the mo- 
 ment he daringly violated the command. I am an Irish 
 agitator. I don't deny it. But let it not be imputed to me 
 as a grievous crime, that I do taunt England with this ; that 
 that atrocity was perpetrated under an English Govern- 
 ment. I do not dwell on it. I am ready to forget it — I am 
 anxious to forgive it — I have forgiven it. I am ready to 
 co-operate with England against the world — and it was 
 that readiness brought me here, in the sincerity of my 
 heart, and in the conviction of my judgment. But I am 
 not ready to let my country and my religion be insulted and 
 trampled upon by calumnious falsehoods. And I am as lit- 
 tle ready to crouch in timid silence from the assertion of 
 X 2 
 
232 
 
 fact and the publication of truth. — Year after year, during 
 the reign of the two first Princes of the House of Bruns- 
 wick, new fetters were devised. The Goulbourns of that 
 day came freighted to Ireland, where no noxious four-footed 
 animal thrives, but where the poisonous creatures of the 
 two-legged species batten and fatten, and enrich themselves 
 — the Goulburns of that day came over with enactment after 
 enactment. The reign of the third Prince commenced ; it 
 opened a prospect of more favourable times. George the 
 Third — whose memory is and ever will be recorded with 
 gratitude in the minds of the Irish people, over whose de- 
 clining years we have wept the sincere tear of grateful affec- 
 tion — over whose grave we would hang with the recollec- 
 tion that we w r ould have for a father and friend — George the 
 Third ascended the throne, and then, for the first time, the 
 Catholics formed an Association ; not by that name, to be 
 sure, but — 
 
 " A rose by any other name would smell as sweet/' 
 
 It was called the Catholic Committee. It produced great 
 alarm. The false friends of that day actually said, " Oh, 
 we are excessively anxious for the Catholic cause, but for 
 God's sake put down your Committee/' And let me here 
 observe that in enmity there are three degrees : — the posi- 
 tive, the comparative, and the superlative. I take them 
 thus : — There are your enemies, which is the positive de- 
 gree; there are the bitter enemies, the comparative; and 
 there are your false friends, the superlative. The Catholics 
 had actually the audacity to congratulate the Sovereign on 
 his accession to the throne — to sa}^, " We rejoice that, after 
 more than half a century, a native-born prince, an English- 
 man, has ascended the throne of England. We look/* said 
 the fond Catholics of that day, (i to English justice — Eng- 
 lish humanity — English generosity." It was actually con- 
 sidered a species of misprision of treason, and they narrowly 
 escaped being committed to the common prisons of Dublin ; 
 and it was only through the generous interference of the 
 youthful Sovereign that the crime was forgiven of proclaim- 
 ing their loyalty. England went on — but I enter not into 
 the discussion of American rights. Every man now rejoices 
 that there are ten millions of freemen preserving and improv- 
 ing upon the English Constitution at the other side of the 
 Atlantic. It is a resting-place, where the foot stands firm, 
 and defies the advances of the tyrannical principles of the 
 Holy Alliance, laughs at the whiskered Pards and rude 
 
233 
 
 Cossacks, and the thousands upon thousands of the hire- 
 ling slaves of the Holy Alliance monarchy. It makes it 
 impossible that civil and religious liberty should ever perish 
 upon this globe, and gives a resting-place, where the hu- 
 man mind dwells with satisfaction and triumph. The Ame- 
 ricans were laughed to scorn. They applied to the House 
 of Commons to be heard : their claims were resisted by 
 restrictive Bills ; but I will do the Parliament of George 
 the Third the justice to recollect, that before they struck, 
 they heard. But let me not be supposed to make any insi- 
 nuation of under or improper threatening — I am not here 
 to do it. I am the humble suppliant for favour, — not the 
 threatener of any power or any authority. But whilst 
 America become powerful, and the banner of England fell 
 beneath her undisciplined legions— whilst Burgoyne surren- 
 dered at Saratoga — whilst France, Spain, and Holland had 
 joined them, and the youthful chivalry of France, headed 
 by the gallant and romantic La Fayette, were fighting her 
 battles, and when any thing but victory crowned the British 
 efforts, when the Catholic Committee sat day after day ; 
 their sittings became permanent ; they went before the 
 Government, and said, Europe is against you in arms, 
 America is up ; you want allies ; — here they are, the Irish 
 people, for you. How was that offer met ? It was met 
 only by this insulting preposition : " We cannot relieve you," 
 said the Statesmen of England of that day, " because you 
 refuse to take the oath of allegiance." What was the first 
 petition of the Catholic Committee ? " We refuse no Oath 
 of Allegiance but that which is coupled with spiritual tenets, 
 which we cannot take— we respect oaths. Nay, it is the 
 pure virtue of oaths that keeps us out of the Constitution. 
 We will tell you what oath we will not take— we will not 
 t ike any which trenches on our faith and belief— we will 
 tell you what oath we will take— any oath that morally cer- 
 tifies our allegiance to our Sovereign." There lived a Bishop 
 in Ireland on that day, who resembled in virtue him whom 
 I had the gratification to hear preach a truly Christian doc- 
 trine, yesterday, the venerable Norwich. — That model of 
 Christian Prelates, I care not to what communion they may 
 belong, Catholic or Protestant, showing himself to be the 
 Priest of his God, by endeavouring to diffuse the charity 
 that is Divine amongst all men. Such Bishop was the Pre- 
 late of Derry. In the House of Lords, he declared that 
 he was instructed by the Catholic Committee, to say that 
 the Catholics were ready to take the Oath of Allegiance. It 
 was denied. It was asserted positively that they would not 
 X 3 
 
234 
 
 take it. He was taunted and ridiculed, 'the ribaldry of 
 the back benches was poured out in aid of those who were 
 put forward to speak in the front. Cheers were reiterated 
 which, possibly, still rang in some ears. He answered, 
 " I'll put the matter to the test, I will not ask civil rights 
 for the Catholics, I will bring in an Act of Parliament 
 merely enabling them to make Oath of Allegiance, and giv- 
 ing them nothing for taking it." That was the first step 
 which the Catholic Committee of that day made in Catholic 
 Emancipation, The Act was brought in — nothing was gi- 
 ven — no concessions — no privileges ! Oh, yes, the most 
 precious ; the opportunity of confounding their calumnia- 
 tors. The ancestor of my Noble Friend, Lord Killeen, 
 whose father is at the head of the Irish nobility and Irish 
 people (a station which the members of his family have 
 filled, and will continue to fill, with the entire satisfaction 
 of a grateful people), that Nobleman, surrounded, accom- 
 panied, and adorned by the Catholic nobility of Ireland, 
 proceeded to the Court-house of Trim, in the county of 
 Westmeath. The moment the Act was passed, and the 
 Judge of Assize arrived, it was a subject of curiosity, thou- 
 sands upon thousands came to see if they would take the 
 oath, if they would actually kiss the book. They took the 
 oath, all Catholic Ireland followed them. That oath they 
 have preserved inviolate — that oath they will ever observe 
 — The Catholic Committee thus strengthened, pressed their 
 claims upon Parliament. Our disasters in America— the 
 growing power of Europe — the equipments of fleets — Ame- 
 rica on the verge of being lost— Ireland might then have 
 shaken off the yoke, for it was then a yoke. Under these 
 circumstances, Parliament passed the Act of 1778. And if 
 England lost America, she preserved Ireland. That statute 
 was followed by the universal union of the Irish people, 
 which formed itself into ranks of volunteers, and allowed 
 England, in time of war, to dispense with the presence of 
 every single soldier in Ireland. The passing of that Act, li- 
 berated the entire military force,and from Cape Clear to the 
 Giant's Causeway, there was not one British soldier, and 
 Ireland was never so strong in her attachment to England. 
 The concession then made, related principally to private 
 property. England was indebted to the Catholic Committee. 
 The names of the O'Connors, the Currys, the Plunkets, 
 and the Prestons, the names of the men who achieved that 
 mighty service, are perhaps fading in your memories. But 
 the name of the Macdermots, who were at the head of the 
 commercial interests of the Catholics, are too deeply engra- 
 
235 
 
 ven in my mind ever to be forgotten. But they have 
 perished from English recollection. That Committee was, 
 I will venture to assert, the salvation of England. It kept 
 the empire together ; it enabled England, accompanied with 
 Ireland, to meet that frightful torrent which the revolu- 
 tionary lava of 1789 poured forth, and thus, perhaps, has 
 been the means of protecting and preserving civilization 
 and Constitutional liberty for countless ages. This Com- 
 mittee persevered in its efforts. The statute of 1 778 was 
 followed by that of 1782 ; but I pray you take notice, that 
 when this last statute was passed, the bigots of that day 
 were not to blame for their concessions. These con- 
 cessions were as lachrymose, and as unyielding as those of 
 modern statesmen. They did not make the concessions of 
 1782, till the combined fleets of France, Spain, and Holland, 
 for the first time in modern history, swept the British 
 Channel with a broom at the mast head, and the mighty 
 flags of England, for the first time, was shrunk beneath the 
 ray of the combined standard, and sought (oh, is it credible,) 
 for security within English harbours. It was at that 
 period the second concession was made. And what was the 
 first act of Irishmen at that period ? It was this ; they 
 voted, at Irish expense, 32,000 seamen in addition to the 
 English complement, and the flag of England, again trium- 
 phant, blazed, and I trust the blaze will never be extin- 
 guished until the period when all nations shall be dissolved, 
 and man shall cease to have any existence. The Catholic 
 Committee continued its labours ; Ireland had asserted 
 rights, respecting which I will not trust myself to speak — I 
 need not. The French Revolution commenced its progress 
 — Jacobinism reared its hideous head, and I do not use the 
 term which has been abused in its application to many good 
 men, but I use it in its proper signification — towards those 
 who would subvert the Altar that they might reach at the 
 Throne, and have them both flooded with the blood of 
 human victims. France had already broken into the Nether- 
 lands ; the spirit, not of liberty, but of licentiousness, was 
 abroad. The good sense, the firm, sound, manly intellect of 
 England was awakened ; the name of liberty in England 
 herself was always dear ; rational freedom was her birth- 
 right and her charter, but the sense of the people learnt to 
 distinguish between the name and the thing, and made her 
 choice between real and substantial liberty, and the mad- 
 dened ideas and intoxicating draughts of revolutionary 
 licentiousness. But how did the case stand with respect to 
 Ireland, where many a symptom of the disease had been 
 
236 
 
 exhibited ? The bigots of that day yielded to the honest 
 exertions of the Catholic Convention. The Catholic people 
 of Ireland came together in the counties and towns. It was 
 not then illegal to elect representatives. They elected repre- 
 sentatives for every county and town in Ireland, and in the 
 year 1792, those delegates met together in Dublin. They 
 met together, not for any revolutionary purpose, but to stay 
 the progress of revolution — not for a traitorous object, but 
 to stay the progress of treason. They addressed the Parlia- 
 ment — they came to the foot of the throne ; their delegates 
 arrived here under better auspices than we have come, but 
 not with purer intentions. They approached the Sovereign 
 upon his throne ; the strength of the intellect of his graci- 
 ous Majesty, George the Third, was then in its vigour ; he 
 received the delegation; recommended their claims to Par- 
 liament ; the statutes of 1792 and 1793 were passed ; the 
 Revolution scourged and almost devastated every state of 
 Europe ; but it has been shut out from England and Ire- 
 land, because the Catholic people were easily purchased by 
 a portion of their rights ; and though they received but an 
 instalment of what was due to them, they gave the full and 
 flowing measure of their young blood to float in safety the 
 ark of the British Constitution. England wanted us then, 
 it is true. She held out the hand but half extended ; her 
 generosity to us was qualified, whilst we repaid her with the 
 full flowing measure of the Irish heart. She has been 
 saved, and has triumphed, and it became the duty of the 
 Catholics to congregate in the time of peace — peaceably and 
 quietly to assemble, and call for the remaining instalment of 
 their rights. Twenty shillings in the pound have not yet 
 been paid — treaties are not yet observed, and we tender a 
 perpetual, irresistible alliance at the small price of giving 
 us our own. But think you that the faction was idle dur- 
 ing this period ? The rebellion that was fomented, as I 
 could easily prove, for the purposes of bringing about the 
 Union, had created, increased, and envenomed the diffe- 
 rences between religious sects in Ireland. There came a 
 distinction between Protestant and Protestant, more marked 
 and defined than that between Catholic and Protestant ; 
 because the distinction between Catholic and Protestant is 
 that between two different sects and persuasions of Chris- 
 tians. But between Protestant and Orangeman there was a 
 wall of separation raised, that was built with an infernal 
 hand on one side, and supported by charity on the other. 
 The Protestant left the fell Orangeman to prowl on his 
 Catholic fellow-subjects, nncountenanced by the genuine 
 
237 
 
 Protestant, and disclaimed by him as having any participa- 
 tion in his guilt — aye, or even in his creed. For the Orange- 
 man's creed is not Christianity, as the Protestant's is ; it 
 partakes of nothing more of religion than the rancour that 
 in some minds unfortunately attends it ; and the Orange- 
 man thus constituted, filled almost every situation in the 
 State. He was to be found in the highest offices — the Post- 
 office, the Custom-house, the Yeomanry, almost universally 
 in the Magistracy, the Bench sometimes, the Grand Juries, 
 the Petty Juries, the Sheriffs, even down to the Court 
 Bailiff. The passport of station and promotion was bearing 
 the Orange flag, and being able to communicate the Orange 
 sign. What were the consequences? The consequence 
 was, that the country became disturbed — that those who 
 could not obtain justice sought for revenge. Oh ! surely I 
 do not justify them when I state this history, that those who 
 could not find relief from the laws of society, burst the 
 bonds of society, and took savage vengeance upon their 
 oppressors ! Ireland became desolate. The only intelli- 
 gence from that unhappy land, was conveyed in columns 
 which detailed outrages upon life and property. The night 
 was illuminated by the glare of the haggard, mill, or house, 
 as it blazed ; the day was filled with tales of horror, and a 
 servile war threatened. At such a period as that it was 
 that the Catholic Association commenced its labours. Was 
 it not loyal — was it not just — was it not necessary that some 
 men should come forward and interpose between the people 
 and their passion — that some persons should come in to 
 inspire them with confidence in Government, recommend 
 patience to the persecuted, and hold out a hope to them of 
 better times ? Let me not be told that I calumniate any 
 persons, or that I speak in a voice of censure merely, and 
 when I cannot be replied to. One of the most sacred of 
 the duties which I had to perform in coming here, was, to 
 offer at the bar of the House of Commons evidence of the 
 guilt of the Orange faction — of the robberies and devasta- 
 tions they have committed, and of the blood they continued 
 daily to shed, until their arm was arrested by the shield of 
 the Catholic Association. Oh ! contrast this conduct with 
 ours ! Their Deputy Grand-Master was at the bar of the 
 House — he was sifted, but did he show any willingness^to 
 disclose what the Orange Association was — to give its 
 details — to open its prison-house ? W T e come here with all 
 our books and documents — we come here with every letter 
 and paper — we come here for the most unlimited explana- 
 tion at the bar of the House, in the tribunal of justice, no 
 
t 
 
 238 
 
 matter who examined us. The Orangeman stood at the 
 bar of the House of Commons What was his conduct ? — 
 Did he court inquiry ? No; he claimed a shield of protec- 
 tion for his oath. No man knows what occurs in the House 
 of Commons : such was the maxim inculcated upon the 
 good sense of the people ; and yet every body happened to 
 know something of it. Taking up that maxim, if by any 
 courtesy I could get within its walls — for it is courtesy 
 alone can admit me there, though the kindness of my 
 countrymen would waft me upon its breath, if conscience 
 would permit me to take the oath which bars its threshold. 
 I know nothing of what has occurred, save from what is 
 reported in the newspapers. It is reported that Mr. Peel 
 opposed our admission, and taunted its supporters by asking, 
 u Have you heard the opponents of that measure ?" But it 
 does not appear by the newspapers, that he was replied to 
 by this statement, " that the Orangemen were at the bar," 
 but you yourselves prevented us from forcing them to make 
 disclosures. The majority that cheered you now cheered 
 you then ; the majority that cheered you with taunts of us, 
 cheered you also when we had an opportunity of hearing 
 the Orangemen, and pressed to hear, but you prevented us, 
 and protected the Orangemen. The Orangeman did right 
 to conceal his secret ; for I am ready to prove at the bar of 
 the House, or elsewhere, that the password with the Orange- 
 men was taken from the 68th Psalm, of the Protestant edi- 
 tion, which I hold in my hand. It is in these words, verse 
 23 : — " That thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine 
 enemies, and the tongues of thy dogs may be red through 
 the same/' This I am ready to prove. — (A person cried, 
 <c No.") I am glad that a voice says " No." Let that per- 
 son give me an opportunity of proving it, and I give up 
 Catholic Emancipation. Is it not proved already ? Why 
 was the Deputy Grand-Master of Orangemen silent then ? 
 Why was the shield of Parliament interposed between him 
 and disclosure? Was it a matter of merit? 'It could 
 not be that he was innocent, for innocence needs no dis- 
 guise ; but it was this — that the Orangeman's foot was 
 ready to be wet with the blood of his enemies— that the 
 tongue of his dogs was ready to be wet with the same. — 
 Do you think this is mere theory? — Oh no! Eighteen 
 months—within that short period — I will not detain you by 
 drawing general pictures of the atrocities by which the 
 Orangemen gave practical proofs of the realization of that 
 text ; 1 will not take you through the disastrous history of 
 Ireland, and point out all their crimes—a folio volume of 
 
239 
 
 the Statutes, large as it is, would not contain a tithe of 
 them— but will take you to Mr. Brownlow's county of 
 Armagh, to limit you to within the short space of eighteen 
 months before the Catholic Rent commenced ; I will state 
 to you three cases, by name and date, where the most atro - 
 cious Orange murders had been committed on the Catholic 
 inhabitants, without any other provocation than the profes- 
 sion of the faith of their fathers. One of these, whose 
 name was James Gormley, the only son and only support 
 of an aged mother, was shot to death by an armed party of 
 Orangemen, for the crime of being present at their annual 
 parade, on the 12th of July, 1822. A sister was with him, 
 and narrowly escaped with her life ; but is still a maniac. 
 The heads of that party were the two sons of the Rev. Mr. 
 Smith. The murderers were tried, but, as my informant 
 says, of course acquitted. That was one of the cases in 
 which the Catholic Association procured for the people the 
 shadow of a trial, such as it is in the Northern Counties, 
 where the Orangemen are murderers, and Jurors, and 
 Sheriffs. The sister is a maniac, and think you, that in her 
 wild and disordered cries, there is not a heart-rending 
 prayer to the Deity, that the God of Mercy does not hear 
 the insane shriek, and that the madness that saves her from 
 the horrors of reality and reason, is not pleading powerfully 
 against the murderers of her brother— There was no mur- 
 der from the 12th July, 1S22, till the 12th July, 1823. On this 
 latter day the usual Orange procession took place at Armagh, 
 when a person of the name of Michael Campbell was shot, 
 and the party spent the evening in festivity at the house of 
 the murderer. The blood also remains unrequitted and un- 
 revenged, for he was killed and nobody killed him — that is 
 the amount of the fact and of the verdict. The next case 
 was, that of Patrick Hughes, who in February or March, 
 1822, was returning from a fair, and was shot by the 
 Orangemen without the slightest pretence. The Orange 
 murderer lay behind the hedge. They have tried for this 
 murder, and as my informant says, of course acquitted, — >, 
 Am I talking of imaginary things? This we would have 
 proved at the bar of the House of Commons. Englishmen 
 may understand why the justice of a trial was refused ; why 
 we were condemned with the expedition of Turkish Cadis ; 
 we were condemned because we would have proved these 
 facts, and shown that all these murders were committed — 
 how ? They occurred in the same neighbourhood, they 
 were committed by yeomen with the King's arms and am- 
 munition — the King ! it is not thus he would wish to treat hi* 
 
240 
 
 Irish subjects. When he stood in no odour of popularity 
 among you, he came among us. Of course he had heard 
 much of the licentiousness and wildness of the Irish peo- 
 ple : he had heard of their disloyalty, their turbulence and 
 propensity to crime, and every thing that our base press 
 and your base press said on the subject, and base it is, and 
 continues to be a great evil. He had heard that, but did it 
 make any impression on his generous mind ? I hope it did, 
 because I like to see him standing upon his native braverv 
 (as the Monarch of the British isles ought to be brave), I 
 like to see him giving the lie to these calumnies, by trusting 
 himself alone, and unarmed, without the shield of cavalry, 
 infantry, or police constable, amidst his Irish people, 
 amongst the calumniated peasantry of that country. He 
 wanted no guards, no protection, for there was not a hand 
 which would not have borne him, not a heart that would 
 not have poured its living blood before him, the generosity 
 and bravery of his conduct were held, as they always would 
 be in Ireland, and the memory of that day has attached the 
 people of that country to him in those enthusiastic rivets of 
 affection, which will always bind those whose generosity is 
 confided in. I saw him again — I saw him at his departure 
 from Ireland. I had the honour and the pleasure to stand 
 near him. He beheld on the cliffs, as they rose before him, 
 two hundred thousand of his Irish subjects. Soldier or po- 
 lice constable was not amongst them, but the politeness, the 
 courtesy, I will call it, which arises from affection, was 
 amidst them, and the assemblage of infants was not more 
 playful or more innocent. Not a breath ruffled the serenity 
 of the scene, the magical influence of attachment held sway, 
 and in that turbulent and disorded multitude, there was dis- 
 played the courtesy of courts, and a decorum becoming the 
 walls of a palace. I stood, it was my duty, near him, and 
 I saw as he beheld the scene, the tear of manly sensibility 
 glisten in his eye ; and I, who seek noplace or office, (there 
 is none open to me, or if there were I would spurn it,) — I, 
 whose allegiance may be calumniated, but which is as true 
 as it is sincere, will carry with me to my grave the recol- 
 lection of that tear, and if his service requires that that 
 grave should open in the space of one half hour, here am I 
 a volunteer, Oh ! it is in the reign of this King, that this 
 penal law is sought to be infixed upon the Irish people — it 
 is this which aggravates it most to the people of Ireland, 
 that the ministers of George the Fourth procure his sanc- 
 tion to an Act of Parliament which leaves their lives and 
 properties so insecure. The Catholic Association — (but I 
 
241 
 
 tremble when I think how much I have said, and how much 
 I have to say) — our Monarch left his command after him to 
 his people to entertain sentiments of mutual affection. — 
 That command has been obeyed by one class of the people 
 — that command has been violated by the other. I charge 
 the Orange faction with its violation, and I came to the bar 
 of the House of Commons to prove my case. I boast of the 
 perfect sincerity with which the Catholics observed it, I 
 did not come here to prove that they sincerely observed it, 
 because the most malignant of their enemies have not the 
 audacity to accuse them of its violation. Eleven counties 
 were disturbed ; in each of them the Insurrection Act wa - 
 in full operation ; the army was increased, in time of peace, 
 to 36,300 men ; a stipendary police, upon the plan of the 
 gens d'arwerie of France, at which your ancestors would 
 have trembled with indignation, was distributed throughout 
 the counties of Ireland; the Insurrection Act made it a 
 transportable felony for the wretched peasant to spend one 
 moment of the weariness of the night in looking at the 
 moon and stars ; with Catholic blood shed by Orangemen ; 
 with unrequited blood spilt, and murders committed, by 
 the peasantry, as their only mode of being rid of oppres- 
 sion, seeking the transports as a place of refuge, and look- 
 ing at the gaols as a kind of necessary transit to death ; at 
 that period it was that the Catholic Association formed itself 
 into existence. I ask, Englishmen, was it not our duty to 
 associate ? Was it not our duty to tell the people, " the 
 law itself is good, and the administration of it is pure, as 
 dispensed by some of the judges, for I am not flattering 
 enough to say by all." It may be well for third and fourth 
 rate barristers of my country, who have been wafted into 
 Parliament, to laud the judges — they may find their ac- 
 count in it. Oh ! for the disinterestedness of senatorial 
 dignity ! Oh ! for the majesty of the servants who praise 
 their master. Many of the judges deserve praise — I give it 
 them. All we told the people was, that if you were able 
 to open the portals of justice, let an universal subscription, 
 so small that every man may contribute to it, but so gene- 
 ral as to make a fund equal to your protection, be entered 
 into. All we require is one farthing a week from your pro- 
 perty ; one penny a month, one shilling a-year. Oh ! give 
 us but this, and we will interpose the shield of the law 
 between the Orange assassins and you. We will make you 
 have a filial affection for the laws of the land, by making 
 the law, for the first time, afford you paternal protection. — 
 We tell vou more — that by means of this contribution we 
 Y 
 
242 
 
 shall be able to open the doors of both Houses of Parlia- 
 ment — to detail facts to the English Legislature : we will 
 open those doors to you, and even through those portals 
 your complaints shall spread through the universal English 
 nation, who are your enemies, or, rather, are not your 
 friends, for no other reason in the world than this — that 
 they are not acquainted with your sufferings and your me- 
 rits ; who are prevented from pouring on the table of the 
 House of Commons their universal petitions, commanding, 
 as far as the people can command in that House, that they 
 should do justice to the people of Ireland, simply and 
 singly because they are unacquainted with the state of Ire- 
 land, the baseness of the Orange faction, and the sufferings 
 and merits of the Catholics. We proclaimed this through- 
 out the country as the constitution of the Catholic Associa- 
 tion. We said to Government, " The Irish people are na- 
 turally inclined to allegiance — they are naturally inclined 
 to submission to the law; it is as old as Sir John Davis, 
 that no people are so pleased with even justice, even when 
 administered against themselves ; it is so recorded in 
 Lord Coke." We proclaimed, that to the Government we 
 promised tranquillity ; have we not kept our words ? — 
 Is not Ireland tranquil? Does not tranquillity spread 
 from north to south ; from Cape Clear to the Giant's 
 Causeway ; from the hill of Howth, to the extreme of Mr. 
 Martin's Dominions. — We have kept our words, and for 
 this, what is our reward ? Are we to get no recompence ? 
 It may be said — it may be said, and it is true, that we 
 ought to be disinterested in this ; I acknowledge that we 
 were. But there are rewards which the disinterested may 
 receive with honor, and which the just ought to bestow ; it 
 is the rich reward of admitting us into the equal participa- 
 tion of the Constitution.— -We should be loyal, and were so 
 without stipulation ; but is it justice that disappoints the 
 rational hope ? Have we been rewarded ? Your Peels, 
 your Eldons, and your Liverpool s find fault — with what ? 
 Why, that the Catholics are unanimous. Shocking ! the 
 Catholics unanimous, say you ? — Why the Irish were always 
 divided before. — " Why my good people of Ireland, it is 
 necessary for your good Government that you be idivided 
 amongst yourselves." Our unanimity raised each particular 
 hair upon the wig of the Lord Chancellor — it disturbed the 
 domestic cares of Lord Liverpool — it fretted the dignity of 
 Mr. Peel. — This was a symptom hitherto unknown in the 
 case of Ireland, and accordingly its first appearance is met 
 by an Act of Parliament. The country was tranquil, and 
 
243 
 
 if it continued so, what further excuse would there be for 
 continuing the Orange Yeomanry of the North in arms ? 
 I put it, through this assembly, to the English people, is 
 there any legitimate purpose why the Orangemen of the 
 North have the King's arms and the King's ammunition ? It 
 is said that the North is tranquil ; for, on their own showing, 
 the unprovoked murder of a Catholic is no interruption to 
 that tranquility. Why, then, should the system be conti- 
 nued ? It would not clo to have Ireland tranquil, for the 
 system must cease to exist, and we have been accordingly 
 met by penal enactments. But upon what grounds are we 
 about to be put down ? First, they say there is an intem- 
 perance in our speeches ; secondly, that we wished the 
 tithes should be taken away from the Protestant Church, 
 and given to the Catholic Clergy ; thirdly, that w T e were 
 excessively wrong, and that I was so in particular (for really 
 I have grown to a magnitude that I was utterly astonished 
 at, since the grave and wise senators spent four long nights 
 debating on the merits of one Popish agitator) in using cer- 
 tain words in the address. They say that the word " hatred" 
 was introduced improperly. They made one or two allega- 
 tions more, that we interfered with the administration of 
 justice, and above all, they accused us of the Catholic Rent. 
 Suffer me very rapidly to go through these allegations. In- 
 temperance of speech ! was there ever yet so absurd and 
 ridiculous ground of legislation ? Are we amongst school- 
 boys or old women ? for old women there are of both sexes, 
 and we are amongst them. — Is it in the infancy of legislation 
 or its dotage, when you talk of intemperance of discourse 
 being a ground for a new law ? And observe that the law 
 is sufficiently strong to punish any intemperance of speech. 
 Lord Ellenborough, who is in the other world (poor dear 
 man !) decided that the saying of Lord Hardwicke, " that 
 he was a sheep-feeder," and publishing of Lord Redesdale, 
 that " he was a stout-built special pleader," were libelous. 
 —I only give you that as a specimen of that admirable 
 science, our law. Intemperance, then, of speech had its 
 adequate remedy ; and accordingly having had the misfor- 
 tune once to speak of the great principle of the Revolution — 
 of that which was the charter of George the Fourth to the 
 throne ; for without it I should go begging through the 
 dominions of Sardinia or §avoy for a legitimate King of 
 these realms — for daring to assert, " that a period may ar- 
 rive when oppression w ould exceed the measure of legitimate 
 patience and endurance a principle which I proudly de- 
 clare before Englishmen — for asserting that, I was dragged 
 Y 2 
 
before 4 ' a tribunal which they supposed would be all Orange, 
 which was, certainly, and oh, my heart rejoices at it ! all 
 Protestants, and my fellow-countrymen-— the Irish Protes- 
 tants, who composed the Parliament that passed the Acts of 
 1782, and 1793; respected their oaths and their judgment, 
 and, I thank them affectionately for it, scouted the ridicu- 
 lous accusation. What does that prove ? This t that if 
 worse had been said, it would have been prosecuted; it 
 proves that a perpetual vigilance, an eternal readiness to pro- 
 secute exists, and that, if a more decent pretext (and was that 
 a decent pretext ?) had been offered for prosecution, it 
 would have been gladly embraced. Our affairs were con- 
 ducted above board, We admitted and accommodated the 
 spies of our prosecutors, knowing them to be such. I 
 would have produced these very spies at the bar of the 
 House, to show that there was no concealment. What has 
 been done notwithstanding this ? In England, in this 
 enlightened, generous, and just country (for I admire your 
 greatness, justice, and generosity,) we have been refused a 
 hearing, and convicted of crime, upon allegations that were 
 too futile or too false to be attempted to be adduced, even 
 before an Orange tribunal— even with the aid of Orange 
 Sheriffs of Dublin, and the Orange Aldermen and Mayor 
 of the town ? What impression does it leave upon our 
 mind ? Ridiculous as it was, not one particle of it was 
 true. There was not one assertion made, either by tbe open 
 or superlative enemies, published in the newspapers, that 
 we were not ready by Catholic Peer, Merchant, Barrister, to 
 prove at the bar to be utterly false. They deserved not 
 refutation, yet aerial and nothing as they were, we would 
 have given them a solidity, by perfectly refuting them. The 
 next was a charge for designing to take away the tithes and 
 Church rates, and give them to our own Clergy. I am 
 ready to give up emancipation, and return to the horrors of 
 the Penal Code, if any one of us ever said or thought of 
 such a thing. I am ready to do m&re. There is not a Pro- 
 testant in Ireland, there is not even an Orangeman, the 
 " vilest of the vile/' that I am not ready to go in with, with 
 more zeal than he can have to resist now, and for ever, any 
 such project, as endowing the Catholic Clergy of Ireland 
 with tithes. Try our sincerity — emancipate us — make it a 
 condition of Emancipation, thaj: the moment our Catholic 
 Clergy receive one portion and fragment of tithes, that 
 instant the Emancipation Bill shall be repealed, and made 
 void ipso facto, I consent. Allow me now to speak to you 
 vf the Address to the people. It was prepared by me ; if 
 
245 
 
 there was any thing bad in it, it might be a good reason for 
 surprising me, but a very poor one for suppressing the 
 Association. Let them emancipate the Catholics, aud make 
 a special exception in my disfavour. I heartily consent. 
 When they canvass the sincerity of the Address why do 
 they not avow its object ? Has any man who has spoken of 
 it with sickly affection and maudlin sentiment — have any 
 of those romance-makers, denied that its object was sin- 
 cerely to procure peace and quiet ? It promised tranquillity 
 — who dares deny that it was successful ? They do not 
 dare to say so, if they had I would bring a host of Catholic 
 Clergymen and peasants to the bar— of Catholic nobility 
 and gentry to demonstrate the falsehood of that denial. But 
 I am stronger still, besause the malignity, ingenuity, 
 and interest of our enemies have not ventured to de- 
 ny its sincerity and success. Why was it successful ? 
 because it was sincere— —because we were sincere. — I 
 spoke to men as men should be spoken to — I appealed to 
 their judgments and reasoned the question with them. I 
 appealed to their passions successfully. To their fears I 
 said, " England is now powerful — she is strong in an over- 
 whelming force, and resistance is madness. You can pro- 
 duce nothing but the guilt of crime, arming the vengeance 
 of God, incensing the resentment of man, and justifying 
 punishment. ,, I told them that continental Europe Would 
 pour her myriads in aid of England, if England wanted it, 
 and I conjured them, as they feared destruction, to abstain. 
 I held out hopes of showing what might occur ; and talk- 
 ing to them of English justice, and English generosity, I 
 directed their views to the proper channel. But there was 
 also another motive too strong to be omitted — namely, that 
 resentment which oppression always generates. Was I to 
 leave out that topic ? If I had done so, how should I be 
 taunted for my insincerity ? u Your argument is," they 
 would say, " that the crimes of the Catholics are not the 
 result of natural depravity, or of a tendency to guilt, but 
 of that hatred created by a sense of wrong." You say that 
 the crimes of Orangemen committed upon them palliate 
 such a return. If you were sincere, why did you not ap- 
 peal to that feeling ? Why not conjure up that hatred also ? 
 They would have said to me, " You are an Advocate : you 
 have addressed many a Jury. Had you appealed to it, you 
 could not be accused of creating or instigating it, because 
 it had pre-existed, and was known to be an element in the 
 Irish character ; and if you did not enlist our virtues at your 
 side you were but mocking us." They would have said to 
 Y 3 
 
me, " You are an Advocate, you have addressed many a 
 Jury/' and they might Matter me by saying, I had extorted 
 verdicts from many a prejudiced one. " What kind of an Ad- 
 vocate are you, thai, in speaking to evidence of the peace of 
 the country, omit the testimony of the principal witness,, 
 and cease to comment on the principal ingredient ? But 
 whence this fastidiousness > Is it not legitimate, after all, 
 to hate robbers, oppressors, and murderers I" I could prove 
 at the bar, that the Orangemen deserve all these names. Who 
 do not hate the robber ? Yo®. certainly do not hate the in- 
 dividual ; but when you catch him, you hang him for half 
 an hour, which, perhaps, may answer his purpose as w r ell 
 — but you have that general hatred to his crimes which I 
 bear to Orangemen. God forbid that Tom, or William, or 
 any other individual should be the object of my hatred, or 
 of any other feeling than that of perfect and unatfecte^ cha- 
 rity. Will you allow me to refer to a passage ©r two in a 
 book, in which hatred is spoken of wm the lady-like terms, 
 which the House of Commons delight to speak, but in the 
 language of poetry — at least of rhyme. In the £fith Psalm, 
 by Sternhokl and Hopkins, is this passage- — 
 
 I much abhor the wicked sort, their deeds I do despise., 
 I do not once to* them resort that hurtful things devise. 
 O ! shut not up my soul with them, in sin that take their 
 fill, 
 
 Nor put my life among those men that seek much blood 
 to spill. 
 
 For in their hands much mischief is, their lives therewith 
 
 abound, 
 
 And nothing else in their right hand but bribes are to be 
 
 found. 
 
 That is a holy hatred that never got amongst some of the 
 speculators of the House of Commons. I can conceive 
 their being astonished at hate being generated against a per- 
 son who has bribes to give I can understand that very 
 well; but in the 130th Psalm, verses xxi. and xxiL you'll 
 find — " Do not 1 hate them, O Lord, that hate thee ? and 
 &m not I grieved with those that rise up against thee ? — 
 Yea, I hate them with a perfect hatred, even as though 
 they were mine enemies/' What! if even the language of 
 inspiration be thus strong in expressions of hatred, what 
 becomes of the affectation that would not employ it, not for 
 mischievous, but for useful purposes, in a country long the 
 object of hate ? Oh, what a sovereign contempt I have for 
 
247 
 
 those men who are thus horrified and trembling at the men^ 
 tion of hatred ; who countenance practical oppression with 
 the utmost flippancy ; who would tarnish Christianity by 
 their sickly affectation and maudlin sentiments ; who re- 
 spect words, but whose deeds are atrocious, and who would 
 put down the Catholic Association because it has stopped 
 the effusion of Catholic blood, procured peace and tranquil- 
 lity in the land, and thus struck from them the only excuse 
 which they could have for continuing the reign of faction, 
 or the dominion of religious persecution ? I have already 
 discussed the question of the Catholic Rent. It had been 
 said, that it was not voluntary. We have seen it asserted 
 in the newspapers, that there were two books — one in which 
 subscribers' names were inserted, which was called the 
 " Red Book," a familiar appellation with men in that 
 House — the other the " Black Book and I presume there 
 is some such thing under the minister's table, which is 
 drawn out occasionally, and in which the names of many an, 
 illustrious Whig is to be found enrolled. It was stated that 
 in this Black Book the names of rejected candidates were 
 introduced. But is it not scandalous that we should be 
 crushed by assertions — by these barefaced falsehoods ?— 
 They are as false as God is true X It is an utter, scandal- 
 ous, shameless, cruel falsehood ! Here we are at the bar 
 ready to prove its falsity. Who invented it ? I call on the 
 man from whose lips it is Said to have issued, to do either of 
 two things — to deny the truth of the report in the newspa* 
 pers, or go back to the miscreant in power, and fix the 
 stamp of eternal infamy on those who put forward honour- 
 able men with the assertion of a falsehood. There were ex- 
 cellent reasons for refusing to hear us — but, good God ? 
 how can I continue after taking up so much of your time ! 
 These were the grounds, my Lord, on which we were 
 sought to be put down. There was nothing illegal in our 
 conduct. There was strong negative testimony in our fa- 
 vour ; that these were pretexts upon which they endeavour- 
 ed to suppress the Association ; that even falsehood csmld 
 not carry itself further ; that invention could not imagine 
 any serious accusation against us; but on these petty pre- 
 tences, and on this miserable sophistication, we are to be 
 put down. I ask of English justice this question — Is it not 
 plain, that if we had been guilty of real crime, if we had 
 asserted any thing in itself wrong or illegal, these poor and 
 paltry shifts would not have been resorted to? When they have 
 recourse to them, they admit that the test of our conduct is 
 free from blame, and that it furnishes no answerable pretence 
 
248 
 
 for fair imputation. Let it be recollected, that any thing which 
 has a tendency to a breach of the Peace is criminal in our 
 law — you are criminal if you do any thing which an adverse 
 packed jury, and a courtly judge, may think has a tendency 
 to a breach of the peace. So that even dead miscreants are 
 safe from the attacks of the living, upon the principle, that 
 if you speak ill of the dead it is wrong, because it has a ten- 
 dency to make the living relations commit a breach of the 
 peace. That is law. But nothing of this sort— even nothing 
 that could be construed into having a tendency to a breach 
 of the peace, has been asserted to have been done by us ; 
 and we are put down, because we may have a tendency to 
 that result. Oh, calumniated Robespierre and your col- 
 leagues ! when you guillotined men suspected of being 
 suspicious, how many jests of living Ministers — aye, 
 and of dead Ministers too, have broken on the repose 
 of your graves ! And now these very Ministers, or 
 their successors, are legislating against the universal nation, 
 lest we should do something tending to have a tendency to 
 a breach of the peace. There is an additional ground from 
 which, I thank God, I cannot be shaken. In the entire 
 series of the accusations — in the string of charges brought, 
 or imagined, against us, thank God, no man had the crimi- 
 nal audacity to reproach the Catholic Association with 
 having uttered one word injurious to the principle of religi- 
 ous liberty, or reflecting on the faith . or tenets of any other 
 sect or persuasion. I rejoice in this with a great joy, that 
 after two years of repeated discussions by the young and 
 the old — the inexperienced and the more mature— all speak- 
 ing before the public, and every word noted, nothing could 
 be fixed on which would justify a reproach of this kind. 
 They say that we courted popularity — the popularity which 
 results from legitimate services to the people, is surely con- 
 solatory to man, and is never despised by any but those 
 who do not deserve it. Oh ! we were looking for popula- 
 rity. What an accusation ! This charge shows that there 
 did not exist in our minds one single sentiment of bigotry, 
 or one that conveyed insult to our Protestant fellow- 
 eountrymen. If there had, it would have floated to the 
 surface and escaped. It showed much more, that the uni- 
 versal people whom we addressed, were not to be flattered 
 by sentiments of that description ; and that popularity was 
 not to be bought from the Irish people by speaking ill of 
 Protestants. There is that proud pre-eminence, if I may so 
 call it — there is that uninstructed kindliness among my 
 countrymen, that, after serving them disinterestedly for 
 
249 
 
 twenty-one long years,, I am thoroughly convinced, that if 
 I had ventured to say one single word that infringed, in the 
 slightest degree, upon the principle of civil and religious 
 liberty, or condemned any man either here or elsewhere for 
 a sincere and conscientious conviction of the truth of any 
 persuasion, I am convinced, if I had uttered an unchris- 
 tian sentiment of that description, twenty-one years of 
 services would not have protected me from their just indig- 
 nation. This is the fact. I am certainly in the firmest 
 conviction a Catholic ; but I am that, first, in principle, 
 because I know how it extends its blessed charity, and I 
 thank my God that, for the third time, we have testimony 
 in Ireland, that, that which occurred in the reign of Mary, 
 and in the reign of King James, is still the living principle 
 of the Irish Catholics — an extreme anxiety for their ow r n 
 freedom, for their — 
 
 Happy homes and altars free — 
 
 and a most perfect unaffected readiness to extend to every 
 other Christian the blessings of the same humane and chari- 
 table dispensation. Why do you encourage me? I cannot 
 trespass on you longer by discussing this horrible Bill. 
 Though I take up a large book, (taking up a volume of the 
 Statutes,) I shall read but little of it. This Bill is a viola- 
 tion of the Constitution — it is a continued violation of those 
 rights, which my ancestors bought at the siege of Limerick. 
 I am not ashamed to say, that, within its walls was a regi- 
 ment raised by an ancestor of mine — he shed his blood 
 fighting for his legitimate Sovereign, in the fatal field of 
 Aughrim. This regiment surrendered, and his cousin* 
 german, my immediate ancestor, signed the treaty, and I 
 call on the British Government to realize tow r ards me that 
 treaty which they had thus entered into for valuable consi- 
 deration." Mr. O'Connell then referred to several Acts 
 relating to meetings of the people, and said, that the policy 
 of those statutes hitherto, had been to prevent confused 
 tumultuary assemblies. This Bill opposed that feeling, for 
 it left the people no choice but to assemble without any 
 previous organization, no selection, no principle of unani- 
 mity or direction. He then referred to the Convention 
 Act in Ireland, which was passed against the Jacobinical 
 faction, and not against the Catholics, The Catholics did 
 not come within its province, and were then busily em- 
 ployed in soothing the people. Who could say that the 
 Catholic Association encouraged riot, tumult, and disorder. 
 
250 
 
 The offence was, that they put down these things ; that 
 they had made the country quiet, and this atrocious Alge- 
 rince Act of Parliament had not the impudence to put on 
 record that they had any such tendency. He then referred 
 to the election of Catholic delegates in 1811, and the pro- 
 ceedings against that body, in which he spoke of the con- 
 struction that was put by the Court of King's Bench on the 
 word pretence, which was employed in the Act of 1793. 
 The Bench, he said, was then differently constituted from 
 what it was at present ; and he would praise the existing 
 Judges of that Court from the very same motives that led 
 him to dispraise the power, because the one deserved dis- 
 praise, and the other was a rare instance, in which all con- 
 curred in the praise of that tribunal. But they came before 
 the Court in that day. It was lauded then by the interested 
 and hungry barristers, as the administration was now laud- 
 ed by senators, not advocates, and by advocates who ought 
 not to be senators. It was lauded, then, by the mean and 
 mercenary, and he hoped more such would laud the present 
 administration of justice. Joining in that praise himself, he 
 would extend the clemency of his compassion to those who, 
 from interested motives, lauded it. They appealed to com- 
 mon sense, and the dictionary, to explain pretence and 
 purpose, and the Court decided that pretence and purpose 
 were synonymous. This was the opinion of the pious and 
 godly-given Downes, since made a Peer, and retired to the 
 otium cum dignitate of Judge Day — an excellent man in pri- 
 vate life, but he would not wish to see him longer on the 
 bench of Judge Daly, who, from an utter Barrister, voted 
 himself into a Judge by voting for the Union, and devoted 
 the remainder of his life to the pious occupation of distribut- 
 ing Bibles. He joined in the decision, saying, that pretence 
 meant purpose, if not in common sense, at least in common 
 law. To these were added Osborne, who had since gone to 
 account before another tribunal, and over whose grave he 
 would step lightly. They had submitted to this as law ; 
 and next came the present Act. The Legislators had 
 grown wiser— they declared in this Bill, that no body, how- 
 ever constituted, whether " for the purpose, or under the 
 pretence of petitioning Parliament," &c. was legal. They 
 left here no equivocation, and showed how right the Catho- 
 lics were in their construction of the former Act. Let 
 them, then, laud the administration of justice, and he would 
 taunt them with their Algerine Act. He would show that 
 they themselves found that the former decision was impro- 
 per. After a variety of enactments, the Bill proceeds thus: 
 
251 
 
 " And be it further enacted, that it shall and may be lawful 
 to and for the Mayor, Sheriff, or Justice of the Peace, and 
 they are hereby respectively authorized, empowered and 
 required, within his and their respective jurisdictions, to 
 command all meetings herein before declared to be unlawful 
 assemblies, immediately to disperse ; and if any such meet- 
 ing shall not thereupon immediately disperse, to apprehend 
 all persons so offending in that behalf, and to demand 
 admission into any house, out-house, or office, where they 
 shall respectively have good reason to believe that such 
 unlawful assembly shall be, and if refused, to enter by force." 
 My Lord, what species of legislation is that in England? said 
 Mr. O'Connell, dashing the Bill violently from him. — 
 Let Englishmen know this, that though this is now a law 
 only for the Irish, yet it is a precious precedent for the Go- 
 vernment of future Legislatures. What, my Lord Duke, in 
 the city of Dublin, surrounded by my family, talking of 
 that which will be the natural subject of our conversation, 
 the disqualification under which I labour, returning from 
 Court after a fatiguing day, w T here the sanguine tempera- 
 ment of my mind, perhaps, has enabled me to sueceed over 
 many obstacles, and w T here, by a conscientious attention to 
 the duties of my station, I may have become master of the 
 facts and the law, with all the vanity and self- exultation 
 which success gives, and then pitying myself when I see 
 the third and fourth rate companions or followers of my 
 course, placed over me, and promoted to situations which I 
 cannot attain ; coming home to my family, and pouring out 
 my heart before them, we shall talk, of course, of politics 
 and of petitions (they are the only things we talk of,) I re- 
 press the feeling that would instigate a thought of a diffe- 
 rent kind, and that would make my son with a burning cheek, 
 start forward and raise his arm as though he would seize a 
 sword. I remind him of his duty and his God ; and whilst 
 we talk thus, and whilst my paternal advice sinks on the ear 
 of his affection, is the Orange beggarly Magistrate of Dub- 
 lin to come and rap at my door ? Is he to invade the sacred 
 privacy of my family ? Is the choice, the disinterested 
 choice of my early life, and the companion of my maturer 
 years, the mother of my daughters, my daughters them- 
 selves, to see the ruffian Orangeman bring the badges of his 
 dignity to the tea-table, around which we are seated, and 
 insult us ? I ask, is it in England or in Algiers that these 
 things are done ? Am I in the meridian of Constantinople, 
 or in the midst of the polished Capital of Britain ? No pre- 
 
252 
 
 test need be offered, there need be no informer, all thr.t fa 
 required is, that the Sheriff or Mayor has good reason ta 
 believe there is an unlawful assembly in a certain place. 
 And what redress could I have, even though I was entitled 
 in law, against the violation committed under the sanction 
 of this Act ? The Jury is summoned by the Sheriff, whose 
 title-deed to his office is, that he is bound himself by a so- 
 lemn oath not only never to assist in, or promote the eman- 
 cipation of his Catholic countrymen, but to give that Shib- 
 boleth of disunion, the Orange toast— the triumph of for- 
 mer days — the insult of the present. Such a Sheriff as this 
 would empannel the Jury, whilst Doherty or North, I care 
 not which, was praising the administration of justice. Sup- 
 pose I was entitled to damages, where would I get them ? 
 Oh, you have a notion here when you hear the words Lord 
 Mayor, Alderman, &c. that it is with us as in your respec- 
 table city of London, that the men who fill these offices are 
 persons of wealth, substance, character, and humanity, 
 with English feelings and commercial prosperity. You 
 suppose, that because we have the forms, we have the thing. 
 It was only the other day that the Corporation of Dublin 
 was looking about for an Alderman, and the question was, 
 whom they could get to take the office, for it was necessary 
 to pay a fine of £400 to become an Alderman. They were 
 obliged to take a worthy gentleman, named Hamilton, He 
 accepted the office, but took it on the condition that he 
 should not pay the fine. No, no. They are made up of 
 discharged insolvents, beggarly bankrupts, enjoying the 
 glories of eleemosynary feasting, flushed with claret, 
 paid for out of the city funds; under the fumes of 
 Champaigne, levied out of the tolls exacted from the 
 poverty of poor Catholics, some of those may stagger 
 to my house, insult my family, and outrage the feel- 
 ings of my wife and daughters; and I shall stand 
 quietly by, and a ruffian shall pillage my house and re- 
 main in it as long as he choses, and I shall bow to the 
 earth if he is only so good as not to drag forth the father — 
 Englishmen ! let it be repeated where it will, I care not, 1 
 do not think existence worth having on such conditions. I 
 will endure it; it is an endurance — my conscience bids me 
 endure it — my father has endured more. I will preach that 
 Christianity which is not practised towards us ; I will tell 
 my children that there is still a good God, whose provi- 
 dence rules the world, and that there is a generous, noble 
 people in England, who, when they come to understand the 
 
253 
 
 nature and extent of the outrage that is offered to us, and 
 see that that which is our case may be their's to-morrow, 
 must interfere ; for who will pity Englishmen in their de- 
 gradation, when they stood by to see us mocked and trod- 
 den under foot ? The noble Lord has talked of standing or 
 falling by England. All I desire is the opportunity of 
 standing by England. But standing is out of the question — 
 we are trampled on by those who have thrown us down 
 Now throw your minds back to what I was talking to you 
 of, I think, two hours and a-half ago. Why is this Bill 
 passed on foul and false calumnies, on silly suggestions, 
 tickly affections, and maudlin sentiments ? These are the 
 grounds for this Algerine Act of Parliament — -these are the 
 only pretences. The men were not detected in any crime — 
 they were caught unanimous in endeavouring to establish 
 the public peace. It is time to have done. I am not fati- 
 gued — I am accustomed to this employment ; but I have 
 tired you. 1 will tell you what we want to do — we seek 
 not to bind to England the feathers and diamonds of the 
 State, the Peers and the men of fortune, because these were 
 already bound. Their fidelity was ever undoubted, their 
 loyalty always displayed — education and religion, and the 
 nobility of their minds, higher, 1 will say, than their sta^ 
 tion, united them in dutiful allegiance to the British Scate. 
 It was unnecessary for us to work on them. We saw there 
 was a gathering storm in Europe — we saw the Cossack was 
 mustering again — we saw that the Austrian was at his daily 
 exercise — we beheld the immense power of the restored 
 Bourbon, who is of the same religion with the people of 
 Ireland, ready to bid against England for the affections of 
 that people, and to proclaim the universal liberation of the 
 Catholic population. We saw, even in the tranquillity that 
 now pervades Europe, or thought we saw, the approach of a 
 coming storm ; and where is the Pilot of the State that 
 will venture to say that a storm is not approaching, and that 
 it will not soon reach ourselves ? When is the time 
 that the skilful navigator fits his vessel, arranges his crew, 
 disciplines his men, and prepares them, a gallant' body, 
 with life, blood, and sinew, for the coming battle ? It is 
 the moment of calm and peace. We saw that this was the 
 time to repair the vessel of the State ; and, therefore, we 
 threw ourselves forward to bring the Irish people to peace 
 and order— to offer them, at the porch of the temple, the 
 Constitution ; not disfiguring it bv their multitude, but add- 
 Z 
 
254 
 
 ing to the strength and security of the British Empire, and 
 making a holy alliance between Catholic and Protestant— 
 between Englishmen and Irishmen. Is not this what every 
 good Englishman should desire— what every loyal man 
 should wish for. Our attempt was strangled in its progress, 
 and we were met by punishment. Did they tell you that 
 Catholics are unfit for freedom — that Catholics dislike their 
 Protestant brethren ? My friends who preceded me have 
 demonstrated that the Catholic not only can, but does hear- 
 tily and affectionately grant an equilization of civil and reli- 
 gious rights to Protestants. — And the only reason I refer to 
 the topic again, is, that I might boast that the first State, after 
 the Reformation, which granted toleration to persons of a 
 different religion, was a Catholic State, the Catholics of Mary- 
 land — Catholic Hungary followed the example — Bavaria did 
 the same. And if it has re-echoed back to us from Protes- 
 tant States upon the Continent, it only makes the kindly 
 feeling increase as it mingles, and gives to the stream the 
 pure and sacred character of Christian charity. The stream 
 is created by the united kindliness of Catholic and Protes- 
 tant. Who are the men that have framed this Bill ? It 
 would, so help me God, give me consolation under its in- 
 fliction, to be put down by men of talent and virtue ; but that 
 s uch men as the money-making and money-loving El don, the 
 domestic Liverpool, the gentle Peel, and the true Mr. Can- 
 ning—that these men should put us down, and that Goul- 
 burn should come to fix his seal upon me— he, whose bro- 
 ther was unfit for Botany Bay, and we had no vacancy for 
 him in Irelaud— that these men should come upon us and 
 scandalously deal out this measure ; it presses on my heart 
 with a soreness not to be forgotten. I shall return to my 
 country, carrying this additional badge of slavery, and my 
 only consolation will be, to tell my children and friends, that 
 there is yet hope. I have pasted up the Hanoverian pro- 
 clamation in my parlour. — I have shown the name of George 
 the Fourth,— I point out the sentiments of the gracious 
 Monarch— the living sentiments of his own noble heart. I 
 say of the other things, these acts are the acts of his Minis- 
 ters. It is impossible that he and the good people over 
 whom he reigns, when they came to know and feel the cru- 
 elty of these proceedings, will suffer them to be long per- 
 severed in ; and these excessive exaggerations of base cru- 
 elty and perfidy will, by raising up the public mind in Eng- 
 land, open a day-dawn of liberty and peace. The English 
 
255 
 
 Protestant will make that sun approach nearer to ns, 
 and beneath its benign rays, Catholic and Protestant, Irish- 
 man and Englishman, joined by mutual affection, will see 
 their countries in united might and majesty, and strength, 
 bidding defiance to the combined world. 
 
 Z 2 
 
MR. SHELL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 ON THE WEALTH OF THE 
 
 ESTABLISHED CHURCH, 
 
 AT THE 
 
 ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL said, I gave notice that I should move an 
 humble address to the Archbishops, Bishops, Deans, Arch- 
 deacons, and other functionaries of the Church, respectfully 
 submitting to their consideration the anti-apostolic condition 
 of the establishment, and praying them, with a view to 
 their own salvation, to reduce their wealth within the di- 
 mensions of Christianity, and to some correspondence with 
 the precepts of that holy book, of which they so zealously 
 propagate the diffusion. I am not prepared to move the 
 address to-day, for having drawn a rough draft of it, I 
 transmitted it to a friend of mine, a Curate of the Esta- 
 blished Church, who has seventy-five pounds a year, and a 
 family of ten children. — He ought to have slept with a copy 
 of Malthus under his pillow, instead of taking a beautiful 
 pauper, who is endowed with a desperate fecundity, to his 
 arms. — I really thought that this amiable gentleman would 
 in all likelihood, see the opulence of the sacred aristocracy 
 of the Church in a strong light, and upon that account I 
 sent him the address, in order that I might have the benefit 
 of his poignant emendations. As I am upon my legs, it 
 may not be inappropriate that 1 should mention what it was 
 that induced me to engage in this adventurous, but not, I 
 trust, utterly hopeless undertaking. I, not very long ago, 
 received a letter from an old acquaintance of mine, one 
 Anthony Pasquin, who beguiled the leisure which illness 
 
257 
 
 had inflicted upon him, by reading Paley's admirable book 
 on the evidence of Christianity. Although in Anthony 
 Pasquin's letter, subjects of a solemn nature are rather lightly 
 treated, you will find much seriousness lurking underneath 
 his spirit of Sardonic mirth. He gives variety to a trite 
 topic by the fantastic shape in which he presents it. 
 We are told by Plutarch, that a banquet was once provided 
 by a celebrated epicure, consisting of an immense variety 
 of dishes, but that the whole was made up of pork, which 
 had been cooked after different fashions. The Church is 
 like the pork that supplied the materials of this variegated 
 feast, and admits of dressing in an infinite diversity of 
 ways. God forbid, however, that I should insinuate, that 
 any of tho dignitaries of the establishment offered the com- 
 parison to my fancy, or that I should exclaim at the sight 
 of one of them, " Epicuri de grege porcus." I return to 
 the letter of Mr. Anthony Pasquin, which is in the words 
 following : — 
 
 " I have been lately reading Paley's celebrated work. — 
 That portion of it particularly struck me, in which he en- 
 larges on his fundamental proposition, " that there is satis- 
 factory evidences that many professing to be original wit- 
 nesses of the Christian miracles, passed their lives in la- 
 bours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone, in 
 attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely 
 in consequence of their belief of those accounts — and that 
 they also submitted, from the same motives, to new rules 
 of conduct. The exact correspondence between the lives 
 of the first propagators of the religion of poverty and 
 of humility, with their precepts, is the main argument on 
 which Paley rests his assertion, that they were firmly con- 
 vinced of the truths which they were appointed to announce. 
 It would, indeed, have been a reasonable interference that 
 they were impostors, if, while they were inculcating the 
 worthlessness of temporal wealth and power, they were re- 
 velling in the enjoyments of the world, which they affected 
 to despise. Paley, therefore, has laboured to establish, 
 that their lives did not afford a practical refutation of their 
 doctrines, and he has completely succeeded in showing that 
 their conduct coincided with the injunctions, which are 
 conveyed in their celestial ethics. He well observes, " I do 
 not know that it has ever been insinuated, that the Christian 
 mission in the hands of the Apostles, was a scheme for mak- 
 ing a fortune or getting money." The Christians, we are 
 told by St. Paul, " knew in themselves, that they had in 
 heaven a better and an enduring substance/' It is not only 
 Z 3 
 
S'58 
 
 in the writings of the inspired emissaries of Christianity 
 that proofs of their scorn for gold are to be found. So late 
 as the time of Lucian, (we are told by him) <c the Christ- 
 ians had a sovereign contempt for all the things of the 
 ■world/' After the perusal of Paley, I took up Southey's 
 <{ Book of the Church/' the reading of which, together with 
 his letter to Charles Butler, operated as an opiate, and put 
 me into a profound sleep. Queen Mab was at my bed side, 
 and wherefore should, " the midwife to the fancy " not 
 visit me in my dreams, when she approaches more vener- 
 able personages — when e< with a tithe-pig's tail," she 
 comes — i 
 
 " Tickling a Parson's nose, as he lies asleep— 
 i( Then dreams he of another benefice/' 
 
 Whether she ever played these pranks with the Apostles ; 
 whether she tickled the noses of St. Peter or St. Paul, with 
 a -tithe-pig's tail, I leave it to my Lords, the Bishops, to 
 conjecture. The perusal of Paley, not unnaturally, led me 
 back to the period on which he had expatiated. I say, that 
 this was not unnatural, but refer it to Mr. Carmiehael, the 
 partner of Mr. Wra. Kemmis, of the Crown Office, and the 
 author of a very ingenious essay upon the cause of dreams , 
 which is published in the transactions of the Royal Irish 
 Academy. That able metaphysician will, I hope, avail 
 himself of the many opportunities which he has had of ap- 
 proaching the A ttornies- General for the last twenty years, 
 and will, m a note to the next edition of his work, apprize 
 us, whether Mr. Saurin ever dreamed of being put out of 
 office ? Whether Lord Plunkett ever dreamed of being 
 successor to Lord Norbury ? or whether Mr. Joy,... ...but 
 
 with that gentleman's dreams I dare not meddle, but piously 
 hope, that I am not among their objects ? But let that pass 
 — and to speak with the gravity which becomes the matte?, 
 <c in the visions of the night, when the sleep falleth upon 
 men," as Serjeant Lefroy would express it. I thought that 
 1 was living at the period of which I had been reading, 
 when, some years after the death of Tiberius, Christianity 
 was in the midst of persecution making a rapid way. I 
 saw (here Mr. Anthony Pasquin becomes serious — for he 
 can be so when it is meet) — I saw the inspired and lofty- 
 minded men, to whom the great office of illuminating man- 
 kind had been committed, go forth from Palestine, and pro- 
 claim in the metropolis of the world, as the heralds of 
 Heaven, thg eternal truths, of which they were the reposi- 
 
259 
 
 tories. I saw them in the calm and unostentatious courage, 
 derived from the assurance of immortality, look upon death 
 and the torments which preceded it, without dismay. But 
 what struck me far more than the meek heroism of endur- 
 ance, was their exemplification of the divine philosophy, 
 of which they were the professors, in the simplicity of 
 their deportment, in the humility of their mild demeanour, 
 in their spirit of benevolence and of mercy, in their absti- 
 nence and self-denial, in their utter contempt of riches, and 
 in the fixedness of their regards upon those objects of ever- 
 lasting interest, to which their eyes and hearts were unre- 
 mittingly exalted. They did not reside in gorgeous palaces, 
 while they instructed their followers in the wisdom of po- 
 verty and the usefulness of sorrow. Their lessons of humi- 
 lity were not announced from the porticos of Princes — it 
 was not from the banquet-hall that they issued their ordi- 
 nances of abstinence ; nor did they, from the primrose path 
 of luxury, point to the steep and thorny road to heaven. — 
 I saw no train of pampered minions in their retinue — I be- 
 held no mitres upon the chariots in which they had journey- 
 ed from Jerusalem to Rome. I saw no " Bench of Bi- 
 shops " in the Senate, I did not see their wives and daugh- 
 ers tripping it through the mazes of a Roman quadrille, or 
 whirling in the arms of some brawny ensign of the Praeto- 
 rian guard, through the evolutions of an Ionic waltz, and 
 verifying Horace's description of the amusement of an Italian 
 virgin — 
 
 " Motus doceri gaudet Ionicos 
 
 " Matura virgo, et fingitur artubus." 
 
 I did not see the Apostles and their followers turning Chris- 
 tianity into a domestic convenience, making the Church of 
 God a receptacle of conjugal endearment — making priests 
 of their sons, and the wives of priests of the young ladies. 
 Neither did I hear any thing of running a Bishop's life 
 against a lease, or of a Bishop executing a renewal and 
 touching ten thousand pounds on his death bed, when he 
 ivas about to render an account of his ministry, and to stand 
 in the dreadful sight of the living God- I heard nothing of 
 tithes, and vestries, and cesses. I saw no Ecclesiastical 
 Courts, no Metropolitans, no Surrogates, no Ministers, no 
 Civil Bills, no Proctors, no Distrainings, no Executions, no 
 sales of Blankets, no auctions of Beds of Straw, " in the 
 name of him who died no trial before one priest of the 
 corporate interests of another. I did not see the people in- 
 

 
 260 
 
 dignant at any system of rapacity carried on under the aus- 
 pices of the Divine Author of religion, and the road t© 
 Heaven converted into a sort of Bagshot-heath, where the 
 Ministers of Christ claim a kind of prescriptive right to sa- 
 cerdotal spoliation. There was, indeed, one individual who 
 suggested a singular project. His name was Simon Magus. 
 This fellow proposed to establish a Mining Company, de- 
 claring that he had discovered a rich vein of gold under the 
 barren rocks of Mount Calvary. But the proposition was 
 indignantly rejected. You are aware that dreams are pro- 
 verbially capricious — 
 
 " The children of an idle brain 
 
 " Begot of nothing but vain fantasy." 
 
 It was under this strange influence that I was suddenly trans- 
 ferred to a very different period. Queen Mab shifted the 
 scene of the puppet show, which is played in a dreamer's 
 head. I thought that all at once I posted from Rome to 
 London — and leaped over whole tracts of centuries in a sin- 
 gle bound. It was, perhaps, owing to my reading of 
 Southey's " Book of the Church," together with Paley's 
 Evidences, that this immense transition was instantaneously 
 effected, and I stood at the outside of Saint Stephen's 
 Chapel. Here a new spectacle presented itself. — There 
 came rattling down Palace-yard a series of splendid 
 carriages, with mitres upon their pannels — and which were 
 drawn by horses superbly caparisoned, and conducted by 
 portly charioteers, placed upon lofty seats, with laced cock- 
 ed hats upon their heads, overtopping tremendous periwigs, 
 while a profusion of golden epaulets depended from the 
 shoulders of these pampered slaves. When I saw them at a 
 distance, I took these vehicles for the carriages of the great, 
 the noble, and the princely of the land. Judge, then, of 
 my astonishment when, as they approached, and drew up 
 with an awful clatter at the portico of the House of Lords, 
 I beheld the twelve Apostles dressed in lawn sleeves, toge- 
 ther with the early Fathers of the Church, with St, Paul at 
 their head. f< In sooth, gentlemen/' I exclaimed, " you are 
 amazingly changed since I saw you Jast," I was particularly 
 struck with St, Paul — at first he looked like the picture of 
 the Apostle, in Raphael's immortal cartoon, where he is re- 
 presented as announcing to the Athenians " the unknown 
 God." But gradually, as Lord Byron says, in his descrip- 
 tion of a common incident in dreaming :— 
 
261 
 
 " I thought his tace 
 " Faded, or altered into something new." 
 
 And while he inquired whether he had arrived in time to 
 vote against his old friend, Lord Plunkett, and the Catholic 
 question, as he tripped with a rapid and elastic step, and an 
 airy and flippant deportment, in place of St. Paul, I beheld 
 one of his successors in the venerable person of Doctor 
 Magee." It is unnecessary that I should read any more 
 of my friend, Anthony PasquhYs correspondence. It is 
 enough to say, that its contents put me upon a train of think- 
 ing, by which I was induced to propose an address to the 
 Archbishops, Bishops, Deans, Archdeacons, ( et hoc genus 
 omne ) imploring of them to furnish the same evidences of 
 the truth of the Christian religion, which, according to 
 Paley, were supplied by their predecessors, and, to use the 
 words of St. Clement, as quoted by that eminent divine, 
 " to put before their eyes the holy Apostles** I shall select 
 an early opportunity of laying the address before you, and 
 and as henceforward I intend to dedicate a good deal of my 
 attention to the spiritual improvement of the establishment, 
 I shall probably publish the speeches which I shall deliver 
 on the subject, in a volume, which, in humble imitation of 
 Mr. Southey, I shall entitle " The Book of the Irish 
 Church." 
 
MR. O'CONNELL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 AT 
 
 A PUBLIC DINNER 
 
 GIVEN TO HIM IN 
 
 WATERFORD. 
 
 Mr. CHAIRMAN and Gentlemen — No person can do me 
 the injustice to suppose, that I can think it possible for me 
 to express the extent of my gratitude. In truth, I am proud 
 of, as well as delighted with, this manifestation of kindness. 
 With all the fervour of my heart, I thank you for the man- 
 ner in which you have received my humble name ; and if it 
 were possible to enhance my gratification, it would be done 
 by the sentiment which you have associated with that name 
 I am, it is true, an advocate of Civil and Religious Liberty ; 
 but I deeply regret to say, that my advocacy has been use- 
 less and unavailing. I have brought to that sacred cause 
 little talent, yet certainly great zeal, purity of intention, 
 and persevering honesty, but alas ! hitherto with little suc- 
 cess. Civil Liberty is nothing but justice brought into ac- 
 tion, and securities stipulated for against oppression and ini- 
 quity. Civil Liberty places man in that state, with regard 
 to his fellow-beings, that the order of nature and the man- 
 date of the Creator have suggested and arranged, leaving 
 so much of natural liberty and equality as are necessary for 
 the protection of life and the unqualified enjoyment of pro- 
 perty — whilst that Liberty deprives every body of the power 
 to oppress or injure another, and affords the salutary re- 
 straint which always prevents the infliction of unmerited in- 
 jury, or the unwarranted deprivation of another's property, 
 It is true that in despotic States there may in private life 
 
263 
 
 chance to be a dispensation of justice between man and man ; 
 but, justice in such States wants a sanction and a safeguard, 
 and is duly administered only so long as it suits the caprice 
 or avoids interfering with the passions, partialities, or inte- 
 rests of persons in power, or of their parasites or re- 
 tainers. I am the friend of Civil Liberty, because with- 
 out it there cannot possibly continue to exist practical 
 honesty. I am the advocate of Religious Liberty, not 
 from any affectation of that impious libertinism which 
 considers the choice of creed a matter of indifference, or 
 which confounds various modes of belief without selec- 
 tion or preference. I am, Gentlemen, deeply penetrated 
 with the awful responsibility which attaches to the belief 
 and profession of a true religion. To the selection of that 
 one every man should bring perfect candour and sincerity, 
 and a lively caution proportioned to the magnitude of the 
 object ; and he who is cautious and sincere is answerable 
 for the result to no human tribunal. It is purely a question 
 between him and God — and nothing but impiety, or tyranny, 
 or a combination of both, would interfere with the sacred 
 rights of conscience, or employ force or fraud to compel or 
 procure the public profession of any tenets, but such as are 
 believed in the secret sincerity of the heart, Without reli- 
 gious liberty, religion dwindles into bigotry, and is made the 
 ready instrument of peculation and interested oppression. 
 Religion loses its own sweet and genuine charity, and is 
 rendered not the pretext, but the corroding cause of ill will, 
 dissension, and mutual hate. I am fervently attached to 
 religious liberty, because I admire and love religion, and am 
 convinced that its best and dearest interests can be promoted 
 only by leaving conscience free — by cultivating its charities 
 — by flinging away the weapons of fraud and force, of 
 exclusion and bribery — leaving to the calm kindness of 
 Christian persuasion, the removal of every error, and the 
 remedy for every mistake, and exhibiting the sincerity of 
 our preference by the constant practice of fraternal charity. 
 With these sentiments of civil and religious liberty, I have 
 brought to their cause zeal and sincerity, and I can promise 
 you perseverance. My efforts have been, it is true> unsuc- 
 cessful, but their course was ever strictly legal and Consti- 
 tutional. It was, and ever will be, marked by enthusiastic 
 reverence for the general principle of the Constitution. 
 Attached to the principles of hereditary Monarchy, because 
 in the certainty and stability of the Throne is founded much 
 of the security of the lives and property of the people at 
 large ; admitting the ancient and venerable institution of 
 
264 
 
 hereditary Nobility, which, if purified from the dross and 
 mischievous mixture of modern corruption, is capable of 
 being converted, in the social edifice of the State, into a 
 noble column, giving strength and imparting ornament to 
 the entire fabric ; but above all, and I own it, more than all, 
 is my soul devoted to the pure principle of Popular Repre- 
 sentation — to the chartered and inalienable Right of the 
 People, to be enabled by their Representatives to confine 
 the Throne and the Peerage within the limits of public 
 utility, and to procure for themselves protection against 
 every peculation and every oppression. This most useful 
 principle of Popular Representation should be universal, in 
 order to be universally useful. Its selections should be 
 made freely and frequently. No man should have a long 
 lease of the people's rights, lest he should use it as his own 
 property, or for his own purposes, leaving to the people 
 nothing but " a dry reversion." The mode of voting by 
 ballot would take away the possibility of undue influence or 
 intimidation, and leave the humble honest man as free and 
 independent as the proudest and haughtiest being in the 
 community. Such is my profession of political faith, and 
 such are the maxims which have governed my political 
 career. In point of practical detail, I have ever recommended 
 the bold and open course of confronting oppression in its 
 high places — of exposing injustice, not in mincing or lady- 
 like phrases, but in the plain language of reason and truth — 
 so that, if we could not always stem the career of the Orange 
 bigot, we had the satisfaction, at least, of exposing him to 
 the execration and contempt of the wise and good in every 
 country. Towards the liberal Protestant, and there are many 
 such men, we have ever expressed our affection and grati- 
 tude, and have always hailed as our brother, every enemy 
 of bigotry and injustice, no matter what may be his creed 
 or colour. With respect to the Catholics themselves, per- 
 haps we have been too ready to indulge in miserable feuds 
 and petty jealousies ; but experience has made us wise, and 
 those follies and mistakes will, I trust, be banished from our 
 Councils for ever. Indeed, I think brighter prospects 
 begin to dawn upon us, and that for which we have long 
 struggled appears to come at length within our grasp. The 
 symptom of the times, which most cheers my expectations, 
 is to be found amongst the Catholics themselves. The 
 struggle has now lasted twenty-one years. We have 
 laboured through good repute and bad repute ; we have 
 persevered after repeated disappointments — persevered, also, 
 amidst the treachery of hollow friends, and the often- 
 
265 
 
 increasing hostility of bigotted enemies ; and, even when 
 hope was shut out at every side, we have never dared to 
 despair. The reward of constancy is, I trust, at hand. — 
 The Catholic people, in their various ranks and gradations, 
 are at length arousing from torpor and apathy ; it is no 
 longer a transitory ebullition of feeling with them ; they 
 are perceived to awaken around us in every quarter, and 
 the combined voices of united millions will soon bear, in 
 thundering tones, to the foot of the Throne, and into the 
 recesses of Ministerial duplicity, the firm and irresistible 
 demands of the Irish people for the restitution of their 
 unjustly- withheld rights and privileges. Yes, in the combi- 
 nation of the honest, the educated, the sober, and the 
 rational, I see the greatest possible advantages, particularly 
 as it serves to bring us into contact with the people through- 
 out the land, and enables us to protect them from those 
 private associations and secret confederacies which have been, 
 hitherto, the bane and destruction of the hopes of Ireland, 
 It is not wonderful that a people loaded with many miseries, 
 and seeing no prospect of Constitutional relief, should com- 
 bine to revenge what they could not redress, and to retali- 
 ate evil by criminal mischief. The Irish people have, there- 
 fore, been the easy dupes of every miscreant who was either 
 hired to lead them astray, or volunteered, from his own 
 natural malignity, to plunge them into crime and blood ; 
 but the collectors of the Catholic Rent will be able to advise 
 and caution them — they will be able to point out the mis- 
 chief of Secret Associations, and to show the people that it 
 is impossible any good can result from midnight meetings or 
 private combinations. They will tell them, that such con- 
 spiracies strengthen the hands of their oppressors, and are 
 the sure means of giving pay and power to the worst ene- 
 mies of their country and religion. Yes, this awakening 
 spirit of legalised exertion will, I trust, banish from the 
 abodes of our peasantry, the fiend of secret plotting, and 
 free the land from the curse that is entailed upon it, from 
 the criminal excesses of a wretched and misled population, 
 and, at the same time, direct the hopes and exertions of that 
 population, to seek relief from their miseries in the mode, 
 and from the sources by which it alone can and ought to be 
 procured. But whilst we caution them against secret and 
 illegal conspiracy, let us never relax in our efforts to procure 
 an open, public, and universal association ; let the effort to 
 obtain relief be as extensive as the evil of which we complain; 
 let every individual, without exception, make it his first and 
 constant duty to reprobate the oppressed, and shake off the 
 2 A 
 
266 
 
 oppression, until bigotry and injustice shall wither from the 
 land, before the frown of combined and consecrated Ireland ; 
 let every man, however humble or exalted, make the wrongs 
 of Ireland the perpetual theme of his complaint ; let him 
 hold no communion that he can possibly avoid with the 
 promoters, the favourers, and the patrons of the present 
 unjust system of degradation ; let a species of civil excom- 
 munication cut them off from all intercourse but that of 
 inevitable necessity, and then we shall cease to be consenting 
 parties to our own disgrace, or servile instruments of our 
 own oppression. Our enemies have unjustly cut us off from 
 the enjoyment of equal rights, and whilst they continue that 
 injustice, let us make them experience the bitterness of our 
 firm but tranquil resentment ; let there be no compromise 
 with those who rob us of Constitutional liberty, but let them 
 feel that it is ordained, that men cannot be unjust with 
 impunity. We wall violate no law, commit no crime, but 
 we will proclaim, as aliens and enemies, those who insist on 
 continuing our exclusion, and those who convert all that is 
 useful and honorable in the State, to the base purposes of a 
 base Orange faction, whilst they stigmatise and oppress the 
 universal Irish people. With these sentiments of attache 
 ment to Civil and Religious Liberty, reverence to the 
 Throne, respect to the Peerage, and ardent devotion to popu- 
 lar Representation, and the sacred Rights of the People, 
 recommending you earnestly to conciliate all that is worth 
 conciliating amongst our Protestant fellow-countrymen, and 
 to retaliate upon your oppressors by an open and persever- 
 ing, as well as manly and legal combination amongst your- 
 selves ; with this my earnest and honest advice, I throw 
 myself upon the kindness of your indulgence, to believe that 
 I have not expressed my gratitude for the distinguished 
 honour you have done me, only because it was impossible to 
 find language to convey the heartfelt sense 1 entertain of 
 this marked, but undeserved, respect. Let me again conjure 
 you to be united amongst yourselves. The English Catho- 
 lic Association are now in communication with the Irish 
 Association, and much good may be expected from this 
 junction. It is principally composed of the descendants of 
 those men who obtained and transmitted to us the Magna 
 Charta ; and it is to be hoped, that the principle of our 
 Constitution Association will soon become as powerful as it 
 shall become universal. 
 
MR. SHEIL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 ON 
 
 SECONDING MR. CTCONNELL'S MOTION 
 
 TO CALL AN 
 
 AGGREGATE MEETING. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL, in seconding Mr. O'Connell's motion for an 
 Aggregate Meeting, said, that he fully concurred with him 
 in the expression of his detestation for the faction which 
 had rendered the people of Ireland the most unfortunate of 
 mankind. The great Lord Bacon has recorded what he 
 might call a lugubrious joke upon Ireland, which, with 
 much disastrous drollery, is not without some melancholy 
 truth. In his Considerations upon a war with Spain/' he 
 tells us, that D'Aquila scrupled not to say in open treaty, 
 u That when the devil from the mount showed unto Christ 
 the kingdoms of the earth, and the glory thereof, he doubted 
 not but that the devil left out Ireland, and kept it for him- 
 self." This fantastic sarcasm of the Spaniard might at first 
 excite mirth, but it also suggested reflections which were 
 full of pain, reproach, and sorrow. Ireland had for centuries 
 been surrendered to an infernal faction, which, with a kind 
 of diabolical policy, had frustrated the designs of God. The 
 beneficent intentions of Providence were manifest. The 
 climate, the soil, and situation of Ireland — her openness to 
 the world — her adaptation to commerce — the character of 
 her ardent and intelligent — her enterprising and persevering 
 people — every circumstance about her, give indications of 
 her capacity for greatness ; yet, all these fine pre-dispositions 
 2 A 2 
 
268 
 
 to prosperity — this noble preparation for grandeur — this 
 partiality of nature— this bias of Providence in her favour, 
 have been defeated, and a guilty faction triumphs in 
 their inglorious counteraction of the purposes of God. 
 Well might the Spaniard exclaim, that "the Devil had 
 kept Ireland for himself/' and rightly may we add, that he 
 has continued to enjoy the benefit of his original reservation. 
 Ireland still exemplifies the results of the Satanic system of 
 legislation, whose end appears to have been the debasement 
 and demoralization of man. A diabolical depravity per- 
 vaded the Penal Code, and if he might say, rendered Ire- 
 land a fief of hell. To rescue it from a condition so deplo- 
 rable — to redeem their Country from this political damna- 
 tion, was the great end which had associated them together 
 Distant as that object might still seem to be, they had made 
 towards it some important advances, They were now about 
 to adjourn. Mr. O'Connell had suggested various measures 
 for their future adoption. He would revert to their past 
 labours, for he found in the retrospect much matter for gra~ 
 tulation. When the Association was first formed, it was 
 difficult to bring even a few individuals together ; their 
 assemblies were now crowded, and animated with a general 
 enthusiasm » The people knew that they had no other ob- 
 ject but the public good, and their efforts had been seconded 
 by the national co-operation. One great pulsation — one 
 deep and ardent sentiment, throbbed through the public 
 mind. It beat from the heart through every artery never 
 had so strong and unanimous a feeling pravailed through the 
 Country, This strong sensation was to be attributed to the 
 zeal and energy of that body. It had fixed the attention of 
 the Legislature upon Irish affairs. Ireland had stood like a 
 gigantic supplicant at the gates of the Constitution, and al- 
 though they had not been thrown open they had thundered 
 with their knocking. England had at least been compelled 
 to hear her, and to look with dismay, if not with pity, up- 
 on the hedious misery which she had herself produced. 
 Mr. Peel had lately said, that he began to nauseate at Irish 
 questions. He sat, like Dives, at the full banquet of the 
 State, and pampered with it's honors: — he would fain exclude 
 our mendicant wretchedness from his sight. He would find^ 
 however, that he had to deal with a sturdy Lazarus. This 
 lofty manufae ' ] ^islation — this supercilious artificer of 
 the Laws, expressed his disgust, forsooth, at the perpetual 
 intrusion of Irish calamity ; he turned away with a fastidi- 
 ous disrelish from the vehement expostulations of the Coun- 
 try. But this miserable and unworthy sentiment met with 
 
269 
 
 no sympathy in the House ; and if Ireland has not created 
 compasion, she has at least excited curiosity. ISight after 
 night the abuses of the Irish system had been pressed upon 
 the Legislature. By whom ? By the Roman Catholic Asso- 
 ciation. Whatever opinion migh be entertained on the pro- 
 priety of specific measures, it could not be doubted but that 
 discussion had, at least, been produced. The enormous and 
 pagan opulence of the Church — the corruption of the Ma- 
 gistracy — the pollution of justice — the mismanagement of 
 national education — the unjust distribution of the patronage 
 of the Crown, and all the long train of evils which afflict 
 the Country had been brought before Parliament, Has this 
 done no good ? Is not every Englishman convinced that the 
 Irish Church, in its present state, is nothing but a gorgeous 
 nuisance — a huge incubus upon the Country ? Is he not 
 convinced that the spiritual food of one-eighth of the People 
 costs too much ? Is there not a general call for economy in 
 Religion, and for prayer at a cheaper rate ? Do they not 
 say that the price of Protestant salvation is too high ? Is it 
 not clear that this proud and bloated Establishment must be 
 speedily reduced to a more meagre and Apostolic shape? 
 Has not the discussion upon the Administration of Justice 
 convinced every man in England that in the North, where 
 political and religious passions intervened, the Catholic has 
 scarcely a chance of redress ? The recent inquiry would 
 never have taken place, had not the attention of the Legis- 
 lature been forced to the subject. The present Government 
 of Ireland have acted, in that inquiry, in a manner highly 
 honorable to themselves, but their sense of the necessity of 
 investigation arose from the loud remonstrances of the Catho- 
 lic Body, conveyed through the Catholic Association. That 
 inquiry has been attended with the most useful results. 
 It has exhibited a whole system ; it has dragged the Hydra 
 from its den : it affords a dreadful and appaling elucidation 
 of the calamities of Ireland. Who will venture, after this 
 frightful disclosure of delinquency, to say that Faction does 
 not pollute the sources of Justice ? Has the Association 
 done nothing for the cause of Education ? In the first place, 
 it has exposed the fanatical system, by which a monopoly of 
 intellect was established, analogous to the monopoly of ho- 
 nor. The narrow policy and the inefficiency of the Kildare- 
 .^treet Society have been proved. The Biblio-mania has been 
 held up to derision ; and it has been demonstrated, that the 
 Roman Catholie Clergy, so far from being the enemies of 
 education, are its most strenuous advocates. Every Parson 
 swears to support a School, upon his induction to a Parish ; 
 2 A 3 
 
27© 
 
 but, in the spirit of clerical generosity, he speedily transfers 
 lo the Priest the precious occasion of doing good; he denies 
 himself the luxuries of benevolence., and makes an assign- 
 ment of his oath to the poor and humble teachers of the 
 errors of the Church of Rome. If there were no other ad- 
 vantage derived from the discussion upon Scriptural educa- 
 tion, the vindication of the Catholic Clergy would be of 
 great moment. But more has been done. A Commission 
 has been appointed upon the subject, which is likely to 
 do much good. The queries which they have put are dic- 
 tated by candour and good faith. But the benefits of the 
 Association did not stop here ; a general inquiry into the 
 affairs of Ireland had been instituted. That inquiry must 
 lead to practical results* The Committees were not sent on 
 an idle voyage of political discovery. They were not dis- 
 patched without a purpose into the terra incognita of Irish 
 affairs* Some legislative enactment must follow this great 
 investigation. How had that enquiry been obtained ? It 
 was wrung from the Minister, by the sense of our calami- 
 ties, in the House of Commons, and that sense had been pro- 
 duced by the reiteration of complaint, which proceeded 
 from the Catholic Association. Taking all these matters 
 into account it was impossible not to feel that the Association 
 had done much good. He thought that in many particulars 
 their condition had been meliorated, and that the strongest 
 inducements were held out by their experience of the past 
 to persevere. Despair was a sin in politics as well as in reli- 
 gion. For his own part he was disposed to cherish a trust 
 in the better fortunes of his Country, and however short of 
 their expectations the measures of the present Government 
 had been, yet it must be confessed that some improvement 
 had taken place. It was true that great mistakes had been 
 committed, and Lord Wellesley had manifested a strange 
 ignorance of the People whom he came to govern. He had for 
 the purposes of conciliation descended to acts of complaisance^ 
 which were all well meant, no doubt, but were singularly 
 ill-advised. He should have remembered that faction is a 
 deaf adder, which it is beyond his power to charm. The 
 Legislative enactments under his administration, had not a 
 really conciliatory tendency. The Insurrection Act was lit 
 tie calculated to allure us into peace. There is nothing very 
 caressing in the Constabulary Bill. Fouche could not have 
 desired a better system of Gendarmerie. Still one is recon- 
 ciled to it by the reflection that it has superseded in some 
 degree that corrupt and flagitious Magistracy, which op- 
 pressed the people by their tyranny, and demoralised them 
 
271 
 
 by their example. Neither is the Tithe Bill fraught with 
 blessings. It is, however, a precedent for innovation, and 
 sooner or later the whole aristocracy will revolt against it. 
 Its principles will bring the Parson and the Squire into con- 
 flict, The Clergy have received an accession of wealth 
 
 but the cup was full before, and, in overflowing, it is not real- 
 ly the additional drop that will be carried away. These mea- 
 sures neither were, nor professed to be, of a conciliatory 
 nature. An Act, however, had been introduced, which 
 was intended as a grace. There is an offensive mode of 
 conferring favours, and of this kind was the Burial Act. 
 He was quite convinced that Mr. Plunkett, in introducing 
 it, was influenced by a real anxiety to confer a national obli- 
 gation, and to soothe the People of Ireland. But he forgot 
 that he had to address himself to the feelings as well as to 
 the reason of the Country. It was, in truth, a question of 
 pure sentiment, with which dialectics had little to do. 
 It was not a matter of logic, but of sensibility. Mr. Plun- 
 kett therefore ought to have consulted the Roman Catholic- 
 Priesthood in legislating for their emotions, and, not con- 
 tent with his own good intentions, should have sounded 
 the hearts of the People. Had he done so, his Burial Bill 
 would have been free from many obnoxious forms, which, 
 if he might use the comparison, were like the thistle upon 
 the grave of the Monk in Sterne, and "had no business to 
 grow there/' After all, however, we should not be too rigo- 
 rous in our exactions from our friends. The situation of 
 Mr. Plunkett was embarrassing ; he had to bow to the Par- 
 son while he was lifting up the Priest ; and if we exclaim 
 with Hamlet in the Churchyard, 
 
 if Who is this they follow, 
 And with such maimed rites 9" 
 
 He may reply, 
 
 " The obsequies have been so far enlarged 
 As we had warranty 
 
 The Attorney-General, he argued, had granted in the Bill 
 none but Cf maimed rites," no " warranty/' but as far as Mr. 
 Peel — as far as my Lord Eldon gave him leave; however, 
 if he pronounced a censure on the Ministry, he was ready 
 to give them all the credit he considered they were entitled 
 to individually. He had trespassed, perhaps, too long on 
 their attention. But, in reviewing the public events which 
 
272 
 
 had taken place during the sittings of the Association, 
 he hoped he was not deviating into any inapplicable mat. 
 ter. Before he closed, however, he thought it due to jus- 
 tice to say, that whatever objections might lie to many 
 of the measures of Marquis Wellesley's adminitration, yet 
 that a useful and material change had taken place ; of late 
 a sentiment of warmer amity had arisen between Lord 
 Wellesley and the people. They made allowances for him 
 and for Mr. Plunkett. They recollect that when the 
 Vice-regal sceptre was put into his hand, his arm was bound 
 under the purple robe. They remember that the very 
 detestation of the Orangemen gave him a title to our sup- 
 port. They remember that both he and Mr. Plunkett 
 were restrained by their confederates, and that their will 
 was often separated from their acts. They feel that a 
 change of men is, to a certain extent, a change of mea- 
 sures, a new colour, a different hue is given to that great 
 cam el eon, " the Irish Court ;' if not absolutely green, it 
 is less glaringly Orange. Liberality, if not encouraged, 
 is at least endured. Better principles creep gradually into 
 fashion, and insolence to the people is less " the mode" at 
 the Castle. In two very important instances, the practi- 
 cal barrier of religion has been broken through. A Roman 
 Catholic has been appointed to the influential office of Re- 
 membrancer of the Exchequer. The nomination of Mr. 
 Blake to functions which are, in a great measure judicial, 
 is a most salutary innovation. It opens the way for a 
 further inroad upon monopoly. It gives us the power to 
 ask whether a Roman Catholic in office displays any infe- 
 rior qualifications to the more legitimate proprietors of the 
 public honors? The appointment of Mr, Farrell is also a 
 matter of general gratification. But, above all, the recent 
 inquiry, instituted by Government, has produced through- 
 out the Country a very kindly sentiment. It gives earnest 
 of a genuine desire to do whatever it is in their power to 
 effect, with all the drags and checks that have been attached 
 to their authority — once convinced that it is the honest 
 wish of the liberal part of the Administration to promote 
 the interests of the Country, we should take the gene- 
 rosity of the will as some substitute for the imperfection 
 of the performance ; at the the same time we should not 
 sacrifice our real interests for the temporary accommoda- 
 tion of any set of men, or render our proceedings sub- 
 servient to their convenience — above all, we should not 
 ask for fredom in the language of slaves. We should 
 stand erect before the Legislature, and not kneel down 
 
273 
 
 for liberty as a kind of political alms — a sort of eleemo- 
 synary gratuity to six millions of men. In one word, we 
 should demand not the donation of a privilege, but the 
 restitution of a right, and appeal as strongly to the justice 
 as to the compassion of the English people* 
 
MR. SHEIL'S 
 
 SPEECH, 
 
 DELIVERED AT CORK, AT A 
 
 MEETING OF THE 
 
 HIBERNIAN 
 BIBLE SOCIETY. 
 
 Mr, SHEIL asked whether he, a stranger, might be 
 permitted to make some observations on what he had 
 heard. 
 
 The CHAIRMAN said— This, Sir, is a Meeting of the 
 Members and Friends of the Society — if you are a Friend to 
 the Society you are entitled to speak. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL said — Then, Sir, in one sense, I am a Friend 
 to the Society, and I shall evince it by an act of substantial 
 friendship, in venturing to give you some honest, though it 
 may possibly be mistaken advice — Mr. Sheil said, that when 
 the former meeting was held, to which a gentleman had ad- 
 verted, he was not in Cork, and upon that account he ought 
 not to be considered as an overweening intruder upon their 
 deliberations. They should not shrink from discussion if it 
 was carried on in a fair and mitigated spirit. The meeting 
 was called a private one — but it exhibited singular evidences 
 of privacy in the numbers by which it was attended — It 
 concerned the public ; a great national question was involved 
 in the proceedings, and it was one by which the interests of 
 the whole community were affected. He should studiously 
 avoid giving offence to the religious sentiments of the ardent 
 and lovely Theologians whom he saw assembled aroundhim. 
 We should survey the subject, than which none was more 
 awfully important, with minds pure, unprejudiced, unim- 
 passioned, standing as it were upon an eminence; in the 
 
275 
 
 nclouded atmosphere of heaven, while the mists and 
 torms of the world were passing unheeded beneath us. He 
 egretted that some observations had fallen from those who 
 receded him, which reflected upon the creed of the Irish 
 eople. At no time were controversial disputations well 
 alculated to promote the real interests of Christianity, and 
 ley were peculiarly ill-adapted to the fair auditory whom 
 e had risen to address. The religion of a woman ought 
 ) be an impassioned meekness, and that sweet spirit which 
 ras typified by the dove, should spread its wings upon them. 
 Virile he entreated their forbearance, and that pity for 
 uman error that was akin to the love of Heaven, he should 
 ike care not to abuse their indulgence. He had heard Mr. 
 Joel with pleasure. He had given proof of high intellect 
 nal acquirements, and there was in his zeal an internal 
 vidence of sincerity. In one sense only was he an impostor, 
 y practising a delusion upon himself. The Honorable 
 xentleman, and his Caledonian associate, who had mani- 
 ested so much anxiety for the spiritual welfare of the Irish 
 ►eople, and who was not only a Scotsman but a Captain, 
 ieserved much praise for the motives which had induced 
 heir religious excursion. The nautical Divine had com- 
 plied the enthusiasm of his profession with the characteris- 
 ic sagacity of his country. Mr. Noel had pathetically 
 amented the moral degradation and utter wretchedness of 
 he Irish people, and attributed both to the absence of Scrip- 
 ural education. Without comparing him to an empiric, who 
 roulcl fain apply his own favourite remedy to every disease, 
 le should remind him that the misery of Ireland arose from 
 i vast variety of causes. The Honorable Gentleman had 
 ust come from a country whose prosperity was the accumu- 
 ation of a thousand years. On the other hand, the wretch- 
 idness of Ireland was the produce of as many centuries of 
 alamity. He who was familiar with the luxuries of the Eng- 
 ish cottage, naturally shrunk from the miseries of the Irish 
 lovel. He (Mr. Sheil) would ask whether the vast diffusion of 
 vealth, the extent of commerce, the number of manufac- 
 ures and the equality of the people, had produced the 
 iches and the happiness of England ; or whether her un- 
 >aralleled greatness was all owing to the reading of the 
 Scriptures without note or comment? Had centuries of 
 niquitous misrule accomplished nothing in the work of 
 nisery, of degradation, and of guilt ? If the Honorable 
 Gentleman were better acquainted with Ireland, he would 
 soon perceive that it is upon the higher classes that his reli- 
 gious labours ought to be bestowed. This amiable itinerant 
 
276 
 
 would, in the course of his sacred peregrinations, soon 
 discover that it was not in the smoke of the hovel, but in the 
 blaze of the banquet, that the precepts of the Gospel ought 
 to be enforced. He would endeavour to impart the practi- 
 cal spirit of Christianity to the barbarous aristocracy of 
 Ireland — to civilize them into pity — to convince them that 
 their wretched serfs are made of the same flesh and blood 
 as themselves, and belong to the great brotherhood of men. 
 With indignation would he behold the system of merciless 
 exaction adopted by the Irish landlord, which is so widely 
 at variance, not only with the principles upon which the 
 English proprietor deals with his tenant, and with the habits 
 of his own great country, but utterly repugnant to the 
 commisserating spirit of those holy writings, the perusal of 
 which he strenuously inculcated. How would his honest 
 nature be excited, when he saw the miserable peasant cast, 
 in a winter's night, with his famished and naked children, 
 upon the world ? How would his humanity shudder at the 
 scenes of desolation which are daily enacted amongst us ? 
 He would then perceive that his pious adjurations ought to 
 be directed to those very men by whom he has been infected 
 with his opinions of our country, and that he should begin 
 by teaching humanity to the rich before he taught polemics 
 to the poor. In the delusion of a benevolent fanaticism, he 
 forgets that the people are less in want of bibles than of 
 bread. God forbid that he (Mr. Sheil) should suggest that 
 the lower orders ought not to receive a religious edu- 
 cation. He was of opinion that they should be instructed 
 in the established tenets of their forefathers ; that they 
 should be taught, by means adapted to their capacities, 
 the fixed principles of their ancient enerable faith. 
 
 Religion is peculiarly necessary to o cse who, while 
 the opulent find in the pleasures of actual existence, many 
 intense but transitory enjoyments, must look up to Heaven 
 for their only consolation. When the poor peasant rises 
 from his bed of misery, he sees in the glories of the morning 
 sun that cheers him to his toil by day, and in the infinity of 
 Heaven's host that guides him to his home by night, the 
 magnificent attributes of that Being whom the simple and 
 consoling faith of his fathers teaches him to adore. The 
 Roman Catholic faith contains a body of moral precepts as 
 well calculated to insure salutary results upon society, as 
 any modern theory in religion ; and, although Mr, Noel had 
 said that he was anxious to make Christians of the people, 
 he (Mr. Sheil) hoped that the Honorable Gentleman 
 would not consider him guilty of any very extravagant 
 
277 
 
 assumption, when he ventured to insinuate to him, that 
 a Roman Catholic might, peradventure, be a Christian. — 
 Ireland was a Roman Catholic country, and Mr. Noel, if 
 really anxious to diffuse education, would take into account 
 the peculiar circumstances, the habits, and pre-dispositions of 
 the people, in considering the means best adapted to the at- 
 tainment of that great object. The general perusal of the 
 Bible without any interpretation, was in accordance, per- 
 haps, with the desultory and capricious genius of the Pro- 
 testant religion ; but, in Ireland, there exists a creed utterly 
 incompatible with that wild freedom of opinion, and which 
 is so determinate and fixed, as to leave no field for the exer- 
 cise of individual judgment in the construction of the word 
 of God. The Roman Catholic faith is built upon the Scrip- 
 tures, as explained by the Church, and if the lower classes 
 were to peruse them without that explanation upon which 
 their religion rests, it is not unlikely that they would 
 contract opinions inconsistent with the meaning invari- 
 ably annexed by Roman Catholics— to the Holy Writ- 
 ings. In one word, it is wholly against the principles 
 of that Church to turn the Bible into a play-thing for the 
 fancy, and submit it to the gross vagaries and monstrous 
 imaginations of every loon. The whole dispute narrows it- 
 self into a question of fact. Is it, or is it not inconsistent 
 with the spirit of Catholicism? If it be so, there is an end to 
 argument ; at least it must be admitted that Roman Catholics 
 are justified in their strenuous opposition to any attempt to 
 subvert their religion. Now, who are the persons best qua- 
 lified to determine that simple fact? One would suppose, 
 that Roman Catholics themselves were as competent to 
 decide the question as those gentlemen who have imported 
 into Ireland a new assortment of curiosities in belief, and 
 seem determined to establish in this Country a manufac- 
 ture of religions. Independently of the objection arising 
 from the essential principles of Catholicism, is it not absurd 
 to make a task-book of the Testament, and to convert the 
 Apocalypse into a primer ? The Scriptures have been refer- 
 red to, in order to show that it was the will of God that 
 they should be universally perused. For this purpose some 
 isolated texts have been tortured into a meaning which they 
 do not rationally bear, while those who have poured out 
 such a torrent of citation, forget that among the Jews, and 
 under the old law, there were many parts of holy writ 
 which women were never permitted to read, and which 
 men were not allowed to peruse until they had attained the 
 age of thirty vears. When Christianity was first established 
 2 B 
 
278 
 
 it was impossible that the Scriptures could have been gene- 
 rally read, for the art of printing was not then known, and 
 by no other means than that great modern discovery could 
 an extensive distribution of the Bible be effected, A manu- 
 script of such bulk as the Old and New Testament, must 
 have cost a sum which a primitive Christian cannot be 
 readily supposed to have been capable of procuring, at a 
 period when his poverty was a literal phrase. But let us 
 try the expediency of an indiscriminate perusal of the sa- 
 cred writings by an appeal to experience. It will scarcely 
 be contended that any great advantage can result from a 
 multifariousness in religion ; yet, it will not be denied, that 
 if each individual is entitled to construe the Scriptures, a 
 great variety of interpretation must be the inevitable con- 
 sequence. In truth, the inventions of art do not keep 
 equal pace with the discoveries in religion. New dogmas 
 are every day propounded to us ; they issue with a marvel- 
 lous fecundity from every visionary brain ; nor is it to the 
 wise and the learned that the world is indebted for these 
 fantastic revelations. Those mysterious intimations, which 
 have excited the doubts and baffled the sagacity of the 
 most illustrious of mankind, are now simplified from the 
 summit of a sacred beer-barrel, and from the depth of a 
 holy 6tall. Every difficulty vanishes before the inspired 
 interpretation of some illuminated Crispin, and the seam- 
 less garment of our Saviour is turned inside out by 
 some gifted tailor, who alternately cuts out a religion and 
 a coat. Of these modem prophets one-half are impostors, 
 and the other their own dupes ; but whether they be dupes 
 or impostors — Cantwells or Mawworms— or both, (for the 
 union of hypocrisy and fanaticism is not unfrequent,) the 
 consequences to religion, decency, and common sense, are 
 disastrous. The lower classes of the Protestant community 
 are driven into a sort of Biblical insanity by this system of 
 excitation, and madness, now-a-days, almost invariably as- 
 sumes a religious character. He would state a singular 
 fact of the lunatics in the Asylum in this city, which he had 
 lately visited — there were a great number whose mental 
 malady was connected with religion, and amongst those 
 who laboured under that peculiar insanity, there was not a 
 single Catholic. This circumstance was stated by the bene- 
 volent Physician who superintends the hospital, and who 
 seems animated by the philantrophic feelings of a Howard, 
 in his very able work on insanity, and that gentleman him- 
 self was a strenuous Protestant. How could this fact be 
 accounted for, but by referring it to the fanaticism which 
 
279 
 
 the unrestrained perusal of the Holy Writings had produced ? 
 An ignorant man, with a heated imagination, sits down to 
 read the Bible ; he is told that he is its best interpreter, and 
 is illuminated by a special grace — that special grace is but 
 a lunar beam, and fills his brain with madness. His deliri- 
 ous dreams are taken for the visitation of the Spirit, and the 
 images of insanity for the pictures of Heaven. But the 
 Roman Catholic has no field for his invention in belief. He 
 has a clear, an open, and a long trodden path to follow, and 
 jilods his way to heaven without wandering through that 
 mazy labyrinth, in which the Protestant enthusiast is left 
 without a clue. He has an ample scope for the affections of 
 the heart, but has little space for the excursions of the fancy. 
 His faith is regulated and certain. He is not cast without 
 a chart or compass upon the vague immensity which religion 
 offers to the mind, but steers his course in a well known 
 track, by a steady principle — a fixed and unrevolving light. 
 The Protestant embarks in the Bible upon a voyage of dis- 
 covery, while the Roman Catholic makes at once for one 
 great haven, and by an ancient and more familiar route. — 
 He had, perhaps, pursued this train of illustration too far, 
 and reluctantly compared the advantages of the two religi- 
 ons ; but he thought it right to observe, that w r hat he said 
 was chiefly intended to apply to self-instructed innovators, 
 and not to the Members of the Established Church, w hose 
 hierarchy was as hostile as the Roman Catholic Clergy to 
 the reading of trie uninterpreted Scriptures. Before he sat 
 down he should beg leave to make one or two observations 
 on what had fallen from Mr. Kenny, who, like the pleader 
 in Racine's Comedy, had begun his oration at the commence- 
 ment of the world, but had afterwards condescendingly 
 passed to the deluge. That Gentleman had discovered, in 
 an injunction given to Abraham, a felicitous application to 
 Ireland. Providence must have had the Ladies' Auxiliary 
 Bible School in view in the Patriarchal times. He would 
 not attempt to pursue him in his progress from Abraham to 
 Moses — from Moses to King David, and from David down 
 to Timothy ; but he would follow him from Jerusalem to 
 Wexford, and beg to observe on the animadversions which 
 he had thought proper to pronounce upon a recent and 
 unfortunate transaction. He meant the trial at Wexford, in 
 which he (Mr, Sheil) had been Counsel. The event was 
 deeply to be deplored, but it had been greatly misrepresent- 
 ed^. It was utterly untrue that the parents of the child had 
 beheld its immolation. It was sworn by the father, that 
 the crowd was ?o qreat that he was prevented from approach- 
 2B 2 
 
280 
 
 ing the priest, and that he did not even see what was going 
 on. In the next place, Mr. Kenny had imputed a belief in 
 the powers of exorcism to the Roman Catholic peasantry, as 
 if it resulted from their religion ; he (Mr. Sheil) would state 
 a most important fact, sworn to by the principal witnesses 
 for the Crown, namely, that Protestants as well as Catholics 
 were present at one of these deplorable instances of human 
 folly, and that a Mrs. 'Winter and her daughter, both of 
 them Protestants, knelt down, and called on God to assist 
 Father Carroll in working the miracle. Let us not, 
 therefore, charge upon this or upon that creed, occur- 
 rences so monstrous and so revolting ; let us, rather, in 
 the spirit of humility, grieve while we reflect, that they 
 arise solely from the infirmity of human nature. To attri- 
 bute to Roman Catholics an exclusive belief in demoniacal 
 possession was most unjust. A Protestant Bishop, the cele- 
 brated Dr. Warburton, had maintained the doctrine, and it 
 was one for which Scriptural authority might be quoted. 
 He would ask Mr. Kenny, whether the reading of the Bible 
 by the lower orders was calculated to remove the common 
 superstition, that persons afflicted with epilepsy are possess- 
 ed by an evil spirit ? Do not the Scriptures narrate many 
 instances of exorcism. It is now held, indeed, that the 
 devil has been deprived of this portion of his preroga- 
 tive — but surely, a peasant, reading the Scriptures, may 
 readily think that what once was common, is at present not 
 impossible ; and besides, this very case furnishes an argu- 
 ment to show, that the Scriptures require a comment, for as- 
 suredly it is necessary that the cessation of Satanic domi- 
 nion should be explained to the individual who peruses the 
 examples of its former power. So far from thinking that the 
 Scriptures are calculated to disabuse the People of this 
 frightful infatuation, the perusal of them, without a com- 
 ment, was calculated to confirm their superstition. He re- 
 gretted that Mr. Kenny had alluded to this painful inci- 
 dent, because, in doing so, he had expressed a detestation 
 for the Catholic Religion, which was utterly at variance with 
 the habitual disclaimers of proselytism. If he and those who 
 acted with him, felt so deep an abhorrence for Popery, they 
 could not fail to exert themselves to preserve the People 
 from so disastrous a belief. It could not be credited, that 
 their detestations would not involuntarily ooze out. It was 
 not possible that such a metamorphosis should take place 
 in Mr. Kenny, as that, on one side of the poor man's 
 threshold, he should be a strenuous hater of Popery, but 
 the moment he had entered his habitation, to administer 
 
281 
 
 spiritual relief to his children, he should b« transubstanti- 
 ated into an impassionate lover of Catholicity. One advan- 
 tage had, however, ensued from the honesty of his (Mr. 
 Kenny's) denunciations, and indeed from the whole tone of 
 the proceedings. It was clear, that proselytism was their 
 substantial object, and that education w T as only an instru- 
 ment for the accomplishment of this darling project. He 
 begged pardon of the meeting for having so long trespassed 
 upon them, but he was bound to say, that however great 
 their difference of opinion, he had been heard with libera- 
 lity and kindness. He should not abuse it, by entering at 
 large into another topic, upon which, before women, it 
 might not be delicate to dwell ; he alluded to the many pas- 
 sages in Scripture which were written with such force, and 
 he might say with such nakedness of diction, as rendered 
 them unfit for indiscriminate perusal. There were parts of 
 the Old Testament in which images of voluptuousness were 
 presented to the mind, on w r hich the imagination of a youth- 
 ful female ought not to be permitted to repose. To those 
 passages he w ould not of course refer, or point out the for- 
 bidden fruit; but he would venture to assert, that the odes 
 of Anacreon did not display more luxury of imagination,or 
 combine more sensual associations than parts of the Old 
 Testament, the perusal of w hich, by women, was wisely 
 forbidden by the Jew r ish Church. It was idle to say, in the 
 language of modern cant, that the grace of God would pre- 
 vent the passions from taking lire. Our daily orison con- 
 tains a prayer, founded upon human frailty, that w T e should 
 be preserved not only from guilt, but even from tempta- 
 tion ; and if the passages to which he alluded were unfit for 
 an open citation in that assembly, he could not conceive 
 them to be the appropriate theme of a virgin's meditation. 
 The warm fancy of a young and blooming girl could not ven- 
 ture into the sacred bowers of oriental poetry without peril. 
 Besides the objection arising to the warm colouring of the 
 Pastoral of Solomon, which was a mystic representation of 
 the conjugal union of the Churches, where with unmarried 
 ladies need not be made prematurely familiar, it should be 
 recollected that the Bible contained details of atrocity at 
 which human nature shuddered. Part of the Holy Writ- 
 ings consisted of history, and of the narration of facts ; some 
 of those facts are Gf a kind, that they could not be mentioned 
 in the presence of a virtuous woman without exciting horror. 
 Should a woman be permitted to read in her chamber, what 
 she would tremble to hear at her domestic board ? and shall 
 her eyes be polluted with what her ears shall not be pro- 
 2 B 3 
 
282 
 
 phaned ? Shall she read what she dares not hear ? Shall 
 she con over, and revolve, what she would rather die than 
 utter ? But these were painful topics — they were forced 
 into debate by those who, in their anxiety to annihilate the 
 religion of the country, forgot the risk to which its mora- 
 lity was exposed. And what good could the achievement 
 of this object after all effect? In ceasing to be Catholics, 
 were they certain that the people would continue Christians ? 
 Let this absurd scheme be abandoned — let the Irish peasant 
 live and die in the religion of his forefathers, and let the pro- 
 pagators of modern dogmas, who send their missionaries 
 amongst uSj remember the denunciation in St. Matthew — > 
 u Woe unto you, ye Scribes, ye Pharisees, ye Hypocrites ! 
 ye compass the sea and earth to make a single proselyte^ 
 and when you have made him, he is two-fold more a child 
 of hell than before." 
 
ME. SHELL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 AT 
 
 THE ASSOCIATION, 
 
 WHEN 
 
 ["HE PROSECUTION OF MR, o'fONNELL, FOR SEDITIOUS LAN- 
 GUAGE, PREVENTED THE INTENDED DEPUTATION TO 
 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL said, the deputation to England, would 
 lot have been without avail. The English are a wise, 
 i generous, and lofty -minded people, and w r e should 
 lave appealed to their wisdom, to their justice, and to their 
 lumanity. We should have disabused them of many mis- 
 akes — we should have demonstrated to them, that we are 
 lot unworthy of being incorporated in the great community 
 >f British citizenship — that our political ethics are much 
 setter than they had been taught to think — that there is no 
 logma in our religion which renders us unfit for the enjoy- 
 nent of civil freedom — that our creed is the faith of their 
 ^reat progenitors — and that in casting contumely upon our 
 opinions, they stamp damnation upon their fathers' graves. 
 We should have told them that the Barons of Runemede 
 were as good citizens as the Lords of Chancery-lane, and 
 hat the sword with which Magna Charta was won, might be 
 weighed against Lord Eldon's mace. We should have told 
 them that the part which they have acted towards our coun- 
 try, reflects no credit upon them in the eyes of mankind — 
 that having the excellence of gigantic strength, they should 
 not use it in the spirit of gigantic domination — that liberty 
 is like light, and is not impaired by its participation — that 
 the disfranchisement of seven millions of British subjects 
 cannot fail to be productive of great calamities — that we 
 are placed in an unnatural, and therefore an injurious re- 
 lation towards the empire ; and that it befits their dignity 
 
284 
 
 to interpose between the contending factions by which the 
 country is torn asunder — that they had too long turned 
 our furious contentions into sport ; and that it is unworthy 
 of them to sit, like the spectators of a Roman theatre, 
 at a gladiatorial exhibition of their slaves, and make a pas- 
 time of the ferocious passions with which they are arrayed 
 against each other in all the insolence of inglorious 
 triumph, and all the wildness of infuriated despair.— 
 We should have told them that, by a single act of magna- 
 nimous justice, they might put an end to the animosities 
 which have cost so much English and Irish blood :— That 
 our emancipation would be an act of thrift, as well as of 
 humanity, and that it became their prudence, as well as the 
 grandeur of their national character, and that it is a matter of 
 economy as well as of honour, to make us free. " Recon- 
 cile us," we should have exclaimed, "as you are wise — as 
 you are just, redress us — and in the name of mercy rescue 
 us from our own passions, and save us from the consequen- 
 ces to which your system of shame and of penalty must ine- 
 vitably lead" — and what are those consequences ? If they 
 ifere no other than an increase of those heart-burnings 
 and animosities, that must either rapidly augment or be 
 instantaneously remedied by a great senative act of legis- 
 lative wisdom, their anticipation (and it requires but little 
 of the spirit of political soothsaying to foretell results so 
 manifest) should excite the virtue, if it does not awaken the 
 alarm of every honest and enlightened man, and enlist the 
 good sense and good feeling of the whole British community 
 in our behalf. Things cannot stand as they are. — Either a 
 great national reconciliation must be effected, or hostilities 
 must be deepened — reciprocal antipathies must be strength- 
 ened — new force and activity must be communicated to the 
 popular passions — and if the fountain of bitterness is not 
 sealed, it must be supplied. Are we to continue for 
 ever in this frightful state? Are we to be everlastingly 
 marshalled against each other by the infuriating provoca- 
 tions of the law ? Are we to be set with a rabid and canine 
 fury upon each other ? Are our detestations to be endowed 
 with a disastrous immortality ? Is our hatred to be eternal ? 
 Is the corroding sentiment which consumes the bosom, 
 and preys upon the vitals of our country, to be like " the 
 lire that is not quenched, and the worm that dieth not ?" 
 Are we to be doomed to an everlasting execration of each 
 other ; and when the present generation shall have passed 
 away, are our children to rise out of their cradles with the 
 same feelings with which their fathers descended into their 
 
285 
 
 graves ? If there were no other calamity to be apprehended, 
 this evil should be regarded as a dreadful one. But there 
 are other results, which every wise man can foresee, and at 
 which every good man must tremble. May God forefend 
 that we should be instrumental in bringing events about, the 
 thought of which sends back the blood into the heart ! But 
 is it because those events are terrible, that we should clasp 
 our hands to your eyes, and hide them from ourselves ? Is 
 it because the shadows which coming events " have cast be- 
 fore them" are black and sinister, that we should fear to 
 trace their dark and sombre outline? For ourselves we may be 
 able to answer : we may vouch for our continued endurance of 
 affliction; but can we give pledges for the prostration of those 
 who are to come after us, and undertake that our descen- 
 dants will be the heirs to our patience, as well as the inhe- 
 ritors of our wrongs ? We cannot enter into any such recog- 
 nizance. But this we can do — we can protest that we shall 
 omit no endeavour to prevent the feelings of anguish from 
 being turned into a paroxysm of wild and frantic rage, and 
 try to keep back those* ebullitions of national emotion, which 
 it is not less our interest than it is our bounden duty to re- 
 strain, and which, for a considerable period, are not likely 
 to burst out. We have been accused (it is right that I 
 should speak the unvarnished truth) of entertaining de- 
 signs of a revolutionary tendency. The men who have ad- 
 duced this charge, proved it to be untrue — but there are 
 many who may be misguided by their calumnies ; and as 
 we are the martyrs of intolerance, there are others who, in 
 forming an estimate of our intentions, may be the victims of 
 mistake. There are three tests by which our designs may 
 be reasonably tried — our language, our conduct, and our 
 personal interests — and to any one of these grounds of pre- 
 sumption we may fearlessly appeal. Our language has been 
 uniformly moderate, conciliatory, and pacific, in all the 
 public documents which have issued from our body. The 
 measures which we have adopted have been in accordance 
 with the views of the local Government, and we have omitted 
 no means to inculcate the propriety of subordination to the 
 law and the constituted authorities of the country : witness 
 the Resolutions passed at the last Aggregate Meeting, and 
 the Address of Mr. O'Connell to the People of Ireland. — 
 But there is a further and more accurate touchstone of the 
 motives of men to be found in their obvious interest, and I 
 will venture to assert, that he amongst us who could delibe- 
 rately premeditate a political convulsion, must be insane. I 
 do not hesitate to declare, that in my judgment the indivi- 
 
286 
 
 dual who could for a moment entertain a scheme so prepos- 
 terous, should be accounted a sanguinary idiot, and much 
 fitter for an asylum than a gaol. There would not be a 
 chance of success to redeem the crime of such an under- 
 taking. Human life would be wasted without bounds and 
 without avail. Carnage would be loaded with all the guilt 
 of inutility, and flame would light the sky and massacre 
 wet the earth, and hope could not put in its equivocal apo- 
 l°gy> or afford its dubious extenuation of outrage, of disho- 
 nour and blood. I do not mean to say, that if I had been 
 born an American, I should not have joined the standard of 
 the Republic. I do not mean to say, that if I had been 
 born a Portuguese, I should not have enlisted under the 
 banners of Braganza. Where is the Greek, with a heart in 
 his bosom, who would not " take by the throat and smite 
 the circumcised dogs ?" Where is the Mexican that would not 
 exclaim that the land of Montezuma should be free ? But 
 the efforts that were noble and just in Portugal* and in 
 America, and in Mexico, or in Greece, derived their noble- 
 ness and their justice from the probabilities of success, 
 which consecrates and canonizes all great political under- 
 takings. In Ireland the rebel against the law would revolt 
 .against nature. Providence appears to have pre-ordained 
 the junction of the two countries; and without arms, with- 
 out organization, without concert, with nothing but an un- 
 disciplined multitude for the accomplishment of this object, 
 what would the leader of a rebellion expect to achieve? 
 And where is he ; where is the Cataline, or rather the Spar- 
 tacus, who is to head this servile war? Is he to be found 
 among the wealthy burghers of the metropolis ? Or are 
 we to seek the great disturber among the Bishops of the 
 Association ? Is the Primate to convert his mitre to a 
 casque, and his pastoral staff to a pike? Or is it my Lord 
 Kenmare, with his fifty thousand a year, who is to shake 
 the dire dice-box in this desperate game, and commit himself 
 to the hazard of revolutionary confiscation ? But, perhaps, 
 it is among the lawyers that this regenerator is to be 
 found — 
 
 " Loud in debate, and bold in peaceful council, 
 But of a slow, inactive hand in war." 
 
 The lawyers! It might as well be imagined that we 
 would pull down the dome of the Four Courts on our heads, 
 as to subvert a Government, in whose ruins we could not 
 fail to perish. Is it not as notorious as, that there is light 
 
287 
 
 in the heavens — that we, and every man who has raised his 
 voice in this assembly, must be blown away on the first 
 explosion of a mine, to the train of which they tell us that 
 we are about to apply the match ? Mr. O'Connell excite the 
 people to commotion ! Has he u eaten of the insane root ?" 
 — is he utterly delirious ? — has he been struck with political 
 lunacy ? — is he, in a word, stark mad ? Who is Mr. O'Con- 
 nell ? Is he a man without station, rank, or fortune ? Has 
 he nothing to lose, and every thing to gain from a political 
 convulsion ? Is he without the enjoyments that make men 
 cling to life — make them in love with peace, and give them 
 an endearing interest, and a tender solicitude in the tran- 
 quillity of .their country ? Is it his ambition to drive the 
 vessel against the rock, that, when it is breaking up, he may 
 catch at a single plank, which he could only hold but for a 
 moment, and which would be washed away from him by 
 the next breaker that should burst upon his head ? Graci- 
 ous God ! what feelings would they attribute to him ! Has 
 he no home — no character — no stay — no child ? u He," 
 says Lord Bacon, " that hath children, gives hostages to the 
 law ;" and where is the man that has a single touch of the 
 parental instincts about his heart, who would not recoil from 
 a desperate enterprise into which, with his own existence, he 
 would have to plunge the dearest portion of himself ? So 
 much for the man to whom, by the general suffrage of his 
 country, the leadership of its people has been assigned. But 
 are the people disposed to rebellion ? The pitch cap and 
 the triangle are formidable mnemonics. They know that 
 the first insurrectionary movement would be followed by 
 the re-enactment of scenes of which they have had a terrible 
 experience. They have not forgotten the shrieks of tor- 
 ture, the reverberation of the whip, the bursting bowels, 
 the scorched forehead, and the lacerated back. The scep- 
 tre of Fitzgerald stalks through the land. The cries of 
 Wright are still ringing in their ears. They hear the 
 screams of the victim and the torturer's laugh. They still 
 hear the groans that issued from the Riding-house, and the 
 Castle-yard ; groans to which Castlereagh was deaf, but 
 that were heard in heaven. There is in these recollections 
 a terrible admonition. The people recoil from the gulph 
 to which the Orange faction would impel them ; but if the 
 people shrink from every revolutionary enterprise, are they 
 to suppress their complaints ? Are our hearts compounded 
 of different materials from the rest of mankind ? " Hath 
 not the Jew eyes r" says Shy lock. Hath not the Catholic 
 eyes, hands, organs, affections, senses, passions, as the 
 
288 
 
 Protestant hath ? Fed with the same food, hurt with the 
 same weapons, healed by the same means, warmed and 
 cooled by the same winter and summer, as the Protestant is? 
 If you tickle us, shall we not laugh — if you poison us shall 
 we not die — if you torture us, shall we not bleed — and if 
 
 you wrong us, shall we not Revenge is Shylock's word; 
 
 but I will only ask, shall we not complain ? 
 
MR. SHEIL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 AT 
 
 AN AGGREGATE MEETING, 
 
 HELD FOR THE 
 
 PROVINCE OF LEINSTER, 
 
 IK CARLOW. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL said — In the first chapter of the book 
 of Exodus, where the oppression of the children of Israel 
 is detailed, the following words are written: — "And 
 the Children of Israel were fruitful and increased abun- 
 dantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceedingly mighty, 
 and the land was filled with them. Now, there arose 
 a new King over Egypt, who knew not Joseph, and he 
 said unto his people, behold the people of the Children 
 of Israel are more and mightier than we ; let us wisely 
 oppress them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass that 
 when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our 
 enemies, and fight against us, and so get them out of the 
 land. Therefore they did set even their task-masters to 
 afflict them with their burdens ; but the more they afflicted 
 them, the more they multiplied and grew, and they were 
 grieved because of the Children of Israel ; and the Egyp- 
 tians made the Children of Israel to serve them with rigour, 
 and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in clay 
 and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field, all 
 their service wherein they made them serve was with 
 rigour, and yet the people multiplied and waxed very 
 mighty." I do not wonder that the passage in the Sacred 
 Writings, which describes the bondage of a great and pow- 
 erful people, in the centre of a mighty empire, and the account 
 of the expedients which were adopted for their extinction, and 
 2 C 
 
290 
 
 of the utter failure of all the stratagems of oppression, should 
 have produced a strong sensation amongst you. You need 
 but little note or comment to teach you the affinity between 
 your condition and that of the degraded race upon whom the 
 Egyptian masters laid an iron hand. This chapter in the 
 Sacred Writings I am most willing to have read without in- 
 terpretation. Yes, my Lord, let the peasantry of Ireland be 
 permitted to peruse this record of the baseness of tyranny, 
 and of its frustration. I am thus disposed to enter into a 
 sympathy with the propagators of the Holy Word. Let 
 every man, let every child in the land become familiar 
 with it. Let it be made the task of daily repetition — let 
 it be written in the memory, aye, and committed to the heart 
 of the Irish people, I for one will consent to the uninter- 
 preted reading the Scriptures, for the sake of this single 
 passage ; because I know that there is not a man in the land 
 who will not find in his own glowing and indignant bosom 
 an application as disastrous as it is faithful, and as terrible 
 as it is true. " And the children of Israel increased abun- 
 dantly, and the land was filled with them ; and the new 
 king said let us oppress them wisely ; but the more they 
 afflicted them the more they multipled and grew." There, 
 my Lord, is the history of the country in which we 
 live. There is an exemplification of the effects which such 
 a system must always generate — a system as rash as it is 
 eruel, and not more malignant than it is mad ; for, thanks 
 be to God, the fidelity of the comparison does not stop at 
 the oppression of an injured people : and we may say of the 
 faithful adherents to the ancient religion of our country, 
 what was applied to the multiplication of the people of God 
 — " the more they were afflicted, the more they grew." If I 
 were to search for a motto for the penal code of Ireland, de- 
 rived from those Scriptures, which the advocates of that 
 code have perpetually in their mouths, while a worse than 
 Egyptian spirit of tyranny dominates in their hearts, what 
 more appropriate inscription could be selected than the 1 6th 
 verse of the chapter according to the translation of the 
 Church, " Let us wisely oppress them ?" The wisdom, or 
 rather the vile and despicable cunning of oppression, first 
 dictated that system of penal legislation in Ireland, which 
 is, in my judgment, far more grinding and demoralizing 
 than that which was resorted to by the Egyptian King. 
 Egypt was not guilty of any breach of faith. No treaty was 
 signed by Pharaoh's General before Memphis, or before 
 Thebes, securing to the Jews the free use df their religion, 
 
291 
 
 the right to all civil offices, and the enjoyment of their pa- 
 trimonies. There was no contract that they should have all 
 the immunities which the Israelites had possessed in the 
 reign of his predecessor. The Jews, besides, were not the 
 natural and original proprietors of Egypt — they had no 
 right founded upon ancient possession — they were an alien 
 people in Egypt itself — they were, in every sense, strangers ; 
 and it was not a very unreasonable feeling, perhaps, to en- 
 deavour to root them out. But how stands the case with 
 Ireland ? The great body of the people were Catholics — 
 a solemn treaty had been signed, by which their rights were 
 secured. Upon the faith of the treaty, a strong fortress, 
 where there was a foreign fleet laden with arms and men in 
 its harbour, was surrendered. And when that surrender had 
 taken place, what was done ? I do not find it recorded, that 
 any Egyptian Priest, from the altars of Osiris, announced to the 
 Egyptians that they should not keep faith with the Jews ; 
 but I do find that a Protestant High Priest did, from the 
 altars of the reformed religion, within seven days after a 
 treaty had been signed with the Irish Catholics, proclaim, as 
 a sacred canon of Protestantism, that with the people of Ire- 
 land no faith ought to be maintained. I do not hesitate to 
 affirm that the penal code of Egypt was not half so base, 
 was not half so full of turpitude, was not half so irritating 
 and detestable, as those frightful devices which were adopt- 
 ed in this country, not for the oppression but for the utter 
 extinction of the Irish people. The Egyptians imposed 
 every sort of humiliating necessity upon their slaves — they 
 sunk them to the meanest offices of labour, and they "made 
 their lives bitter with hard bondage." But they did not 
 make parricide the basis of legislation. Pharaoh said, " let 
 us wisely oppress them/' but he did not say, let us take the 
 estate from the grey-haired father, and let us give it to the 
 ungrateful, the apostate, and hard-hearted son. It is not 
 my intention to enter into the details of that most barbarous 
 code, which was, it must be owned, the best contrived 
 that could be devised by Satanic sagacity for the degra- 
 dation of the Irish people. If, by any possibility, there 
 could be wisdom in oppression (and I thank God that there 
 cannot) then might the legislators of 1703 have justly said, 
 " let us wisely oppress them." But the event has proved how 
 short-sighted tyranny always is; for in place of extinguishing 
 the Catholics of Ireland, they have given a new exemplifi- 
 cation of the necessary results of tyranny, and have raised 
 up an enormous mass of population, which has multiplied 
 under affliction, and " waxed exceedingly mighty, and the 
 o C 2 
 
292 
 
 land is filled with them." The very means adopted for the 
 suppression of the Irish Catholics tended directly to their 
 increase. The lower orders, reduced to the condition of 
 the most miserable wretches, more than fulfilled the primeval 
 malediction ; and, without earning their bread, covered their 
 brows with sweat and sorrow. They necessarily lost all re- 
 lish for the comforts of domestic life. Their standard of 
 happiness was reduced. The wants of society passed away , 
 while the impulses of nature remained in their full activity. 
 The result has been, that a vast population has grown up. 
 It has swollen to a portentous magnitude. It has come in 
 like the tide of the sea, and like the tide it will sweep every 
 artificial barrier at length before it. It was found necessary 
 to relax the laws, which while they could not, as the expe- 
 riment proved, diminish the strength, exasperated the pas- 
 sions of the people. The Penal Code was mitigated. Thir- 
 ty-seven years have passed since that time. A slow pro- 
 gress was made in effecting the work of reason and justice 
 in one department of the Legislature, At length the House 
 of Commons passed a Bill for the relief of seven millions of 
 British citizens. It was supposed that the first Minister of 
 England could not but yield to the powerful suggestions 
 which were conveyed to him from the House of Commons. 
 Rumours went abroad that the Earl of Liverpool had been 
 converted. The great debate in the Upper House took 
 place ; and, if not the King, yet he that trusts to survive the 
 King, and who is, for all purposes, the real and substantial 
 master of the country, started in vehement opposition to the 
 great measure of equalization, and verified the words, "and 
 there arose a new King over Egypt ;** and I regret to be 
 enabled to add, that he seemed to have said to the Irish Pro- 
 testants, " behold, the people of the children of Israel are 
 more and mightier than we ; therefore let us oppress them 
 wisely.** This new King, or rather this Prince, with a con- 
 tingent remainder to the Crown — this Pharaoh, in expec- 
 tancy, has laid oown this maxim in Coptic policy, and in- 
 voked the people of England to its adoption. He has en- 
 joined the perpetuation of that system, which " makes our 
 lives bitter with hard bondage." Yet, it was to be desired, 
 that this highly endowed and philosophic Prince, had recol- 
 lected that the people of Ireland have already multiplied, 
 ajid that (< when there falleth out a war," there should be no 
 temptation administered to their passions to revolt against 
 their duty, and that he has not suggested the most efficient 
 means to prevent them from "joining also to our enemies, 
 and fighting against us." I would to God, that in his capa-r 
 
293 
 
 city of Bishop of Osnaburgh, his Royal Highness were to 
 imbue himself with the true spirit of the sacred text, and 
 find an intimation in the first chapter of Exodus, of the fruits 
 which oppression must always produce, and of the Provi- 
 dence by which it has been enacted, that it shall defeat 
 itself. But let his Royal Highness look to Ireland, and 
 without reference to abstract speculation, he will discover 
 the futility of every effort which has been or can be made, 
 short of summary and immediate extirpation, for the subju- 
 gation of a people. Has the Penal Code had the effect of alie- 
 nating the people from the religion of their country ? — 
 Has it diminished their zeal and ardour ? Is there less 
 enthusiasm, less energy, less resolve ? Has their power 
 decreased, and have their numbers fallen away ? On the 
 contrary, they " have multiplied and waxed very mighty. " 
 For, in what does the might of people consist ? In their 
 wealth, their intelligence — in their firm and concentrated 
 purpose — in their lofty enthusiasm — their fearless devoted- 
 ness — the deep conscientiousness of their rights, and the 
 unalterable determination to assert them. And what, let 
 me ask, is, under such circumstances, to be done ? The 
 best course would be, to revert to Egyptian policy again. 
 The Malthus' school of political economy must have flou- 
 rished in the reign of Pharaoh, and adopting the very 
 plausible doctrine of the transmigration of the soul, which 
 Pythagoras borrowed from Egypt, it is not very unreason- 
 able to presume, that the spirit which has found a temporary 
 residence in the Rev. Mr. Malthus, might once have inha- 
 bited some depopulating Minister in Memphis or in Thebes, 
 who probably suggested to Pharaoh the monstrous calami- 
 ties of Hebrew multiplication, and prescribed a remedy for 
 so frightful an evil. In the loth verse of the first chapter 
 of Exodus, it is said, " The King of Egypt spoke to the 
 Hebrew midwives." Unless my Lord Eldon shall introduce 
 a Rill touching the duties of the professors of the obstetric 
 art in Ireland, there is no hope of anything substantially 
 useful for the promotion of the Protestant religion ; and, 
 even if Lord Sidmouth, or rather Dr. Addington, to whose 
 province this medical bill would more appropriately fall, 
 should adopt this hint, it is to be apprehended that the 
 Popish midwives would seek an excuse in the apology of 
 the Hebrew ones, who said, " The Hebrew women are not 
 like the Egyptian women, for they are lively/' and soforth, 
 " therefore God dealt with the midwives, and the people 
 multiplied and waxed very mighty." I am, therefore, 
 induced to fear that even an Act of Parliament, founded 
 2 C 3 
 
294 
 
 upon this principle of Egyptian ethics, to arrest the growth 
 of Popery in Ireland, would be unavailing. When legisla- 
 tors have nature and her great laboratory to contend with, 
 they make sad work of it. But why, you may well ask, 
 have I said all this to you ? To what end is all this bitter 
 jesting, (for I own that it deserves no better, if so dignified 
 a name,) employed ? I have no other apology than the 
 excuse of the satirist " ridiculum acri," and what is in itself 
 utterly absurd as well as enormous, should, perhaps, be 
 treated, for the sake of variety, with alternate mockery and 
 indignation. And, after all, indignation is the more apt 
 and fitting, and a far more worthy mood into which the 
 mind of every Catholic, or I should rather say, of every 
 lover of his country, ought to be thrown. Here are seven 
 millions of British subjects despoiled of the great privilege 
 of citizenship, degraded, debased, and branded. And in 
 what does the superiority of the Protestant to the Catholic 
 consist ? Where does it lie ? Alas ! I should not put that 
 question with too much boldness. There is one great and 
 essential particular in which the Protestants greatly surpass 
 us, and Til tell you what it is. It is not the ascendancy of 
 intellect — it is not the predominance of faculty — it is nothing 
 of this kind. Their superiority lies in the strength and 
 efficacy of a combined and undivided energy — in the equal 
 and simultaneous march — the parallel and unbroken move- 
 ment — the solid square — the phalanxed tread. It is in the 
 simple power of union that all their force resides. But we 
 — alas ! my Lord, how fatally applicable are the words of 
 the Apostle to the Corinthians — " There is strife and divi- 
 sion amongst you." Let there be, in the name of common 
 feeling and common sense, a termination to these ignomini- 
 ous contests. Our passions have been vented upon an 
 hypothesis. We say that if' the Wings are proposed we 
 shall object to them. The whole contest turns upon the 
 contingency of their revival. It all lies in a supposition. — 
 " Your if" says Touchstone in the play, " is a great peace- 
 maker." But we have reversed its application to the rules 
 of quarrelling, and turned it into a great war-maker, I am 
 myself against the Wings ; but what matters it who is the 
 champion and antagonist of those measures. The principle, 
 not the condition, of Emancipation is at stake My two 
 excellent friends, Mr. G'Connell and Mr. O'Gorman, will 
 forgive me when I tell them, that the support given by the 
 one, and the opposition made by the other, are equally inap- 
 plicable to the state of our cause. They are both volunteers 
 m this contest of speculation. There is a strange knight- 
 
295 
 
 errantry in their gratuitous contentions, in which I observe 
 a large infusion of the chivalry of La Mancha. My friend 
 Mr. O'Gorman, the Knight of the Cheerful Countenance — 
 armed a cap-a-pee, in a panoply of principle, and, with 
 the Mambrino helmet of high sentiment glittering upon his 
 head, precipitates himself against the wings of a windmill, 
 in which he beholds a gigantic danger ; while the Green 
 Knight — bearing a golden shield emblasoned with a harp, 
 and with (( toujour s vert M for his motto, rushes forth in de- 
 fence of the aerial fabric, runs full tilt against my chival- 
 rous, high-minded, but, he will pardon me for calling hirr^ 
 my somewhat Quixotic friend, 
 
MR. SHELL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 AT THE ASSOCIATION, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS 
 OP EDUCATION. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL said — the Report of the Commissioners of 
 Education is a document of signal importance, as it may 
 lead to measures which may deeply and permanently affect 
 the religion, the moral habits, and the national feelings of 
 the Irish people. It is the result of a scrutiny extorted by 
 reiterated complaint, and affords a strong proof that by re- 
 peated shocks, the best defended holds of domination 
 may be shaken to the ground. For many years we 
 were told, that our charges against the Kildare- street Soci- 
 ety, were the effusions of factious acrimony. Our remon- 
 strances were treated with contumelious silence or arrogant 
 disdain. But we persevered in demanding investigation, 
 and at length we succeeding in obtaining inquiry, if not re- 
 dress. So far an important point has been gained, and we 
 should learn from this experiment the power that resides in 
 the Public. A commission, consisting of two English- 
 men, two Irishmen, and a native of North Britain, was 
 appointed. Of the Scotch investigator into Irish intelli- 
 gence I know nothing. Mr, Glassfort was, if not recom- 
 mended, at least approved of, by Sir John Newport — a man 
 whose praise derives a high value from his being himself an 
 object of panegyric. Mr. Frankland Lewis is a liberal and 
 enlightened man, to whom certain fanatical predelictions have 
 been, I believe erroneously, attributed. But the great and 
 prominent feature of the Commission was Mr. Leslie Foster, 
 a gentleman who, if he be not very conspicuous for any 
 splendid qualifications, is in private life entitled to t^ie praise 
 of an honourable exemption from defect. He enjoys a well- 
 
297 
 
 founded reputation for the immaculate purity of his life. — 
 While I yield him this unreluctant commendation, I think 
 it right to add, that even in his public conduct, w hich alone 
 concerns us, I am not disposed to impute to him any disin- 
 genuousness of purpose. On the contrary, I am willing to 
 think that the fantastical gravity w ith which he gives ut- 
 terance to his astonishing dogmas, is genuine and unassum- 
 ed. His description of the Roman Catholics descending 
 from the mountains, and his dissertations upon the hetero- 
 geneous wedlock of Catholics and Protestants, are singular 
 specimens of the influence which fanaticism will exercise 
 over an honest but somewhat romantic mind. It was of Mr. 
 Leslie Foster that Mr. Plunkett observed, that " he turned 
 history into an old almanack/' It is a pity that he did not 
 live some hundred years ago. Had he been a member of the 
 venerable order of Benedictines, the theology of the mid- 
 dle ages would have derived a more mysterious obscurity 
 from his labours. He would have added to the " black 
 lustre" of scholastic divinity, and would have been ingeni- 
 ously unintelligible and uselessly erudite. He is thrown away 
 upon the nineteenth century. It is strange that a man, pos- 
 sessed unquestionably of no ordinary faculties, should exhi~ 
 bit such a perversion of powers. His mind is worm-eaten 
 with prejudices. He is an idolator of usages and a worship- 
 per of all that is : a sort of Pangloss in politics, w ho thinks 
 that " every thing is for the best in this best of all possible 
 countries/' But his affinity to fictitious characters does not 
 stop here, for with the principles of the learned instructor 
 of Candide, he combines a resemblance to the pious peda- 
 gogue in Gin/ Mannering, and, by a felicitous alliance in 
 this valuable Commissioner of Education, we behold Pan* 
 gloss and Ihmijiie Sampson united. To this Gentleman, a 
 single Roman Catholic was yoked in the Commission. Mr. 
 Blake is a N very able, and I will add, an honest and high- 
 minded man ; and it is to the combination of integrity and 
 of skill that distinguishes that Gentleman, that I refer most 
 of the very useful matter that is to be found in the Report. 
 When placed in such an inauspicious juxta-position w ith Mr. 
 Leslie Foster, it is rather wonderful that he did so much., 
 than that so little has been accomplished. It is, however., 
 extraordinary, that upon a question involving the interests,, 
 and touching the feelings of the Roman Catholic Body, a 
 single Roman Catholic only should have been appointed. — 
 A stronger infusion of Catholicism was requisite in order to 
 neutralize Mr. Leslie Foster. Let us, however, deal with 
 candour, and admit, that with all its imperfections, the Re* 
 
298 
 
 port has done one act of signal humanity and justice; I al- 
 lude to the disclosure of the atrocities of the Charter Schools 
 of Ireland. The truth has been revealed in all its appalling 
 hideousness ; and the charges which were so frequently and 
 so unavailingly brought forward against these barbarous and 
 demoralizing institutions, have been fully and unequivocally 
 established. Again and again the people of Ireland had in- 
 voked the interference of the Legislature — again and again 
 had we exclaimed against the barbarities which were prac- 
 tised in those seminaries of flagellation. The little wretches, 
 we said, who are torn from their parents' arms, and cast 
 into those academies of apostacy, are the victims of famine, 
 disease and torture. Many a frantic mother rushed before 
 the public tribunals ; and, stretching out her arms, called 
 upon Justice to give her back her child. But Justice was 
 deaf. It was believed that Mr. O'Connell had no other 
 authority for his allegations than some factious affidavit ; 
 and that these accusations were the results of a plot against 
 the Protestant religion. But, at last, f and I thank God for 
 it,) the veil which hid the sacrifice of infants to the demon 
 of proselytism has been rent asunder. Where is the father 
 that will not shudder at the perusal of the evidence which 
 has been laid before the English people"? I say the English 
 people, because it is peculiarly upon that great nation that 
 these horrible disclosures may be expected to produce the 
 most powerful effect. Little do they suspect that the Pro- 
 testant religion propagates its tenets with a rod dripping 
 with infants' blood. One of the tenderest characteristics of 
 the celestial philosophy of our Saviour was his affection for 
 those pure and innocent beings, by whom he loved to be 
 surrounded. " Suffer little children to come unto me," was 
 his divine and gentle adjuration. The teachers of the re- 
 formed Christianity of the Established Church have im- 
 proved upon this amiable precept. They not only " suffer little 
 children to come unto them," but they snatch them to their 
 chartered adoption — they tear them from the cradle — they 
 rend them from the maternal heart — and inclose them in 
 those receptacles of torture and of starvation, of which the 
 Report has furnished so heart-breaking a picture. It is in 
 the Charter Schools that these " little ones " receive a con- 
 firmation of their title to the " Kingdom of Heaven." The 
 Kingdom of Heaven ! The first sound that strikes the ear 
 in Virgil's descent into the infernal regions, is the cry of 
 children. The classical erudition of Mr. Leslie Foster, 
 when he crossed the threshold of those abodes of calamity, 
 
299 
 
 vhich he was deputed to explore, must have recalled to 
 him — 
 
 " Continuo auditce voces, vagitus et ingens 
 Infantumque animce jientes in limine prime" 
 
 And he might well have added, in reference to the loss 
 of all " the sweets of life," and the deprivation of a mother's 
 tenderness — 
 
 " Quos duleis vitce exsortes, et ab ubere raptos 
 Abstulit atra dies, et funere mersit acerbo." 
 
 Let me not be accused of indulging in exaggeration — let any 
 man peruse the evidence contained in the Report — let him 
 read no more than p. 16 of the volume in my hands — let him 
 but glance over the record of torture, and if he has a heart 
 of flesh in his bosom, every generous instinct must be stir- 
 red into indignation, and he must exclaim " abominable " at 
 every word. I care not a jot what religion the individual 
 who peruses this frightful book may profess. I care not how 
 deeply incrusted with prejudice his soul may be — but if he 
 has a drop of human nature in his veins, those atrocities 
 must make his blood run cold. Fathers and mothers of Eng- 
 land, read this book of abominations, and raise up your 
 hands — not in our cause, not in the cause of Ireland, not in 
 the cause of your abject vassals — but in the cause of child- 
 hood, of nature, and of God. I repeat it, Sir, the Report, 
 as far as the Charter Schools are concerned, reflects great 
 honor upon the Commissioners, and it is due to them to add, 
 that they have not only asserted the interests of humanity, 
 but have pointed out the baneful effects upon the moral ha- 
 bits of the Protestant population, which such a system must 
 produce. The lower orders of the Protestants are supplied 
 from the Charter Schools. In page 29 it is stated, that a 
 thousand children who had remained in their wretched ca- 
 bins, would, upon a general average, be in every respect 
 more valuable members of society than a thousand children 
 educated in a Charter School, whose minds are debased by 
 a system of u severity and terror." I give great credit to 
 Mr. Blake for this dexterous insinuation. He was drawing 
 a picture of the Protestant populace which is recruited from 
 these store-houses of depravity. But for my part, I think 
 that if the system by which this country has been governed, 
 is to remain unaltered, it were policy to let the Charter 
 Schools continue. He is the most efficient tyrant who has 
 
300 
 
 been the vilest slave, and the little renegades who have gone 
 through the process of laceration, having risen up to the 
 dignity of Orange manhood, will derive a lesson in barba- 
 rity from the recollections of their boyhood ; and whenever 
 the era of lashes and of triangles shall return, will approve 
 themselves the more expert and experienced practitioners in 
 the art of flagellation. And now, Sir, having said thus 
 much in praise of one portion of the Report, let me be per- 
 mitted to enter into the less pleasing task of pointing out its 
 manifold defects. In the first place, the basis of education 
 is the indiscriminate perusal of the Scriptures — see page Q8 
 of the Report. The opinion not only of Catholic but 
 of Protestant Divines upon this subject, is well known. 
 Doctor Magee objects to it almost as strongly as Dr. Doyle. 
 It is a calumny upon our religion to allege, that we wish to 
 deprive the people of the use of the Scriptures ; but we do 
 think, that it is not a book fit for the unassisted perusal of 
 every shoeless urchin, and that we should not make a 
 primer of the Word of God. That Catholics are not opposed 
 to a proper distribution of the Bible is manifest, not only 
 from their declarations but their acts. A most admirable 
 translation of that Divine Book has been recently published 
 in Paris, by Monsieur de Genoude, a gentleman equally 
 eminent for bis piety and his literary qualifications. It is 
 in general circulation among the Catholics of France, and is 
 universally recommended by the Clergy. But our very 
 admiration of the Holy Writings forbids their uninterpreted 
 diffusion among those classes of the community who are 
 incapable of understanding their true sense — and we think 
 it absurd that every hard-handed mechanic and miserable 
 tiller of the earth, should be at liberty to construct a religion 
 for himself. I have often, in passing by a conventicle, or 
 any other manufactory of creeds, paused to listen to the 
 dismal and discordant howling of their fantastic psalmody ; 
 and I could not help thinking that it would be an improve- 
 ment on their music, if Watt's hymns were sung to the 
 appropriate tune of " I'll follow my own vagary, oh !" We 
 may, perhaps, be wrong in holding that religion is not a 
 matter of vagary ; but we are sufficiently absurd to prefer 
 the decrees of Councils to the visions of conventicles, and 
 we do not admire the precocious theology of a village 
 school. Now, what have the Commissioners done ? They 
 recommended that the Protestant and Catholic children 
 should be educated together, and each party is to be sup- 
 plied with Bibles in order to carry on their puerile polemics. 
 In page 97 they say, <c means should be taken to supply the 
 
301 
 
 Protestant children with the Testaments /." Mark the 
 plural — the Old and New Testament. The Protestant 
 child who sits beside the Catholic,, is to be initiated in the 
 interesting details of criminality contained in the history of 
 the Jews — while his Popish neighbours are to be denied all 
 access to those pure and salutary sources of information from 
 which so much useful knowledge maybe derived. The 
 Protestant is unincumbered by any comment, while the 
 Catholic is fettered by interpretation. Offer to yourselves 
 the picture which a school so constituted must exhibit. 
 Take a hundred little imps — place them together in the 
 same school — let there be fifty Popish ragamuffins seated 
 beside as many little aristocrats of the Established religion 
 — each draws forth his Bible — the Papist studies the note, 
 and the Protestant is immersed in the unadulterated word 
 of God. The beardless theologians are gradually drawn 
 into controversy ; a question of orthodoxy is started : a 
 wrestle takes place for St, Peter, and the merits of transitu- 
 stantiation are decided in a boxing match. The gospel i- 
 converted into a missile, and heads are broken with Holy 
 Writ. These, and scarcely any other consequences can 
 arise from the distribution of Bibles among the neo- 
 phytes of the new-fangled Christianity, which is to be 
 founded by Messrs. Foster, Glassford and Co. I come 
 to another portion of their recommendation. They advise 
 that n herever a considerable excess of Catholics is to be 
 found, there shall be two teachers, one of whom shall be a 
 Catholic. It follows (but this I admit is implication) that 
 wherever there are not two teachers, the single teacher is to 
 be a Protestant. So that there must be a Protestant teacher 
 in ever v school, and the Catholic teacher is limited, as a 
 kind of contingent appendage to the establishment. The 
 Protestant is to have a specific lien, but the Catholic (to use 
 a legal phrase) is to be a sort of hovering incumbrance 
 upon these appurtenances of the Protestant religion. The 
 Commissioners do not condescend to specify the number of 
 Catholics who shall require an additional teacher. It is 
 convenient to be indefinite and v;?gue. It is, however, 
 proposed that there shall be an itinerant instructor in reli- 
 gion — a wanderer from parish to parish — a parochial vaga- 
 bond — a pedlar in religion, who shali hawk his tenets about 
 from school to school — a peripatetic pedagogue — an ambu- 
 latory tutor in the sacraments, who shall travel through the 
 country and disperse the Catholic religion through the land. 
 The Commissioners are sufficiently unadvised to propose rn 
 expedient of this kind, where it shall not be convenient to 
 2 D 
 
302 
 
 employ a regular and fixed instructor in the Catholic faith, 
 Furthermore, they propose that all the teachers shall be 
 educated in Kildare-place ! Is it, then, from this poisoned 
 source that the currents of national intelligence are to be 
 derived ? The stream will carry the taint of the fountain 
 to the last. u Let me have the writing of the ballads, and 
 I will govern the people," said a Statesman, " Give to 
 Kildare-place the writing of the tracts/' says Leslie Foster^ 
 " and they shall believe in whatever vagary I will." But, 
 say the Commissioners, there shall be a Board of Education. 
 They do not condescend to tell us how it shall be composed 
 — nay, do not advise that a single Catholic Prelate shall 
 have any share in it. The Government are to appoint these 
 managers of national intelligence, and the education, reli- 
 gion, and morality of the people of Ireland are to be hand- 
 ed over to them. And shall we consent to this ? My 
 answer shall be brief, simple, and intelligible — Never ! And 
 let me add another and equally emphatic negative — never 
 shall we consent to the amalgamation of the Catholic and 
 Protestant in the school-room, until they shall have been 
 united in the State. I am opposed to the essential and vital 
 principle of the Report — the conjunction of the two religions 
 while the law keeps them apart. In this particular the 
 Report is insidious — Leslie Foster lies in ambush in this 
 recommendation. He would insinuate that Catholics and 
 Protestants may be united by a conjunction of forms, and 
 a juxta-position of desks. The Penal Code will, he thinks, 
 disappear in foot-ball and pitch-and-toss. Even there he is 
 wrong. The Protestant boy will enter the school with all 
 the aristocracy of his superior religion. He will come with 
 his Bible in " his satchel/' and his " morning face " shining 
 with the sense of his juvenile ascendancy. If Catholics and 
 Protestants are educated together, they will hate each other 
 with a precocious detestation. The Protestant will enter 
 the school imbued with the arrogance of his religion. The 
 Catholic will be galled by the consciousness of his inferiority, 
 and as a school has been called a microcosm, the passions of 
 boys will but anticipate the ferocity of men, and in place of 
 the tragic farce which is enacted in a larger theatre, the 
 puppet-show of religious acrimony will be performed upon 
 minor boards. And why should we be united in boy-hood, 
 if, in maturer years, we are to be divided and rent asunder? 
 This Report upon Education is of a piece with the Burial 
 Bill. We are enabled by that Bill to rot by the side of our 
 Protestant masters. The honorable dust of a Protestant 
 Gentleman is henceforth to be blended and prophaned by au 
 
303 
 
 ignominious comixture with Popish carrion. The centipe- 
 des, who have revelled upon the banquet, which is sup- 
 plied by a Protestant Bishop in the grave, may turn, for the 
 sake of a cadaverous variety, to the more spare repast which 
 will be afforded by a Popish Priest. This comixture of the 
 two sects in the grave has been already provided for. The 
 Commissioners of Education are solicitous that we should 
 meet in the beginning as well as in the end of life — we are 
 to be buried and cradled together. What ! are we to be 
 joined in infancy and in death, and are we to be separated 
 in manhood, and in all the nobler and more useful stages of 
 existence? Let there be an end to this miserable delusion. 
 The people of this country cannot be reconciled as long as 
 the law administers to their detestation. The law has raised 
 a barrier, which, as long as it stands, must keep the two 
 sects asunder. Abolish the law, and the people will meet 
 Tike confluent waters. Until that source of disunion shall 
 have been removed, it is in vain to hope for abetter feeling. 
 Why should children be taught to love, if men are to be 
 taught to hate each other ? The Carthagenian brought his 
 son to the altar, and devoted him to an eternal hostility to 
 the enemies of his country. I borrow the image from the 
 Attorney-General himself, who, in a magnificent exclama- 
 tion, appealed to the example of Hannibal, in laying down 
 the principles upon which the youth of Ireland ought to be 
 instructed. Far be it from me to adopt the eloquent exag- 
 gerations of that patriotic and impassioned person ; but this 
 I will say, that until there shall be a pacification proclaimed 
 by the Legislature, it is in vain to expect any temporary 
 amnesty ; and if it be determined that the system of exclu- 
 sion shall continue, the curse of the Carthagenian Queen 
 (since again I must refer to our Phoenician origin) should 
 be pronounced upon us, 
 
 " Turn vos, o Tyrii, stirpem et genus omne futurum 
 
 rc Exercete odiis ; cinerique haec mittite nostro 
 
 u Munera. Nullus amor populis, naec fcedera sunto." 
 
 2 D 2 
 
MR. SHELL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 ON THE 
 
 PROSPECT OF WAR. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL said — War, my countrymen, war has been 
 announced. This event,, of which intelligence has been re- 
 ceived within this hour, and which will make the heart of 
 every man in Ireland leap within him, ought to banish 
 every subject of small contention from our minds, and 
 expel the spirit of discord which seems ready to start up 
 and which, if it be not instantaneously crushed, may 
 frustrate, in this eventful crisis, all that we have been so 
 long labouring to accomplish, and which the great incident 
 which I have thus abruptly proclaimed to you, is, if we 
 are not determined to mar our own fortunes, so materially 
 calculated to accelerate. Is this the time for wretched dis- 
 sensions about agents, and salaries, and debits, and credits, 
 and accounts ? Is it when the trumpet has sounded that 
 tremendous blast, which will be re-echoed from Portugal 
 to the Pyrenees, and which the Alps will take up — is it 
 when Europe seems ready once more to rise into universal 
 warfare, and the world is about to be disturbed again from 
 its repose — is it at such a time, and under those awful and 
 most appalling and prophetic circumstances, that we should 
 assemble to deliberate, or I should rather say, to dispute, 
 about the nomination of a local agent in London? — • 
 There is better, and nobler matter in hand. War — war has 
 been annouced. I hold in my hand the Message of 
 the King, which refutes his Speech. We were told at the 
 opening of the Session, that the tranquillity of Europe was 
 to continue undisturbed ; and yet, after the lapse of only a 
 few days from the utterance of that piece of Legislative 
 mummery, we are informed, in a tone of solemn serious- 
 ness from the Throne, that his Majesty appeals to his peo- 
 ple for their support in the martial struggle in which he is 
 
305 
 
 about to engage. Compared with the deep repose and 
 brilliant aspect of prosperity by which this intelligence 
 was preceded, the news of war has come upon us, like the 
 *.ound of the cannon, which the author of " Childe Harold" 
 has described with so much power, in his picture of the fes- 
 tivities of Brussels ; and we may well exclaim, in the lan- 
 guage of the great poet — 
 
 It is, it is the cannon's opening roar." 
 
 Why do I call it f4 the opening roar" of the cannon? It 
 is because 1 consider the war that is to be waged on the 
 banks of the Tagus, as the mere prelude to the events 
 of which the Rhine and the Danube may be bloody wit- 
 nesses. It is because I regard the war in Portugal as 
 likely to lead to results, by which England will be again 
 in hostilities with the world. It is a war that concerns not 
 a mere cession of territory — not an island in the Archipe- 
 lago, or the West Indies — not the mere boundary of a pro- 
 vince, or the limit's of a newly-discovered region. It is a 
 war of principle ; it contains all the great elements of dis- 
 sension : it is a war which brings the too great factions of 
 Europe into shock ; it is a war in which France, and Russia, 
 and Austria, and Prussia, are involved in feeling, and in 
 which their bayonets, as well as their interests, must at last 
 be crossed. The question is simply this — shall a new pattern 
 of liberty, shall another sample of democratic reform be 
 held out to the world ? " Yes," (and it does Canning im- 
 mortal credit) cries England — " No," cries Russia — "No," 
 cries Austria — " No," cries Prussia ; and will France say 
 " Yes ? " I don't think she will ; or if she says " Yes," the 
 sound will issue from the Thuilleries in the tone of a nega- 
 tion. It is preposterous to imagine that the Bourbons of 
 Spain are at variance with the Capets of France, There is 
 a principle of tyrannical sympathy, a sentiment of domestic 
 despotism, to bind them together. I consider the reference 
 to France in his Majesty's message, as a diplomatic fraud. 
 The Bourbons know that the arm of liberty is a long one, 
 and that after rooting out depotism from Portugal, it will 
 stretch so far as to pluck up the " Fleur de Lys " at Madrid. 
 The Princess Regent of Portugal in confederacy with the 
 Duchess of Angouleme ! He must have a special gift of 
 faith, who can bring himself to believe that such an alliance 
 can be effected in favour of liberty. I take it, then, to be 
 reasonable to calculate, that the elements of a great war are 
 put into action, and I own, in the spirit of discontented fear- 
 2 D 3 
 
306 
 
 lessness, that I rejoice at it, Alas ! to what a miserable 
 condition are we reduced, and how painful it is to think 
 that one-third of the subjects of this great empire, and se- 
 ven millions of the Irish people, are so far sundered from the 
 State, and alienated from their natural and legitimate duty, 
 that they cannot help (for we can help it) feeling a sentiment 
 of disastrous and desparate exultation, in whatever portends 
 calamity and is ominous of ill. I do confess that I regard 
 it as a sort of reproach to us, that we should derive a fero- 
 cious joy from events which will cost so much human life, 
 and which will be followed by so much woe and misery 
 in their train. But unhappily millions of the people may 
 be said to stand in such a relation to the empire, as to verify 
 the description of those confederates in ruin, of whom an 
 author of antiquity has said, " nihil spei nisi ex discordiis 
 habcnt" The wretches who are confined in the hold of a 
 ship, rejoice in the whistling of the blast, and in the 
 roaring of the waves : — they exult in the tempest, and hail 
 storm. We are like a troop of negroes in a slave ship. — 
 If the law would give us leave, we should be as at- 
 tached to the Government under which we live, as any 
 portion of our fellow-countrymen ; perhaps we should be 
 more so, because the sense of political duty would be 
 heightened into gratitude, and exalted into enthusiasm. But 
 as things stand, we are compelled to exclaim in the language 
 of the fallen spirit, " Evil, be thou our good." It would be 
 absurd to question, that it is from the distresses of the 
 empire that our best expectations must be derived. Facts 
 bear us unhappily out in this most unfortunate calculation. 
 There never was a concession made to Ireland which was 
 not wrung from disaster, and extorted out of fear. Witness 
 the treaty made by the Duke of Ormond with the Catholic 
 Confederates, when they had arms in their hands. Witness 
 the great national compact of Limerick, which was signed 
 while a French fleet was in the Shannon, and while the 
 Irish cannon was pointed at the Dutchman's camp. Witness 
 the Acts of 1778, and 1782, which were passed in seasons 
 of peril and of alarm ; and above all, witness the great 
 Statute of 1793. In the preceding Session the very same 
 Bill was thrown out, by an immense majority, from the Irish 
 House of Commons ; and in the next year, upon the same 
 night on which the Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant 
 announced the declaration of war, a motion was made by the 
 Minister for leave to bring in a Bill for the relief of His 
 Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects. This may be called the 
 language of violence. To be sure it is, and what other 
 
307 
 
 language becomes the time? I repeat it — the people of 
 Ireland exult in war, and in the prospect of its results. 
 They expect that it will awaken a sense of justice. They 
 expect that it will lead to Emancipation. They expect that 
 English Statesmen will see the impolicy, or rather the utter 
 insanity of keeping alive the spirit of discontent amidst so 
 vast a mass of population, in times of such probable emergency 
 as the present. We have in our character all the materials of 
 loyalty, and all the generous tendencies to gratitude. Let 
 us be only put upon a kind of equality with our fellow- 
 countrymen — let the badges of disgrace be torn off, and the 
 marks of dishonour be effaced ; let us be but permitted to 
 forget the injuries which we have already suffered, and the 
 wrongs which we are still condemned to endure — let, in 
 short, common justice be done to us, and of a more faithful, 
 and true, arid grateful people, the annals of the world will 
 not afford a model. But if an opposite course be adopted 
 in our regard, then it is but common honesty to avow, that 
 the feelings, the unconquerable feelings of human nature, 
 and the inborn instincts of the heart of man, will be as 
 powerful as the sense of moral obligation, and though we 
 shall abstain, as in duty bound, from all acts amounting to a 
 violation of law — though God forbid that we should ever 
 be so guilty or so mad as to have recourse to any foreign 
 power, or to desire an utter subversion of the state, yet we 
 cannot help fearing that the time may come, when the 
 Statesmen of England shall repent them of their signal 
 mistake, and when they will have cause to exclaim, (though 
 the exclamation may come too late,) " Would that we 
 had done justice to Ireland I" But that justice w r ill in time 
 be done is not only my hope, but my expectation, and I 
 entertain a confidence, that the events which are passing in 
 the world, however attended with temporary disaster, will 
 ultimately lead to the most useful consequences, by hasten- 
 ing that great measure, which, by conciliating Ireland, will 
 give an eternal stability to the Empire. 
 
MR. SHEIL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 AT THE ASSOCIATION, 
 
 UPON THE PUBLICATION OF 
 
 WOLFE TONE'S MEMOIRS. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL said — I hold a book in my hand, which 
 has recently arrived here from America, and in which 
 there is a remarkable passage corroborative of our oppo- 
 sition to secret Societies, and to all ill-organised association 
 among the peasantry, of which spoliation is the object, and 
 of which their own destruction must be the result. The 
 book to which I refer is the life of the — (how shall I desig- 
 nate him ?) — the unfortunate and deluded Theobald Wolfe 
 Tone. Of his character upon this occasion, it is not neces- 
 sary to say anything, except that he was loved and prized 
 by all those who knew him, and more especially by Mr. 
 Plunkett and Doctor Magee. He was chivakous, aspiring, 
 and enthusiastic, and possessed not only of great talents, 
 but what is in politics of still more importance, of dauntless 
 determination. In the diary which he kept in Paris, when 
 engaged in a guilty enterprise for the invasion of Ireland, 
 he states what bears immediately upon Mr, O'Connell's 
 exhortation to the Irish people to abstain from all illegal 
 and merely local combinations. The late General Clarke, 
 who was afterwards Puke of Feltre, conceived that a sys- 
 tem, which, during the French Revolution, was called 
 chouannerie, and which corresponds with the Captain Rock- 
 ism of this country, would be of use in Ireland, and that 
 through its means the Government might be embarrassed, and 
 the people be prepared for a junction with an invading force. 
 Tone objected to this proposition for the excitation of a 
 servile feud. He said, in the first place, that it would 
 lead to unavailing atrocities, in the promotion of which no 
 good man could assist ; and that in the second place it 
 would produce a barbarous and irregular warfare, which it 
 would be extremely easy to suppress, and which would give 
 
309 
 
 the Government the opportunity of passing coercive laws, of 
 introducing a military police, and of crushing the spirit of 
 the people. That Wolfe Tone was right, events have abun- 
 dantly proved. And now, Sir, having adduced this power- 
 ful authority in corroboration of the views of my learned 
 friend, I shall proceed to make some observations upon some 
 other parts of this very remarkable book, written by a man 
 who perished in a cause, in which Washington succeeded, 
 and Kosciusko failed. The work, which is edited by his 
 son, principally consists of a journal, kept by him, while 
 he was Secretary to the Catholic Committee, and afterwards 
 when he embarked in three several undertakings, two of 
 which were not very extravagant, for the introduction of 
 the French army into Ireland. The first volume contains 
 much wholesome admonition to the Catholics, and in the se- 
 cond, matter will be found, at which the Catholics ought 
 not to be flushed, but which should make Protestants turn 
 pale. While Secretary to the Irish Catholics, Tone had an 
 opportunity of observing the fatal effects of disunion arising 
 in our own body, from the secession of the gentry, and the 
 miserable spirit of trickery and accommodation evinced by 
 the Catholic leaders, in the bargain which they struck with 
 the Minister in 1793. He states it as his conviction, that 
 if in the embarrassed condition of England, with the pros- 
 pect of war without, and of insurrection within, the Catho- 
 lics had been firm, the Ministers would have given way, 
 and that complete emancipation would have been carried. — 
 Whoever reads the political diary of Mr. Tone, will be con- 
 vinced, that the men who influence the councils of the fto- 
 man Catholics, will only consult their own interest by acting 
 with spirit, energy, and determination ; that they must rely 
 upon the people for their exclusive support ; that the public 
 passions are t€ the elements wherein they live, and have 
 their being and that whenever they listen to the false 
 blandishments of authority, and manifest a willingness to 
 compromise the great, the essential, and fundamental rights 
 of their fellow-citizens, they will inevitably prove the dupe* 
 of official artifice, and of their own unwise cunning. But, 
 I thank God, that the admonitions, given in Wolfe Tone's 
 diary, are now unnecessary. Even upon the confession of 
 our enemies, we are firm and united. There is no dis- 
 sension arising, either from individual jealousies, such as 
 tore the former Catholic Committee asunder, or from 
 any principle, by which the popular and aristocratic party 
 might be separated. Collectively and personally, we have 
 but a single object, and that we are determined, stre* 
 
310 
 
 nuously and undauntedly, to pursue. But, Sir, I said, that 
 the supporters of ascendancy ought to look pale in turning 
 over the memoirs of Tone. I would fain commend them to 
 the nocturnal vigils of the Cabinet ; and if there be any 
 man who, in reading what I say, shall be disposed to smile, 
 (for what I say is meant for the whole of this country, and 
 will reach far beyond the walls of this contracted room,) I 
 would bid that sardonic reader recollect, that a fleet, 
 composed of seventeen sail of the line, with fifteen thou- 
 sand Frenchmen on board, an immense park of artillery, 
 and fifty thousand stand of arms to supply the population, 
 ought to awaken reflections, of which scorn should not con- 
 stitute a part. I allude to the expedition from Brest in the 
 year 1796, which Tone projected, and which was com- 
 manded by Hoche. But I introduce the subject too ab- 
 ruptly. It is right to put you first in possession of the ex- 
 act circumstances in which Tone was placed, in order that 
 3 f ou may judge how much was accomplished by a single 
 man in the midst of difficulties which it is almost wonderful 
 that he should have surmounted. In the year 1795, Tone 
 retired to America with his wife (an incomparable woman) 
 and two children. He had eight hundred pounds in the 
 world. At first he formed an intention of remaining in the 
 United States, but liberty and the Savanahs were not enough 
 for him. Tone was one of those restless spirits who feel 
 that they are born for great undertakings, if not for great 
 achievements, and who, though they may not be able to wed 
 themselves to fortune, woo her at all hazards. He set 
 *ail in an American vessel for France, with a mind full of 
 hope, and with no more than one hundred guineas in his 
 pocket. He arrived at Havre on the 1st of February, 1796, 
 and proceeded at once to Paris. When he was placed in the 
 midst of that city, and stood upon the Pont-neuf, he look- 
 ed upon the vast array of palaces turned into the domici- 
 liaries of democracy ; he saw the metropolis of France in all 
 its vastness and its glory, and he also felt what Seneca 
 has so well expressed — u civilas magna, magna solifudo." — 
 Although without a friend, nay, (for the former is not so 
 uncommon) without an acquaintance, poor, desolate, thrown 
 as it were, and shipwrecked upon France, his great de- 
 sign did not leave him. He was sufficiently daring to 
 present himself to the Minister of War, Charles Lecroix. — - 
 What do you think were his chief credentials ? Two votes 
 of thanks from the Catholic Committee. He scarcely knew 
 a word of the French language, yet, he succeeded in com- 
 municating his views to Lecroix. The latter referred him 
 
311 
 
 to General Clarke, the son of an Irishman, and who had been 
 in Ireland himself. It is not improper to observe in this 
 place, the extraordinary ignorance of General Clarke respect- 
 ing his father's country. Will you believe it ? Clarke asked 
 Tone two of the most astonishing questions that were ever 
 3'et proposed. First, whether Lord Clare would join in an 
 insurrection ? And secondly, whether the Irish, who, he 
 heard, were addicted to regal government, would be dis- 
 posed to put the Duke of York on the Throne ? Why do 
 I mention these circumstances ? In order to make you feel 
 how much better theFrench are now acquainted with the state 
 of Ireland, and therefore how much more imperatively neces- 
 sary it is to conciliate the Irish people. I do not think that 
 Mons. de Villele, or Mons. Clermont de Tonnere, would 
 ask whether Lord Manners would join in invading France, 
 or w r hether, (if Providence had not been pleased to remove 
 his Royal Highness to a better world) we should be inclined 
 to place him on the Throne which was occupied, I suppose, 
 by one of the ancestors of Mr. O'Connell. It w r as with the 
 utmost difficulty that Tone could break the crust of preju- 
 dices with w r hich Clarke's mind was covered. He took at 
 last a wise determination, and went directly to Carnot, the 
 President of the Directory of France. Carnot was justly 
 called " the organizer of victory," and he was induced to 
 extend his genius for organization to Ireland, Theobald 
 Wolfe Tone succeeded so far, as to induce the French Go- 
 vernment to determine upon an invasion of this country. 
 At first the project was lamely and imperfectly got up — 
 But to prevail to any extent, was to do much. It is mat- 
 ter for surprise that such a man as Tone, without rank, for- 
 tune, or a single friend, could accomplish so much. Yet it 
 remains to be seen that he did much more than has hither- 
 to appeared. The French at first proposed to send only 
 2,000 men. Tone saw at once that such a measure would be 
 utterly absurd. By much ado, he persuaded them to in- 
 crease the army to 8,000, with 50,000 stand of arms. At 
 length Hoche, a General of great fame, was induced to put 
 himself at the head of the expedition ; and as he felt that 
 great objects must be attained by great means, he required 
 15,000 men, a great body of cannoniers, a vast supply of 
 artillery, and arms for the whole population. Such was the 
 force that sailed from Brest. There w ere seventeen ships of 
 the line in attendance upon the army. It w r as W r olfe Tone 
 who accomplished all this — it was his mind, his vigorous 
 and aspiring mind that filled the sails of that great fleet, and 
 wafted them upon their course. But that navigation, tor- 
 
312 
 
 tunately for Ireland, was not successful — a storm sepa- 
 rated the fleet. The ships had to pass through a strait called 
 " the Raz/' -which caused them to part. Hoche was blown 
 with seven ships of the line away, but ten sail of the line, 
 with 6*,000 troops, and an abundance of arms, commanded 
 by Grouchy, reached the Irish coast. Tone says that he 
 was so near, that he could have chucked a biscuit on shore. 
 A landing might have been most easily effected. But the 
 instructions of the Directory were, that they should pro- 
 ceed to Bantry Bay. There they did proceed, and for five 
 days — mark it, for five days, ten French sail of the line lay 
 in one of our harbours, having a body of troops on board, 
 who, with the aid of the people (and they had muskets for 
 them) might have marched to Dublin. It may be here 
 remarked, that Grouchy was the commander. Tone says 
 — <e All now rests upon Grouchy — I hope he may turn 
 out well." Twice had this man the destinies of nations in his 
 hands, and twice he abused his trust. The expedition failed. 
 Pious men attribute the failure to Providence, and navi- 
 gators to the wind. I put this plain question. If steam 
 vessels were then in use, would not the event have been 
 different? 1 answer: had steam-vessels been at that time 
 in use, the expedition would not have failed, or in other 
 words, 15,000 Frenchmen would have landed, with arms 
 sufficient for the array of an immense population. The fai- 
 lure of this enterprise did not break the spirit of Wolfe 
 Tone. In the year 1797> another expedition was prepared in 
 the Texel, which consisted of 1 5 sail of the line, 1 1 frigates, 
 and several sloops. There were 14,000 men on board. A 
 second time the winds, " the only unsubsidised allies of 
 England," conspired in her favour. The foul weather 
 prevented them from sailing. A third expedition was 
 undertaken in 179$. Had the design been executed with the 
 same sagacity with which it was planned, the result might 
 have been different. But Humbert, who had no reputation 
 as a General, and did not deserve any, precipitated himself 
 into it, and sailed before Kilmaine, who was at the head 
 of 9,000 men, and thus, by his absurdity, frustrated the 
 whole project. Yet the 1,200 men, commanded by 
 Humbert, arrived at Castlebar, and struck terror through 
 Ireland. Lord Cornwallis advanced with the whole British 
 army to meet him. — Tone fell into the hands of his enemies, 
 and anticipated the executioner. Men risk their lives for 
 a drilling a day, mount the breach for a commission, perish 
 for a word — it is not to be wondered, then, that such a 
 man as Tone should, for the accomplishment of such 
 
313 
 
 great ends as he proposed to himself " have set his life 
 upon a cast ;" and as it is to be feared that, w hile hu- 
 man nature continues what it is, individuals will be always 
 readily found with a passion for political adventure, 
 who will " stand the hazard of the die," it would be wise 
 on the part of Government to snatch the dice from the hands 
 of such men, and, if I may so say, to leave them no 
 table for their desperate game. I do not introduce the 
 name of Wolfe Tone for the purpose of panegyric. — I 
 regard his projects with strong and unaffected condem- 
 nation. In any convulsion which may take place in Ire- 
 land, it is likely that the individuals who are most active 
 in Catholic affairs, would be amongst the first victims. Any 
 man who has the least stake in the country must look with 
 alarm at events which cannot be produced by their an- 
 ticipation, and I am not one of those prophets who are 
 able to verify their own prognostications. The humblest 
 man amongst us is substantially interested in arresting 
 those disasters of which we have had already some experi- 
 ence. He who lives on the ground floor ought not t.) 
 wish the roof to fall in. But while my ardent wishes 
 are offered up for the peace and tranquility of my coun- 
 try, I own that my apprehensions are differently directed. 
 If I refer to the past, it is because I consider it an image of 
 the future. In incidents gone by, it is easy to discover the 
 archetypes of events to come. Let me, then, put this ques- 
 tion — if a single man, without fame, rank, influence, or 
 authority, unknown and unrecognised, was, by r the force of 
 his unaided talents, and his spirit of bold enterprise, able, in 
 the course of two years, to effect three expeditions against 
 Ireland, what may not hereafter be dreaded ? Observe, too, 
 the change of circumstances. When Tone embarked in his 
 enterprise there were but three millions of Catholics — now 
 there are at least six. What has England to look to ? To 
 the increase of population — to the augmentation of intelli- 
 gence and of public spirit — to the union of six millions as 
 well as to their numbers — to the minute acquaintance which 
 is now possessed of every creek in our island, and every 
 passion in our minds ; but above all, to the very important 
 modification which the feelings and opinions of the Catholic 
 Clergy have undergone, and to those fatal facilities which 
 the application of a newly discovered power in the physical 
 world has afforded to the enemies of the British empire. 
 No man has given a finer, and, at the same time, a more 
 accurate description of the effects with which the use of the 
 steam-engine upon the ocean will be attended, than Mr. 
 2 E 
 
314 
 
 Canning. He said, in his exceedingly beautiful speech* 
 delivered on the eve of his departure for India, at Liverpool, 
 that steam had taken from the winds their proverbial fickle- 
 ness. The imagination of the Honorable Secretary has been 
 lately a good deal busied in the cavern of iEolus, to whom, 
 as war minister, he not unhappily compared himself. The 
 steam-engine has interfered with his dominions in the Bri- 
 tish Channel, and, however he may be able to control certain 
 moral elements of destruction, and " ride on the whirlwind/' 
 in the metaphorical sense of the word, yet, the former 
 c( unsubsidised allies of Great Britain," are no longer of any 
 avail to him. What, in the name of common sense, could 
 induce the Honorable Secretary to threaten France with 
 the excitation of her stormy and discontented spirits, while 
 he has six millions of indignant subjects of this country to 
 control at home ? He will, by referring to the classical 
 writer from whom he derived his felicitous assimilation of 
 JEolus to himself, find a passage or two, which may 
 bring to him the recollection of those, of whom it may be 
 said — 
 
 <c Illi indignantes, magno cum murmure montis, 
 Circum claustra fremunt." 
 
 Talk, indeed, of arming the genius of Republicanism against 
 the Bourbons, and evoking the phantom of revolution. To 
 use a vulgar phrase, the Honorable Secretary " lives in a 
 house of glass," and should refrain from throwing his rhe- 
 torical projectiles. Chateaubriand, Hyde de Neuville, and 
 Monsieur de Beaumont, taunted him with Ireland — they 
 dashed the wrongs and feelings of the Irish people in his 
 teeth. But let me do him justice — he is, I believe, well 
 aware of the dangers, indeed he has said so, of our condi- 
 tion ; and if he does not insist on their removal, it is not 
 that he loves Ireland less, but that he loves office more. 
 Assuredly, when he is plunging the empire into a war 
 whose ultimate event it is almost impossible to foresee, he 
 should demand the pacification of Ireland, or bid the Cabinet 
 farewell. May he not justly assume a bolder tone, and say 
 to his colleagues — " I have hurried England into a war — - 
 the whole power of France may be raised against her — her 
 fleet is recruited — steam has been discovered — her armies 
 burn for revenge — six millions of British subjects must not 
 be kept in a state of alienation from the State ; read Wolfe 
 Tone and emancipate the Catholics, or be the consequences 
 on your own heads, for I will act with»you no more." But, 
 
315 
 
 Sir, I said, (for I revert to the book before me,) that the 
 Irish Protestants ought to peruse it with deep attention. It 
 is impossible for any man to read the details of Tone's expe- 
 dition, without feeling that the country was saved by a kind 
 of miracle. The country may, however, be placed a second 
 time in the same peril, and a second miracle may not be 
 performed. Providence may become weary of a reiterated 
 interposition. If 15,000 Frenchmen, with 100,000 stand of 
 arms, were to land in Ireland, gracious God, what would 
 befal every one of us ? I am not, I protest to Heaven — I 
 am not speaking thus, either from hatred to my political 
 superiors, or in order to excite the passions of that commu- 
 nity to which I myself belong. I speak thus with an honest 
 solicitude, to induce men to consider the really perilous state 
 in which we are all placed. They sleep in a disastrous 
 security. The somnambulist treads the brink of a precipice 
 — he receives a shock in awakening him — but it is mercy to 
 seize and drag him from the gulph. There is a most extra- 
 ordinary inconsistency in the conduct of the Irish Pro- 
 testants. They are panic struck, when there is not the 
 least ground for alarm, and to real danger they are ut- 
 terly insensible. In the year 1824, we all remember with 
 what horror almost every Protestant looked forward to the 
 1 st Jan. 1 825,because it was said that there was a prophecy in 
 that tissue of follies, Pastorini, that the Protestants were to be 
 massacred. As the periodapproached, dismay exhibited itself in 
 almost every face. Not only the women were affrightened out of 
 their wits, but I have heard that a pious Sergeant at Law, used 
 every night to lay his head to rest, after offering up his ori- 
 sons for the continued enslavement of his country, with a 
 Bible at one side, and with a blunderbuss upon the other. 
 At dinners, balls, and Tea-and-Tract Associations, nothing 
 was heard of but the 1st of January, 1825: — the 1st of 
 January went by, and people were astonished that they still 
 carried their heads upon their shoulders ; and yet the very 
 class of persons who were actually convinced that their 
 throats were to be cut, and shook with terror at the mention 
 of Pastorini, are deaf to the thunder of the French cannon. 
 It astonishes me that they should shut out all reflection up- 
 on these most awful and momentous subjects of alarm. 
 Perhaps, however, this species of insane insensibility to real 
 danger lies in human nature. The inhabitants of the town 
 of Portici, which is built upon Herculaneum, scarcely think 
 of the burning mountain at whose foot they live. The Pro- 
 testants of Ireland resemble them. Their estates, if I may 
 to say, are but various strata of confiscation : the whole 
 2 E 2 
 
316 
 
 system is raised upon a volcanic foundation — the fabric of 
 their power, like the palaces of Portici, may be said to be 
 built of lava, and they are overhung by that mass of inflam- 
 mable matter of which they have reason at every instant 
 to apprehend the eruption. There is, however, this diffe- 
 rence between them and those who live at the foot of Ve- 
 suvius; the latter cannot put Vesuvius out; but the Irish 
 Protestants might, if they thought proper, extinguish the 
 Volcano. 
 
 [[The above Speech as printed in the Morning Register, 
 was selected by Mr. Plunkett, for the purposes of prosecu- 
 tion. The obnoxious passages have been omitted in this 
 work— Mr. Sheil, at the Catholic Association, insisted that 
 the Attorney General had employed more imflammatory 
 language, and referred also to Mr. Spring Rice's pamphlet 
 on the state of Ireland. The following is an extract from 
 Mr. Sheil's speech upon that occasion.] 
 
 A pamphlet, written by Mr. Spring Rice, has just come 
 out, which contains not only as strong matter as my speech, 
 but exactly the same matter, conveyed in a still more ardent 
 expression than my own. I hold that very able tract in my 
 hand, and I beg the Attorney General's attention to the fol- 
 lowing passage. After stating the conduct of England to- 
 wards this country, Mr. Rice, in his letter to Lord Liver- 
 pool, which is greatly admired at the Castle, proceeds 
 thus : — 
 
 u The feeling which that conduct excites, is hatred ; you 
 teach us to look upon England as an oppressor. The mea- 
 sure of emancipation, carried triumphantly so far as the 
 votes of the Irish Peers and Commoners are concerned, is 
 rejected ; and by what influence ? By your Lordship's in- 
 fluence in the House of Peers. The refusal is that of Eng- 
 land ; the demand being that of the Irish nation. The 
 Union is naturally considered as having afforded the means 
 of this refusal ; and England and the Union are fast becom- 
 ing words of reproach amongst us. But whilst Great Bri- 
 tain is thus considered in the light of a cruel parent, who 
 refuses to his child his birth-right, third parties are not idle. 
 There are, who express, though they may not feel, a sym- 
 pathy for our misfortunes. There are, who affect to love 
 us, because they deeply hate you. The eyes of foreigners 
 are turned towards Ireland, and voices are raised as if real 
 sympathy was felt for our afflictions. France tells us, that 
 *he detests the intolerance that excludes and applauds the 
 spirit that claims admission. America maintains the same 
 language, prompted ana made more inveterate by the sug- 
 
317 
 
 mtio&J of the exiled republicans of 1798. Your Lord- 
 ship's text to Ireland is — view in England your inveterate 
 enemy — look abroad for your sympathising friends. My 
 Lord, this is a dangerous lesson ; and if it acts upon hearts 
 but too much disposed to receive the impression, its conse- 
 quences may, at some future time, be not only seen, but 
 felt. The manufactories of Pittsburg may yet change angry 
 discontent into armed resistance ; and the steam boats of 
 Havre and Brest may prove dangerous visitants upon the 
 Irish shores," 
 
 Will any man, will the Attorney General himself, will 
 the veriest placeman that ever clung with a miserable tena- 
 city to office, and immolated every principle and every feel- 
 ing to a love of dishonourable power, venture to allege that 
 I have spoken one half so vehemently as Mr. Rice has writ- 
 ten ? Is not this passage a thousand times worse than any 
 thing that has ever passed my lips ? And let the public, 
 let tne Irish Protestants observe, that what I spoke in the 
 ardour of popular harangue was set down in all the delibe- 
 ration of studied and systematic composition by Mr. Rice. 
 I spoke, if I may so say, by the torch, while he wrote by 
 the lamp. But unfortunately there is still a greater diffe- 
 rence between us. He is member for Limerick, and voted 
 for Mr. Plunkett against Lord Farnham. Pie may be used 
 fur another turn, whilst I, who can be of no Parliamentary 
 use to the Attorney General, am, for the very same lan- 
 guage, to be made a victim, and sacrificed to the interests 
 of this illustrious placeman. But there is yet more in Spring- 
 Rice's pamphlet — let me read the conclusion of it to you and 
 to the country. After describing the civil wars, Mr. Rice 
 eloquently proceeds as follows: — 
 
 " Sir \V. Petty computed, that in his time the loss of hu- 
 man life, during eleven years of war, exceeded 600,000, 
 At that period the population of Ireland amounted to 
 1,4-66,000, it has now swelled to 7.000,000. The forces 
 then employed in Ireland (30,000) were four times the mili- 
 tary strength now stationed there, and their expences reach- 
 ed the sum of £13,200,000. The destruction of property, 
 in houses alone, is calculated to have exceeded £2,000,000 ; 
 and the total loss, in wealth, to have amounted to 37,000,000). 
 I shall not alarm your Lordship by calculating what might 
 be the loss of lives and property, supposing similar event* 
 to take place at present. My Lord, Sir William Petty con- 
 cludes his summary of this carnage by stating — " For this 
 blood somebody should answer to God and to the King." 
 Do not let this awful responsibility rest with your Lordship ; 
 2 E 3 
 
318 
 
 avert whilst there is yet time these horrible calamities : se- 
 cure the happiness of Ireland by doing her people justice ; 
 secure the strength of Britain by preserving the integrity of 
 the empire. Yet a moment is given for reflection and 
 for repentance — "the night cometh, when no man can 
 work." 
 
 Gracious God ! (exclaimed Mr. Sheil, after reading this 
 passage) gracious God ! is the writer of this passage to be 
 permitted to escape ; nay more, is he to be lauded in the 
 language of Parliamentary cant, as " his eloquent and ho- 
 nourable friend/' by the Attorney General; and am IP- 
 Shame on Mr. Plunkett to act such a part as this ! — to let 
 the wealthy, the useful, the convenient, the high, and the 
 Parliamentary, go by, not only with impunity but with 
 honour, and to fasten upon me, who am guilty of no other 
 offence than speaking with ardour what I feel with intensity, 
 in order that he may throw me into a prison, and depriving 
 me of my livelihood, by locking me up from my profession, 
 leave me " to live upon the vapour of a dungeon.*' But 
 u on tjiat vapour " I had rather live, than act such a part as 
 Mr. Plunkett is performing. His mind cannot be at rest. 
 He must say to himself, that if he were in my condition, he 
 would feel the wrongs which I endure as keenly as I do, and 
 in trampling upon me, and committing me to ruin, a sen- 
 timent of self reproach must prey on his heart's core. 
 
MR. SHEIL'S 
 
 SPEECH, 
 
 IN TRACING THE FUTURE COURSE 
 
 TO BE ADOPTED BY THE 
 
 CATHOLIC BODY. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL said, I hold in my hand the names of six- 
 teen gentlemen, resident in the County Galway, whom I beg 
 to propose as Members of the Association. Lord French, 
 who has recently distinguished himself by a valuable mani- 
 festation of political zeal, is at their head, and I am assured 
 by my friend Mr. Power, who has requested me to propose 
 this list, that every Catholic of respectability in the County 
 would unite with us, had not a report gone abroad that we 
 had last week adjourned our meetings until November. In 
 November, when the proceedings of the Association will 
 have been resumed, our assemblies will exhibit an object as 
 imposing as was ever presented by that body, of which we 
 are regarded by many as the substantial image. We have 
 already obtained a powerful hold upon public opinion, and 
 may justly boast that the representatives of the many classes 
 of our community have enrolled themselves in this new cor- 
 poration for the benefit of Ireland. We have two Archbi- 
 shops at our head. You, my Lord Gormanstown, preside 
 in that chair. My Lord Killeen stands beside you, and his 
 noble father (noble in every sense of the word, which, when 
 applied to him, carries a better signification than it bears in 
 the Herald's office) has this day given us a proof of his con- 
 tinued devotion to that cause of which he has so long been 
 the useful ornament. Some of the wealthiest and most in- 
 fluential Merchants and Agriculturists in Ireland are at this 
 moment here. They who anticipate a failure of this impor- 
 tant experiment, labour under a great delusion. The pub- 
 lic feeling has already been declared in our favour, and if, 
 even at this season, when Dublin is emptied of half its popu- 
 
320 
 
 lation, and the persons who habitually take the most active 
 part in our proceedings, are necessarily absent, we assemble 
 as numerously as the retainers of the Minister at the close 
 of a Session of Parliament, it may be reasonably expected 
 that in November the same zeal, force and energy will be dis^. 
 played as were formerly evinced, and that in place of dissolv- 
 ing in its own weakness, the New Association must perish by 
 another and more efficient law, than the fatal enactment 
 by which our advocates have, if I may so say, banished their 
 clients out of court. Thank God that they have not succeed- 
 ed in paralysing the energies of the Irish People, and that the 
 same determined spirit prevails through the whole mass of the 
 Catholic population. Of that feeling I have had myself some 
 noble evidences. In W exford, the theatre of so many frightful 
 scenes, there exists a sentiment as vivid and as intense as if 
 its inhabitants had never been the peculiar witnesses of the 
 disasters of their country. So far from being deterred from 
 the performance of their political duties by those calamities 
 in which they bore so large a part, they appear to feel that 
 Catholic Emancipation is the only effectual preventive of 
 their recurrence. The assembly which was held in Wex- 
 ford, exhibited more enthusiasm than 1 have ever observed 
 in any public meeting. It presented a most noble and ad- 
 monitory spectacle, and derived from the associations with 
 which it could not fail to be attended, an awful, and I may, 
 perhaps, call it an appalling impressiveness, <( How long/' 
 I said to myself, as 1 surveyed that accumulation of human 
 visages burning with intense emotion, " how long will the 
 Cabinet of England continue to foment the passions that are 
 raging in that vast body of bold, devoted, and enthusiastic 
 men ?" It is to be lamented, that in the midst of so much 
 high and generous feeling, there has been an omission upon 
 the part of the Catholics to adopt the practical means of en- 
 forcing their claims, and that by neglecting to register their 
 freeholds, a risk has been incurred that Lord Stopford may 
 be again returned to Parliament. I called on Caesar Coi- 
 clough, who was at the meeting which I have described, to 
 oppose him. I invoked him by his brother's grave ; the ad- 
 juration was vain. He shed tears, indeed, but refused to 
 stand the contest. 1 then applied to Mr. Chichester, who, 
 despite of his being son-in-law to my Lord Anglesea, is a 
 friend to Ireland. Of Mr. Chichester I augur well. He 
 professed in a manly and unaffected tone his conviction of 
 the necessity of Emancipation, and gave intimation, if he 
 did no more, of his disposition hereafter to offer himself as a 
 Candidate. Lord Stopford may hold the county for the next 
 
321 
 
 Session, but it is impossible that he should permanently re- 
 tain it. In Waterford, a most valuable feeling has sprung 
 up. Villiers Stuart must be returned ; Lord Waterford has 
 effectually contributed to his success. Think of the politi- 
 cal infatuation of that feeble-minded person ; notwithstand- 
 ing the denunciation of Orange badges by men of all par- 
 ties, Lord Waterford has recently dressed his own band in 
 orange and blue, and exhibits his musicians, attired in that 
 livery of insult (for such it may be called) in the most con- 
 spicuous part of the city from which his title is derived. — 
 Is not this the very wantonness of Ascendancy ; and is it to 
 be wondered that the Catholic serfs of the most puissant and 
 preposterous Marquis, should revolt from their allegiance, 
 and obeying the dictates of their consciences and every in- 
 stinct of honorable pride, should throw off the yoke of their 
 political villainage! In Kilkenny, (for, my Lord, you will, 
 perceive that I am retracing my progress,) a corres- 
 ponding spirit is universally prevalent. The Protest- 
 ants of that county have conspired with the Catholics. A 
 Petition already signed by eight Protestant Peers, and al- 
 most all the Aristocracy, is in rapid circulation. The 
 Catholic Meeting is attended by the chief Gentry of the 
 county, and Butler Clarke may soon have reason to recite 
 the Penitential Psalms in the same doleful tone with which 
 he pronounced his first Parliamentary essay against the As- 
 sociation. The Meeting at Clonmel was distinguished by 
 the attendance of several able and eloquent Ministers of our 
 religion. The Priests who delivered their sentiments upon 
 that occasion, spoke the feelings of the whole body of our 
 Clergy, and if there be a circumstance peculiarly auspicious 
 it is, I think, the energetic sympathy which the Priesthood 
 have manifested in the national cause. I have, my Lord, 
 upon former occasions, expressed my conviction, that it is 
 principally through the instrumentality of the Clergy that 
 the rights and power of the Catholics will be presented to 
 the English People in a just light, and, in my judgment, I 
 cannot too frequently revert to this important topic. It is 
 clear, that we must resort to other expedients besides those 
 which we have hitherto adopted. In order to advance the 
 question it is not sufficient that we should petition the Le- 
 gislature after our habitual fashion. Something must be 
 done to give it an impulse, and propel it through the mind 
 of the English people. There must not be a monotony in 
 our call for redress ; our question will go round without ad- 
 vancing ; we shall revolve in the same dull rotation without 
 being in the least degree progressive. Suppose that we pre- 
 
322 
 
 sent our usual Petition in March next. The measure may 
 pass the Commons, but the same causes which have hitherto 
 contributed to its rejection in the Lords, will still remain in 
 operation. The public ear will become tired by the rei- 
 terated burden of Catholic grievances, and in order to ex- 
 cite the popular, and I may add, the legislative interests, 
 we must devise some measure which shall make a great and 
 permanent impression. It is not mere novelty that I am 
 disposed to seek — I look for some expedient which shall at 
 once arrest the attention of the Empire, and present the evils 
 of our condition in a light which shall glare upon the public 
 eye. Something must be done at which men will start. Seven 
 millions of British citizens in a state of indignant exaspera- 
 tion ; boiling with the fierce passions which shame and wrong 
 produce ; animated by a single and undivided sentiment, 
 and moving with a common, and, I trust it will eventually 
 prove, an irresistible impulse ; this is a great object, and 
 such a spectacle should not be presented under any ordi- 
 nary view. It is not a mere annual debate in Parlia- 
 ment, returning in wearisome succession, and bequeathed 
 by one expiring Session to the next, which becomes a 
 crisis like the present. What, then, (I return to the 
 interrogation,) what shall be done to strike a blow 
 upon the English mind? I think that a great instru- 
 ment of political effect lies in our reach. It is no visi- 
 onary scheme — no idle and fantastic speculation ; we need 
 but stretch forth our hand to grasp it. I propose, my 
 Lord, that the Secretary of this Association do forthwith 
 insert in an official book, to be kept for the purpose, the 
 name and the address of every Parish Priest in Ireland, and 
 that a letter be addressed to each of them, requesting their 
 co-operation in the objects which the Association have in 
 view. Thus an individual intercourse with every Parish 
 Priest in Ireland will be established, and we shall have an 
 active and powerful agent in every parochial subdivision of 
 the country : — we shall thus obtain a series of conductors, 
 through which the feeling which we are solicitous to circu- 
 late, will be readily conveyed. From one extremity of the 
 land to the other, a regular and uniform communication will 
 be set on foot, through the Catholic Priesthood, and a great 
 national agency will be established. This being effected, a 
 general census of the population may be taken in a week, 
 and what is still more important, that population may be 
 organised into supplication, and disciplined in what I may 
 call the tactics of petitioning. Hitherto we have been desul- 
 tory and irregular in our movements ; one county petitioned 
 
323 
 
 and another did not ; and there was no accordance in time 
 or place, nor any simultaneous movement of the national 
 mind. We must learn to kneel down together ; we must 
 learn how to perform this universal genuflection. On the 
 same day, and at the same hour , a meeting mu9t be held 
 under the direction of the Parish Priest in every Parish 
 Chapel in Ireland. Offer to yourselves, in anticipation, the 
 effect of such a proceeding. If the people of Ireland meet 
 on the first of January, 1 826, in their respective houses of 
 worship, and send a common cry for liberty from the altars 
 of God, will not that cry reach into the Cabinet — make its 
 way to the Throne — echo through the Chambers of West- 
 minster, and make — even Eldon start ? Two thousand 
 three hundred petitions, signed upon two thousand three 
 hundred altars, and rushing at the same instant into the 
 Councils of the Legislature, may not excite alarm, but can- 
 not be treated with contempt. But I may be asked how 
 can the Association effect all this ? I answer, the Associ- 
 ation is not to effect all this. We have no right to petition 
 for the redress of grievances, but we are entitled, by a spe- 
 cial clause, to promote education. We shall array the 
 Clergy for an end w hich is perfectly legal, and when they 
 shall once have been marshalled — when once the political 
 apparatus shall have been prepared, it will be the office of 
 another Association, which shall sit for fourteen days, (the 
 period allowed by law,) to make use of the instruments 
 with which they will have been provided, and to turn the 
 means which we devise for the attainment of one object, 
 into the achievement of another. It is for us to plant the 
 tree of knowledge — it is for others to graft liberty upon it. 
 We assemble the people to give them instruction. Finding 
 them assembled, it will be for others to point out the way 
 to freedom. This brings me to the third expedient to which 
 I have adverted. By the law as it stands, an Association 
 for the redress of grievances, may exist for fourteen days. 
 The law itself has given us a useful intimation, I thank 
 Mr. Plunkett for the hint. Much may be done in fourteen 
 days. They will afford a Session to the people. Perhaps 
 the brief duration of such a body, as the law permits, will 
 render it still more imposing. An Association may be 
 formed which will have as great an effect upon the public 
 mind as the former body, and the exertion necessary for its 
 vigorous sustainment need not be so permanently vigorous. 
 I propose the following plan : Let the Hierarchy, the 
 Nobility, the chief Clergy, the Gentry, the great Agricultu- 
 rists, the leading Merchants, the Catholic Bar, and the 
 
324 
 
 members of the professions, assemble on the first day of the 
 next Session of Parliament. This would, indeed, be a 
 National Convention, not representing the people, but being, 
 in some measure, the people itself, and containing the 
 essence — the abstract — the very core of the country. It 
 appears to me most easy of accomplishment ; indeed, I 
 see no difficulties at all in the way of its achievement. Even 
 if there were great impediments, we should fearlessly and 
 determinately encounter them. " Possunt quia posse viden- 
 tur," is a maxim founded in the depth of our nature ; for 
 the confidence of success is almost success itself. When 
 was any thing great or noble or elevated accomplished by 
 men who made a nice calculation of feasibility ? Did the 
 great Carthaginian, when he arrived at the foot of the Alps, 
 draw forth his mathematical instruments, to measure the 
 height of Mount St. Bernard above the sea ? He rushed 
 at once up the mountain, and burst its rocks with the 
 ardent spirit of his own fiery and aspiring mind. Nothing, 
 I repeat it, great or noble, was ever achieved by minute 
 calculators of difficulty ; and rightly was it observed by 
 Voltaire, that it is not so much high faculty, as determina- 
 tion of character that achieves political success. If there 
 were great obstacles in our progress — though difficulties 
 should be heaped upon each other, and " Alps oh Alps 
 arise," we should not be deterred from pursuing the steep 
 and rugged path which should lead to liberty. But, thank 
 God, " the way is clear and open," and we have in reality 
 but few impediments to surmount. I have, my Lord, 
 expressed my opinions, and perhaps at too great length > 
 upon that question which involves so much of our interests. 
 I thought it not inappropriate, that as I conceive the Asso- 
 ciation should adjourn until November, to suggest what I 
 regarded as the best plan of future action which the Catho- 
 lics could adopt, distinguishing between the objects which 
 it is legal on our part, as Members of the Association, to 
 pursue, and those ulterior ends for which we may prepare 
 the way, and which it will be the province of a distinct 
 Association, founded upon a different principle, and of li- 
 mited existence, to attain. In the prosecution of those ob- 
 jects the People will lend us their strenuous co-operation. — 
 Never was the popular feeling raised to a greater height — 
 never did a nobler and more enthusiastic zeal exist among 
 the People of Ireland. Whatever our antagonists may say, 
 the same deep determination to seek the liberty of the coun- 
 try, keeps its pulse in the nation's heart. From one extre- 
 mity of Ireland to the other, the same pulsation beats with 
 
325 
 
 a strong and regular throb. It is not a mere feverish and 
 transitory excitation, but the uniform result of the great 
 circulation of a vital principle, and it may be justly said, 
 
 " Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus 
 
 '•' Men? agitat molem, et magiio se corpore miseet." 
 
 <2 F 
 
MR SHEIL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 AT 
 
 AN AGGREGATE MEETING, 
 
 HELD IN 
 
 KILKENNY. 
 
 The Honble. PIERSE SOMERSET BUTLER having 
 moved the following Resolution : — 
 
 <c Resolved, That the exasperating exclusion of* seven 
 millions of British subjects, from the rights and privileges 
 of the Constitution, generates passions which arrest the pro- 
 gress of national improvement, impede the education of the 
 people, prevent the diffusion of British Capital, deteriorate 
 the value of property and render its title insecure ; offer an 
 allurement to the enemies of Great Britain, and endanger 
 the stability of the Empire." 
 
 Mr. SHEIL seconded the Resolution, and said, " Niphon 
 is the largest of the islands of Japan ; Ximo is of inferior 
 magnitude. If a traveller were to tell us, (the case is an 
 imaginary one, but I shall be indulged in putting it,) that 
 seven millions of the inhabitants of Ximo were deprived by 
 the legislators of Niphon of the rights of citizens, because 
 they believed in a religion more studded with mystery than 
 the established creed of the larger island, if he told us that 
 one-seventh of the population of Ximo, who professed the 
 idolatry as by law established, enjoyed all the honors and 
 emoluments of the state, — that their Bonzes possessed one 
 million of acres — that they were supported with one- tenth 
 of the produce of public labour— that their empty Pagodas 
 were built at the expense of those who rejected their wor- 
 ship—that the Japanese vestries excluded the infidel from all 
 share in the ecclesiastical taxation — that deep and indignant 
 
327 
 
 feelings were generated by this monopoly in the seven mil- 
 lions of Ximoites — that the heir to the empire of Japan had 
 declared an implacable hostility to these degraded millions: — 
 If he were, besides, to tell us, that the cabinet of China, 
 who were anxious to lower the pride of Japan had turned 
 their eyes to Ximo, and had calculated upon their co-ope- 
 ration in case a war should ensue — if he were to say, that 
 notwithstanding the danger arising from the disaffection 
 of the Ximoites, the legislators of Japan still obstinately 
 persevered in their system of Government, for the sake 
 of the fat and unwieldy Bonzes — if, Sir, a traveller 
 were to tell us this, should we not say that the Govern- 
 ment of Japan was exceedingly rash in offering out- 
 rage to so large a portion of its subjects, and that it must 
 be composed of fatuitous and narrow-minded men ? — 
 Shall that system, then, be wise in Ireland, which in Ximo 
 would be absurd ? And if an Englishman would smile at 
 the prejudices of a Constitutionalist of Japan, might we not 
 say — 
 
 Mutato nomine, de te 
 
 Fabula narratur ? 
 
 The strange infatuation which presides over the Councils of 
 England, will hereafter excite astonishment, and posterity 
 will wonder at the obdurate perseverance with which the 
 legislators of England continued so long to inflame the 
 minds, and administer provocation to the passions of seven 
 millions of men. But, Sir, it is a matter of congratulation, 
 that the prejudices which have hitherto obstructed the 
 progress of political truth, are rapidly diminishing. In 
 England the Catholic Question has made great way, and the 
 Protestants of Ireland begin to feel that they are embarked 
 in the same cause as ourselves. I look round, and see 
 almost the whole Protestant aristocracy of this county here. 
 The High Sheriff is attended by the Grand Jury, What 
 does this prove ? That the spirit of the Resolutions passed 
 at Buckingham House is beginning to pervade the great 
 mass of the Protestant community. The diffusion of this 
 feeling is further evinced by the Protestant petition which 
 is in course of signature amongst you, and to which the 
 names of eight Peers are already attached. This wise and 
 generous anxiety for the relief of their Roman Catholic 
 brethren is not confined to this county. Among the lower 
 orders of Protestants, it is true, that much bitterness of 
 feeling still continues. They who have no other superiority 
 2F 2 
 
328 
 
 cling, with a natural tenacity, to the prerogatives of a Patri- 
 cian creed — but the enlightened, the opulent, and the noble, 
 who rest their ascendancy upon a better title, are weary of 
 discord, and call for the pacification of Ireland. They are 
 deeply sensible of the calamities produced by the disfran- 
 chisement of a whole people, of which an epitome is 
 expressed in the resolution which I have risen to second. — 
 It condenses much political truth. The disqualification of 
 seven millions of British citizens generates passions which 
 arrest the progress of national improvement — prevent the 
 co-operation of the several classes of the community in 
 promoting the national good — interfere with the education 
 of the people- — impede the circulation of British capital — » 
 deteriorate the value of property, and render its title inse- 
 cure — offer an allurement to the enemies of Great Britain — 
 and endanger the security of the empire. Is not the 
 progress of national improvement arrested by the dissensions 
 which have been gendered by the Penal Code ? The whole 
 mind of Ireland is absorbed by this fatal question. No 
 ether topic attracts the popular attention. Arts, science, 
 literature, are all merged in the disastrous interest attending 
 this question. It enjoys a fatal monopoly of the public 
 passions. This is, in itself, a great evil. Instead of co- 
 operating for the purpose of improving the moral and phy- 
 sical condition of the poor — instead of devising the means of 
 diffusing better habits, and a sounder morality among them, 
 we direct the whole energy of the country to the attainment 
 of those civil rights, which must precede every scheme for 
 the general melioration of Ireland. If Emancipation 
 were passed, Catholic and Protestant intellect would be 
 combined — we should unite together in a salutary co-opera- 
 tion for the national good. But at present we are kept 
 asunder by the law ; and differing on this great subject, by 
 a necessary consequence we cannot agree on any other. — 
 This political separation has greatly retarded the progress 
 of education. The law raises the distinction of sect, and 
 transfers it from religion to instruction. The spirit of party 
 finds its way into the village school-room, and the fury of 
 proselytism springs out of political discord. In the recent 
 contests which attended the progress of Messrs. Noel and 
 Gordon through Ireland, the effects of Catholic disqualifica- 
 tion were conspicuous, I stood beside the former of those 
 gentlemen, at the second meeting in Cork, and perceiving 
 that he surveyed the great assembly before him with asto* 
 nishment, and that he wondered at the vehemence of the 
 passions which were displayed upon the question relating to 
 
329 
 
 the intellectual improvement of the people, I ventured to 
 suggest to him, that the emotions which he witnessed had a 
 political origin, and that individuals, possessing an influence 
 over the public mind, would not interfere in matters con- 
 nected with religious disputation, if their political degrada- 
 tion did not give an artificial intensity to their sectarian 
 predilections. He assented to the view which I presented 
 to him, and he afterwards, in a public meeting in England, 
 had the manliness and candour to declare his conviction, 
 that the Penal Code had produced all the ferment, by which 
 his mission from the Bible Society had been accompanied. 
 I do not mean to enter here into any consideration of the 
 points which were then in dispute ; all that I mean to sug- 
 gest is, that the political disfranchisement of the Catholics 
 arrests the progress of public improvement, by arraying the 
 two great bodies of the community into faction, and extend- 
 ing their political animosities to topics which are not natu- 
 rally connected with them. The Resolution which I have 
 seconded proceeds to state, that the circulation of British 
 capital is impeded by the dissensions of the country. This 
 is notoriously true. Irish Securities fell with the hopes of 
 Ireland, Capitalists who were prepared to advance enor- 
 mous sums on mortgages of Irish estates, immediately 
 receded from their contract. British speculation turned 
 away from the country, when the dominion of discord was 
 restored. Where is the Englishman mad enough to vest his 
 capital in a country which stands upon the verge of con- 
 vulsion? It is in this view of as much importance to Pro- 
 testants as to Catholics, that Ireland should be pacified. — 
 The Resolution states, that the value of property is deterio- 
 rated by the dissensions of Ireland. Why should land in 
 England sell at forty years' purchase, and in Ireland at less 
 than twenty ? Because the title to property is inse- 
 cure. This is the country of confiscation, and if a political 
 commotion should take place, what man would stamp his foot 
 upon an acre of ground and say, " this is mine/* It is better 
 to speak at once the plain and honest truth. Mr. Canning 
 has lately said, that the foes of Great Britain have fixed 
 their hopes upon Ireland. Now, I ask this simple, but not 
 seditious question : If twenty thousand Frenchmen should 
 land upon our shores, what would be the result ? Would 
 the population of Ireland unite with the invaders > If Pro- 
 testants think that they would — if it be barely possible — if 
 there be a risk of an event so terrible— if there are those 
 who believe that in a week one hundred thousand men 
 would start to arms — is it not actual frenzy to keep the na* 
 2F3 
 
330 
 
 tional mind in such a state of frightful susceptibility, and 
 to nurture the passions which may give birth to such a tre- 
 mendous result ? " Lead us not into temptation/' is the 
 daily prayer which I would address to the Minister, and call 
 upon him, with a vehement reiteration to deliver us from this 
 appalling evil. I doubt not that England might succeed in 
 crushing the foreign invader and the intestine foe ; but, as 
 defeat would be terrible, victory would be scarcely less aw- 
 ful ; the chariot of conquest should roll over heaps of mas- 
 sacre, and when tranquillity was restored, it would be soli- 
 tude indeed. These events may not take place until the 
 present generation shall have passed away. But is not that 
 a mean and selfish consolation ? Do not nature and the 
 heart of man revolt against it ? May not the graves in 
 which we shall lie low, be soaked with our children's blood, 
 and the knife of murder, and the grasp of dishonour, be laid 
 on those to whom we have given that life which should be 
 incalculably more precious than our own? Mothers of Ire- 
 land, hear this admonition, and clasp your children to 
 your hearts. I feel that I am speaking in bold and impas- 
 sioned language, but that language from being impassioned 
 is not the less true. There is a risk — no one can question it 
 — there must be, then, some sound reason for continuing to 
 incur it. The enemies of emancipation, they who wish to 
 incur this dreadful chance, reply — the Church must be sup- 
 ported. Suppose that the Church were placed in jeopardy, 
 (and I make the hypothesis for the sake of argument) I put 
 the matter thus : throw the mitres of thirty Bishops into 
 one side of the scale, and in the other the liberties of seven 
 millions of people, and which would preponderate ? Is it 
 for the sake of the Church that Ireland is to remain dis- 
 tracted, ferocious, poor, ignorant, and oppressed? Is all 
 this weight of national misery to be sustained, in order that 
 some high priest may continue to burlesque the apostles — 
 that some ecclesiastic Parvenu may continue to insult the 
 people with his contumelious epigrams — that he may shoot 
 his poisoned antithesis from behind the altar, through the 
 golden vestment of Rome, and the simple surplice of Geneva, 
 and set off a religion without a church, against a church 
 without a religion ?— is it that he may rebuke the Peers of 
 England, as well as insult the Catholics of Ireland, and 
 that dressed in a u brief authority," and a purple surtout, 
 he may continue to perform his sacerdotal antics, and " make 
 the angels weep,"— or is it that we may behold the u Castle 
 of Indolence " turned into truth, and the voluptuous fancy 
 of the poet embodied in a living exemplification of 
 
331 
 
 • — " A man of God 
 
 Who has a roguish twinkle in his eye — 
 If a tight lassie chance to trippen by, 
 And shines all over with ungodly dew, 
 Which, when observed, he sinks into his mew, 
 And straght 'gins recollect his piety anew ?" 
 
 Inhabitants of Ossory, is it for these glorious purposes that 
 the system is to be persevered in, w T hich is fraught with so 
 much frightful mischief and teems with public woe? I do not 
 mean to quarrel with the wealth of the Church. It is enor- 
 mous. It is a bloated and dropsical mass ; but it is to the 
 votaries of Wesley, and not of St. Peter, that the opera- 
 tion of tapping is reserved. Whatever aversion I have to 
 the church arises from its being raised as an obstacle to the 
 liberties of my country. The Attorney General has justly 
 remarked, that, instead of endangering the stability of the 
 established religion, and of the gorgeous institutions by 
 which it is attended, Roman Catholic Emancipation would 
 contribute materially to its permanence. It is because it is 
 now opposed as a barrier to concession that we regard it with 
 hostility ; but if once it ceased to operate as' an obstruction, 
 we should, in all likelihood, submit in apathetic acquiescence 
 to its abuses; we should look upon it as a state engine, and if 
 it ceased to crush us, we should not desire to interfere with its 
 operations, or to diminish the power of the vast machine. We 
 should not be arrayed by individual interest against its in- 
 fluence, and whatever might be our abstract opinion respect- 
 ing its general expediency, we should not regard it as we are 
 now forced to do, as a means of personal wrong. I doubt 
 not, indeed, that if the Catholic question were settled, indi- 
 viduals of our own body might be found who w T ould be dis- 
 posed to support, as an instrument of political influence, what 
 they are now instigated by their sense of personal suffering 
 to condemn. But, Sir, I am deviating from the course that 
 the resolution which I have seconded should suggest to me. 
 Let me conclude, by stating to you with some abruptness, 
 what, upon another occasion, I shall take an opportunity to 
 enforce. Three great measures have, of late, been pro- 
 posed, as expedients by which Emancipation may be 
 advanced. The first is, a census of the Catholic people — 
 the second, a meeting for fourteen successive days, in Dub- 
 lin, of the Prelacy, the chief Clergy, the Aristocracy, the 
 Merchants, and the professional members of our body — the 
 third, and most important, is, the simultaneous assembly of 
 the Irish people upon the same day, in their respective 
 
332 
 
 parishes, to petition for redress. We shall require the 
 co-operation of the Clergy, in order to achieve these great 
 ends. I have heard it said that they should not meddle in 
 politics. Why ? Do not the Parsons meddle in politics ? 
 Do not the Parsons excite the religious prejudices of the 
 English people ? Does not Bloomfield meddle in politics ? 
 He was once our friend, until , finding that his head was not 
 like Yorick's, and that a mitre might fit upon it— feeling 
 the organ of episcopativeness in distinct and holy promi- 
 nence, he betook himself to a more profitable course than the 
 study of Greek tragedy, and set up as an orator against the 
 Irish people. But let him pass — are not the Parsons the 
 most furious opponents of our cause ? And, if they are, 
 why should not the Priests prove themselves its most stre- 
 nuous advocates ? Upon them rest our best hopes ; they 
 will not make an Iscariot sale of the liberties of their 
 country to the Pharisees of the Cabinet. They are unpur- 
 chased and unpurchaseable. Satisfied with the voluntary 
 contributions of their flocks, they are contented with their 
 primitive poverty, and from the moral elevation on which 
 they are placed, look down with a lofty indifference upon 
 the luxurious opulence of the Established priesthood. They 
 will not abuse the legitimate influence which they possess, 
 and assign it to the rulers of the land. They will not con- 
 vert the Temple of God into a prophane and sordid mart. 
 The blood of Christ shall not " drop for them in drachmas ' 
 — they will not make money of the mysteries of religion — 
 convert eternal truth into a traffic — make the cross a ladder 
 of ambition, and dig in Mount Calvary for gold. 
 
MR. SHEIL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 IN MOVING A 
 
 SERIES OF RESOLUTIONS 
 
 RESPECTING THE 
 
 PROSECUTION OF MR. O CONNELL 
 
 BY MR. PLUNKETT. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL said — The prosecution of Mr. O'Connell, and 
 the issue of the legal enterprise, in which the provincial 
 Government of Ireland had so fantastically adventured, call 
 for an intimation of our sentiments. I rise to propose the 
 first of a series of resolutions, which I have drawn up with 
 a view to suggest the feelings of the Irish people, rather 
 than give them their full expression. I move the following 
 resolution : — 
 
 <c Resolved — That the prosecution of Mr. O'Connell has 
 excited the amazement of the English public, and is calcu- 
 lated to excite a stronger feeling than one of mere astonish- 
 ment in the people of Ireland." 
 
 Yes, Sir, England was amazed, and Ireland was more 
 than astonished. If there is ground to congratulate Mr. 
 O'Connell upon his victory, there is ground to congratulate 
 Mr. Plunkett upon his defeat. His success would have 
 been disastrous to his country and to himself. The blood of 
 every honest man would have boiled in his veins at the suc- 
 cess of this deplorable experiment. As it is, a feeling of 
 regret is intermingled with the sentiment of displeasure. 
 We lament that Mr. Plunkett should have given an election 
 to his enemies, to make either a martyr of Mr. O'Connell, 
 or a victim of himself. We survey this abortive proceeding 
 with all its train of miserable result, cc more in sorrow than 
 in anger." We do not forget the ties of political cordiality 
 which united Mr. Plunkett to the Roman Catholic body. 
 We feel as if we had snatched a poiniard from the grasp of 
 an antagonist, and beholding in his face the lineaments of 
 
334 
 
 an early friend, instead of turning back the dagger upon his 
 bosom, exclaim, in the accents of mingled reproach and 
 sorrow, " Is it thus that you requite us ?" God forbid that 
 we should indulge in the language of contumelious triumph 
 at the failure of a measure which carries with it its own 
 retribution. The weapon which was pointed at our very 
 existence with so deadly a level, has burst in Mr, Plunkett's 
 hands — I hope it has not shattered them. It is enough for 
 us that he has missed his aim — we cannot fail to recollect 
 that there is in the detestation of our inveterate opponents, 
 (we must not suffer ourselves to be deluded by them,) a 
 kind of redeeming virtue; and instead of co-operating in their 
 designs, we shouldabstain from the manifestation of any indig- 
 nant feeling, and all indulgence in any ungenerous vaunt. — 
 For the sake of the country, and for the sake of the distin- 
 guished individual who is identified with its interests, and 
 holds so high and permanent a place in its regards, we 
 rejoice at the failure of the preposterous prosecution. But 
 we are not drunk with an absurd and delirious joy. In 
 these political Saturnalia, we do not forget the ignominy of 
 our condition. We remember that there is no substantial 
 ground of exultation. It is but an ephemeral and transitory 
 advantage. We are still the underlings of Orange domina- 
 tion. Our penalties and disqualifications are still upon us ; 
 and in lifting up our arms we feel the heaviness of the fetters 
 which we cannot long sustain in the attitude of triumph. 
 They draw us down again, and weigh us to the earth. But 
 we owe it, at the same time, to sound principle, and to the 
 abstract dignity of truth, to record our condemnation of this 
 marvellous proceeding. Gracious God ! what motive could 
 have prompted an undertaking so extravagant ? When Mr. 
 Plunkett read the words attributed to Mr. O'Connell, did he 
 ask himself " what provocation is given to this man ? — who 
 is he? — and what am I?" Did he say to himself, "who 
 am I?" Did he say, "who is William Conyngham Plun- 
 kett ?" I know not whether he administered that personal 
 interrogatory to himself ; but this I know, that if he did, 
 this should have been the answer — " I raised myself from a 
 comparatively humble station, by the power of my own 
 talents, to the first eminence in the State. In my profession 
 I am without an equal — in Parliament I once had no supe- 
 rior — I have obtained great wealth, great fame, great dig- 
 nity, and great patronage. When I was out of office 1 
 kindled the popular passions — I enlisted them on my side — 
 I was fierce, virulent, and vituperative. The Minister 
 turned pale before me. At last I have won the object of 
 
335 
 
 my life. I am Attorney- General for Ireland — if I had been 
 a Catholic, instead of an enfranchised Presbyterian, what 
 would have been my fortunes ?" I can tell him : — he would 
 have pined under the sense of degradation. — He would have 
 felt like a man with huge limbs where he could not stand 
 erect — he would have felt his faculties c ' cribbed and cabined 
 in," and how would he have endured his humiliation? — look 
 at him and say ! How would that lofty forehead have 
 borne the brand of Popery ? How would that high demean- 
 our have borne the stoop of the slave ? Would he have 
 been tame, and abject, and servile, and sycophantic? No; 
 he would have been the chief demagogue— the most angry, 
 tumultuous, and violent tribune of the people — he would 
 have superadded the honest gall of his own nature to the 
 bitterness of political resentment — he would have given 
 utterance to ardent feelings in burning words ; and in all 
 the foam of passion he would have gnawed the chain from 
 which he could not break. And is this the man who prose- 
 cutes for words ? If their condition were reversed — if 
 Mr. O'Connell were Attorney- General, and Mr. Plunkett 
 were the great leader of the people — if " Antony were 
 Brutus, and Brutus Antony/' how would the public 
 mind have been inflamed ! What exciting matter would 
 have been flung amongst the people ! What lava would 
 have been poured out ! a The very stones would rise and 
 mutiny." Would to Heaven that not only Mr. Plunkett, 
 but every other Protestant who deplores our imprudence, in 
 the spirit of fastidious patronage, would adopt the simple 
 test of nature, and make our case his own, and he would 
 confess, that if similarly situated, he would give vent to his 
 emotions in phrases as exasperated, and participate in the 
 feelings which agitate the great and disfranchised commu- 
 nity, to which it would be his misfortune to belong. There 
 is no man of ordinary candour, who will not rather intimate 
 his wonder at the moderation, than his surprise at the 
 imputed violence of Mr. O'Connell ; with fortune, rank, and 
 abilities of the first class — enjoying pre-eminence in his 
 profession, and the confidence of his country, he is shut 
 out from honors accessible to persons whom nature intended 
 to place infinitely behind, and whom their religion has 
 advanced before him. If he were to adopt, or if his coun- 
 try, at his suggestion, were to assume the language which 
 is prescribed to us, the people of England would not believe 
 that we laboured under any substantial grievances. " I do 
 not believe you," (said a celebrated advocate of antiquity, 
 %o a citizen, who stated to him a case of enormous wrong)— 
 
336 
 
 *< I do not believe you " not believe me," c { No!" % What ! 
 u Not believe me ! — I tell you, that my antagonist met me 
 in the public way — seized me by the throat — flung me to 
 the earth, and " — " Hold, exclaimed Demosthenes — " your 
 eye is on fire — your lip begins to quiver — your cheek is 
 flushed with passion — your hand is clenched, I believe 
 you ; — nowwhen you first addressed me'you were too calm — 
 too cold— ^too measured ; but now you speak, you look like 
 one who had sustained a wrong !" And are we to speak, 
 and act like men who had sustained no wrong ! We ! Six 
 
 millions of what shall I say ? Citizens ! No ! but of men 
 
 who have been flagitiously spoliated of the rights and 
 privileges of British subjects — who are cast into utter 
 degradation and covered with disgrace and shame — upon 
 whom scorn is vented and contumely discharged : we, 
 who are the victims of Legislative plunder — who have been 
 robbed, with worse than Punic perfidy, of privileges which 
 our ancestors had purchased at Limerick with their blood — 
 which were secured by the faith of treaties, and consecrated 
 with all the solemnities of a great national compact — shall 
 we speak like men who had sustained no wrongs ? — We are 
 upon our knees, but even in kneeling an attitude of dignity 
 should be maintained. Shall we ask for the right of free- 
 men in the language of slaves ? May common sense — com- 
 mon feeling — common honor — may every generous princi- 
 ple implanted in our nature — may that God, (1 do not take 
 his name in vain) may that power that endowed us with high 
 aspirations, and filled the soul of man with honourable emo- 
 tion — who made the love of freedom an instinctive wish and 
 unconquerable appetite — may the great Author of our being 
 — the Creator of the human heart — may God forbid it. 
 
MR. SHEIL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OST THE INCREASE OF POWER 
 
 IN THE 
 
 CATHOLICS of IRELAND. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL — The Bible, with every man's comment, is 
 now the fashion. I shall give you a text, with my own 
 comment : " The Philistines took Sampson, and put out his 
 eyes, and bound him with fetters of brass, and he did grind 
 in the prison. Howbeit, the hair of Sampson began to grow 
 after he was shaven/' They put out the eyes of Ireland ; 
 they made education illicit, and declared knowledge to be 
 contraband. They knew that slavery and ignorance were 
 companions — they quenched the intellectual vision of the 
 people — they bound them in penalties that cut into the mind, 
 and corroded the heart — they set them to grind in the pri- 
 son — they declared them to be incapable of all honourable 
 occupation — they fixed a brand upon their labour, and to 
 their industry they attached disgrace ; and yet, in despite 
 of all this, notwithstanding the detestable ingenuity of this 
 infernal process, for the debasement and demoralization of 
 man, the innate power of the country defeated this abo- 
 minable scheme. Its original and native energy w r ere insen- 
 sibly restored ; war, and massacre, and slavery, and exile, 
 could not stop the progress of population. The law of nature 
 was stronger than the law of the land. Shorn, as Ireland 
 was, of her strength, she imperceptibly regained her gigan- 
 tic vigour — " The hair of Sampson began to grow upon hi^ 
 head." What, then, is to be done with Sampson ? But I 
 do the country wrong. Unlike the strong man, Ireland has 
 recovered her sight, w T ith the renovation of her strength. 
 Let me drop the illustration, and appeal, not to metaphors, 
 but to facts. The population of Ireland was reduced at one 
 period to eight hundred thousand inhabitants. The Penal 
 2 G 
 
338 
 
 Code was passed-it tended to multiply them, and not to dimi- 
 nish the indigenous/eligion. The population swelled to three 
 millions — the Volunteers arose ; that which Primate Boulter 
 pronounced to be the death of English influence was about 
 to be effected — her junction of the Catholic and Protestant , 
 and the merging of religion into nationality. The Govern- 
 ment flung the Catholic question into the Irish convention. 
 Division v/as produced — the Protestant became alarmed, and 
 the Catholic discontented. " Give us our liberty " exclaimed 
 the Catholic — " preserve our ascendancy," exclaimed the 
 Protestant. The Government struck upon a middle course, 
 and by so doing, the seeds of dissension were deposited. 
 The Catholic purchased the soil which he had scarcely dar- 
 ed to tread : he acquired power with the Elective Fran- 
 chise ; a career was thrown open to the intellect of the coun- 
 try in the professions ; Popery became rich, influential, ac- 
 tive, restless, intelligent, and aspiring. The three millions 
 rose to six. We are six millions of British subjects. States- 
 men of England, what is to be done with us ? What is to 
 be done with six millions of men ? You must re-enact the 
 Penal Code, or make us wholly free ; you must strip the 
 lawyer of his gown, the merchant of his stock, the propri- 
 etor of his estate. The bill of discovery must be revived ; 
 filial ingratitude must again be turned into a virtue, and a 
 bounty must be set upon parricide. This might not be hu- 
 mane, but it would be consistent. It would be more rea- 
 sonable, at all events, than the perpetuation of a system, 
 which is at once exasperating and absurd. It is not only ab- 
 surd but dangerous. It is more than dangerous— it carries 
 the seeds of destruction and the elements of ruin. England 
 is now at the highest point of prosperity — she reposes in 
 opulence from the fatigues and the exhaustion of a long 
 and sanguinary war. She has, if I may say so, washed 
 the blood and dust from her brow, and bathes herself 
 in the warm and refreshing stream of a vast and superabun- 
 dant commerce. The treasures of South America are pour- 
 ed into her lap; the sun does not set upon her dominions ; 
 The fabric of her power is magnificent and immense ; but is 
 its foundation in measure with its height ? Is it built upon 
 ait immutable basis ? Is it placed peyond the power of all 
 political contingency, and can it bid defiance to calculable 
 events ? The King of Babylon beheld the type of a great 
 empire in an image with a golden head, and with feet of 
 iron and of clay. It was shattered by a pebble. It was 
 emblematic of a dominion which rested on frailty and oppre- 
 
339 
 
 sion. The amazing wealth of England is illustrated by 
 the symbol that surmounted the visionary form, and in the 
 government of this unhappy, but important province, there 
 is a combination of meanness and injustice, which is not 
 unaptly exemplified by the hard and vile materials of which 
 the feet of the prophetic statue were composed. It requires 
 but little of the spirit of prophecy to foresee the hazard to 
 which that dominion must be exposed, which, however glo- 
 rious, rests upon a system at variance with the interests and 
 with the rights of the great body of the people, which is at 
 once paltry and grinding, despicable and cruel, and to recur 
 to the Scriptural illustration, is made of iron and of clay. 
 Such a system may be subverted by an accident ; a stone 
 may shatter it : literally speaking, it may fall in the shifting 
 of the wind. Let France declare war ; let the English 
 
 fleet be blown out of the Channel : let But I see in 
 
 the faces of many around me an expression of alarm ; you 
 think I tread upon dangerous ground : " Beware," you 
 .seem to say, " you are upon the verge of sedition — the ear 
 of Dyonisius is always open I do not dread it ; I am fear- 
 less in the integrity of my own purpose ; and, knowing 
 myself, not only from every principle of duty, but from 
 every motive of interest, to be strenuously anxious for the 
 pacification of my country ; being little prone to political 
 romance, never having indulged in the day-dream of Irish 
 independence ; attached, from deep conviction of its neces- 
 sity, and, I will add; of its ultimate utility to the con- 
 nexion with England ; desiring to see my country substan- 
 tially blended and consolidated with the great mass of the 
 Empire ; united not merely by Acts of Parliament, but by 
 a reciprocity of kindness and a mutuality of interests, I am 
 careless of any imputation that may be flung upon my mo- 
 tives, either by open enemies, or by those luke-warm friends, 
 whom we should begin to vomit. I will give utterance 
 to the language which is dictated by my feelings, and to 
 which my judgment gives its sanction. There are six mil- 
 lions of Roman Catholics in Ireland. A vast proportion of 
 that immense body are alineated by the law. It is impossi- 
 ble that discontent — that disaffection should not exist. The 
 better classes of Roman Catholics — they who have acquired, 
 or who hope to acquire wealth — the members of profes- 
 sions, the opulent merchants, the extensive agriculturist^ 
 set off their interests against their feelings ; and while they 
 abhor the Penai Code (as which of us does not r) they have 
 a still greater dread of a convulsion in which life and pro- 
 perty would not only be endangered, but swept away. But 
 2 G 2 
 
340 
 
 there is in this country an immense mass of population, who 
 have uniformly acted under the influence of passion, more 
 than of reason ; men who have injuries to avenge, and no- 
 thing but death, with which they are familiar, to appre- 
 hend ; spirits untamed by the enjoyments of life — bound to 
 it by no tie — cheered by no solace — having nothing but the 
 animal instinct to attach them to existence, which their ha- 
 bits are calculated to surmount — men who mount the scaf- 
 fold with a laugh, and leap from it with a bound. That 
 vast body of fierce, and fearless, and desperate peasantry, 
 would be easily allured into a junction with an invader, and 
 whatever might be the ultimate event, the immediate conse- 
 quences must make every good man tremble. It is the 
 fashion in the orgies of Orangemen to boast of the power of 
 the Irish Protestants, and to vaunt that they would alone re- 
 pel any attempt upon our shores. An accident or rather 
 a merciful dispensation of Providence, prevented the great 
 body of the French forces from landing at Killala. But 
 mark what was accomplished by only a handful of men !— 
 Twelve hundred Frenchmen marched into the heart of the 
 country and defeated six thousand of the British troops. I 
 admit that those troops were very different from the veterans 
 of the Peninsula — they were, like the present Irish Govern- 
 ment, formidable only to their friends. But they were as 
 good as the Orangemen could muster, and they were dis- 
 comfited almost by a band of boys. There were many diffi- 
 culties in the way of the French Directory at that period. 
 There was no sympathy in religion, and the people were not 
 prepared for their reception. But in fifteen or twenty years 
 hence, if the system of alienation should continue, how 
 different will be the condition of the national mind ? The 
 Bourbon family are aware of that mistake which Bonaparte 
 committed and regretted. They turn their eyes towards 
 Ireland — a community of religious feeling may be easily 
 cultivated. A long peace affords opportunities of intercourse, 
 and if, after a mature and deliberate preparation of the pub- 
 lic sentiment, the united fleets of France and America were 
 to appear, with twenty thousand men, and one hundred 
 thousand stand of arms, off our coast, what would be the 
 result ? " We should beat them still/' exclaims an Eng- 
 lishman, laying his hand with honest pride upon his 
 sword. I trust that the national vaunt would be verified 
 by the event ! Miserable as the condition is to which we 
 are reduced, it is better than the connexion of Ireland 
 with a Foreign Power. I had rather see the streets patrol ed 
 by Scotch Highlanders than French Dragoons. There is 
 
341 
 
 not a man in this assembly who would not wish that such 
 an enterprise should fail ; and that it would fail I firmly be- 
 lieve. The patriotic aspiration of the Duke of Wellington, 
 that his country should be re-conquered, would be realised. 
 But I ask, in the name of common humanity, and those in- 
 stincts of universal nature, which even religious antipathies 
 are not able wholly to subdue — I ask of the most inveterate 
 of the faction who are leagued against the peace, as well as 
 the freedom of Ireland, whether any thing could compen- 
 sate for the deluge of blood with which even victory must 
 be bought ? The events of which I speak, (and may the 
 timely wisdom of England, and the God of Heaven avert 
 them) may not happen, and in all likelihood will not hap- 
 pen while we live. We shall all be gathered in the dust, 
 blended in the great and lasting reconciliation of the grave. 
 But shall a legislator — a British statesman — a trustee of the 
 interests and happiness of his fellow-men, presume to say, 
 that provided he can crawl in office to the tomb, he is in- 
 different about futurity. Eldon, perhaps, may say so. Let 
 him, in his agony, clutch his money bags in one hand, and 
 the seals in the other, and he dies contented. But can any 
 man, with the least pretensions to elevation of character or 
 generosity of feeling, contemplate the frightful probabili- 
 ties to which I have adverted, without a shudder ? It 
 is not to the philantrophist alone that we should point out 
 this disastrous prospect. It is to the meaner advocates of 
 ascendancy, that we should address ourselves. I do not 
 appeal to any dignified or exalted sentiment. They cling to 
 the bad pre-eminence which they derive from their religion. 
 These birds of prey croak and flutter in angry tumult at the 
 least disturbance of those foul nests which they have built 
 upon the ruins of their country. But dead as they may be 
 to every other sentiment, I would appeal to their self-love 
 and throw their personal interests into the scale, A man 
 contemplates the perpetuation of his own existence in his 
 child ; they have children, and yet, strange to say, while 
 they manifest the utmost solicitude in the indulgence of their 
 paternal sensibilities for the future welfare of their offspring, 
 they entirely forget how much it must depend upon the 
 permanent tranquilization of their country. A great Pro- 
 testant proprietor sits down to draw his will — he surveys 
 from the window of his magnificent residence, the expanse 
 of confiscated woods and lawns with which the courageous 
 piety of the Cromwellian forefather was rewarded. He de- 
 vises his estate in strict settlement, and by a variety of com- 
 2 G 3 
 
342 
 
 plicated limitations, endeavours to escape from the laws 
 against perpetuity, and would give, if he could, a feudal per- 
 manence to his estate, and render it unalienable. He embra- 
 ces a century in the extent of his testamentary anticipations 
 If, at such a moment, a warning like theprophecy of LochieL 
 were to be breathed upon him if he were to be told that 
 the time should come when his mansion should be given to 
 the flames— when the shouts of murder and the shrieks of 
 dishonor should ring through his halls — when his sons should 
 be slaughtered upon his threshold, and his daughters should 
 
 scream for help upon their father's grave But, I advance 
 
 too far into "the field of the dead." I must pause in this 
 dreadful picture, and yet I cannot avoid calling upon every 
 man with a touch of the parental instincts in his heart, to 
 awaken to the appalling likelihood of a convulsion, of which 
 his children may be the victims. They will insure their 
 lives for the benefit of their children ; they will not insure 
 the peace of their country. They will insure their dwellings 
 against fire, and they will not insure the great fabric of the 
 State against conflagration. — Nay, they pile combustible 
 matter within it, and seem almost to prepare it for an 
 explosion. It is not to Protestants alone that I ad- 
 dress myself. There is not a man that hears me whose off* 
 spring may not be immolated to this frightful infatuation. 
 If ever these terrible events should arise, every class of so- 
 ciety will be swept and sucked into the bloody vortex. — . 
 There is not a parent in the land — there is not a father or 
 a mother who does not bear a painful participation in those 
 disastrous likelihoods. The cry of discord should sound 
 like Alecto's trumpet ; it should give a start to every mo- 
 ther, and make her clasp her children to her breast. I 
 would to heaven the women of Ireland would feel the fright- 
 ful possibilities of which I have given a sketch so imper- 
 fect, and, like the wives and mothers of antiquity, throw 
 themselves between us, and holding up their children, im- 
 plore us to forbear. And how easily, with what facility, 
 and by an expedient how prompt, how obvious and simple, 
 might our unhappy animosities be subdued for ever ! How 
 rapidly a great national reconciliation would take place ! 
 How soon the waters of bitterness would cease to run, if 
 the fountain were sealed up ! How easily our minds would 
 mingle and coalesce together, if the law did not stand be- 
 tween us ; how zealously should we all co-operate for the 
 purposes of national good ! Instead of waging battles about 
 heaven/ we should exemplify its precepts by good will upon 
 
34:3 
 
 ?arth ; in place of engaging in the frenzy of polemics., 
 M e should enter into an universal alliance for the education 
 of the people. A wholesome communication between the 
 higher and the lower classes of society would take place ; 
 the channels of a salutary intercourse would be opened — an 
 easy and unimpeded circulation of good feelings and of 
 good principles would arise — English capital and English 
 minds and habits would be diffused amongst us ; and in a 
 little time we should look back with shame and with asto- 
 nishment at the rancorous feuds by which we had been di- 
 vided. 
 
MR. SHEIL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 AT 
 
 THE ROSS SESSIONS, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL COURT. 
 
 ROSS SESSIONS— COUNTY WEXFORD. 
 
 A SERIES of interesting cases, connected with the Church 
 system, came on to be tried at the Ross Sessions on 
 the 20th October, 1827. The Rev. Mr. Morgan had ob- 
 tained monitions in the Ecclesiastical Court of the Diocese 
 of Ferns, against several of the Parishioners, whom, under 
 the 7th George III. he sued by Civil Bill at the Sessions. 
 Mr. Sheil attended on behalf of the defendants. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL said — I am Counsel in a case, or rather a 
 series of cases, in which the Rev. J. Morgan, Rector of this 
 I arish, is the plaintiff, and several of his parishioners are 
 defendants. I do not exaggerate when I say, that although 
 this tribunal bean inferior one, yet, as it is the only medium 
 through which justice can be dispensed to the lower orders 
 its proceedings, in a matter where the claims of the Church 
 are brought into collision with the interests and feelings of 
 the people, the facts which I am about to state, and the de- 
 cision of this Court upon them, will attract universal no- 
 tice. I am about to state facts which will illustrate the svs- 
 
345 
 
 tern upon -which Ecclesiastical and Sacerdotal claims are ad- 
 judicated in this country. You, Mr. Chairman, -w ould, I 
 am sure, in the spirit of that honorable impartiality by which 
 you are characterised, listen, under any circumstances, to 
 any defence which my poor and humble clients could make. 
 You would feel how important it is, that the lower orders 
 should think that they will be, at all events, heard in our 
 public tribunals; and you will feel that it is still more im- 
 portant that they should be heard under the very peculiar, 
 and I do not hesitate to add, the very disgraceful circum- 
 stances in which this case comes before you from the Eccle- 
 siastical Court. In that Court (where the rights of the 
 Church are decided by the Church itself) my clients were 
 not heard. The Surrogate refused to hear a single word in 
 their defence. Mr. Richard Moore was brought, at a con- 
 siderable expence, to defend my clients in the Diocesan 
 Court of Ferns, in which Dr. Elrington, in the person of 
 the Rev. Mr. Newland, is, with a felicitous fidelity, so ap- 
 propriately represented. Mr. Moore got up to state the case 
 of the defendants, when the Surrogate started from his seat 
 and told him, that because he was not a Doctor of Laws, 
 lie would not allow him to open his lips. The statute which 
 gave him jurisdiction, enacts that all forms of law shall be 
 dispensed with — it provides, " that the petition of the par- 
 son may be exhibited without the subscription of an advo- 
 cate or proctor — that the parties may appear without any 
 proctor, if they think proper to do so and uses the fol- 
 lowing words : " And the respective Judges and Registers 
 are hereby required to receive such appearances, and to 
 receive such proofs as shall be offered, and finally, to 
 hear and determine such causes in the most summary 
 manner, without any regard to the formality of proceed- 
 ing, and regarding only the justice of the case," With the 
 words of the statute before him, yet because Mr. Richard 
 Moore was not a Doctor of Law, the Rev. Mr. Newland 
 turned him out of Court. Mr. Richard Moore vainly 
 urged, that he had been heard without objection in the 
 Archiepiscopal Court of Cashel. He implored the Surro- 
 gate to hear what could be said in defence of his clients — 
 but Mr. Newland, with an authoritative flippancy, peremp- 
 torily declared his determination not to hear him. I have, 
 myself, pleaded before Doctor Radcliff, in the Prerogative 
 Court, and no objection was taken to my want of a Doctor's 
 degree ; and yet a King's Counsel (and let me add, a gen- 
 tleman who well deserves the honour recently conferred 
 upon him,) was told by the juvenile Surrogate of a petty 
 
346 
 
 ecclesiastical tribunal, that he did not possess the qualifica- 
 tions which entitled him to address one Parson, where the 
 interests of another Parson were concerned. Is not this 
 monstrous ? I state a fact which took place in an open 
 Court, which Mr. Moore himself will be ready to vouch 
 for, and of which I challenge the contradiction. But the 
 doings of the Rev. Mr. Newland did not stop here. One 
 of the defendants, an old and paralytic man of the name of 
 Cloney, being deprived of his counsel, got up to make his 
 own defence ; his son, who sat beside the old man, endea- 
 voured to assist him, when the Rev. Surrogate solemnly de- 
 clared he would commit him to gaol if he attempted to in- 
 terpose. The judicial Parson then proceeded to declare, 
 that no matter what evidence could be adduced before him, 
 yet if it appeared that any of the defendants had sub- 
 scribed to oppose the proceedings of Mr. Morgan, he 
 would grant a decree against them. There is a further 
 fact deserving of mention, Although the statute enacts, 
 " that it shall not be lawful for such Judges or Regis- 
 ters, to exact or receive any fees whatsoever from either 
 of the parties, in such suits or praedial tithes," yet he re- 
 fused to receive the evidence of a single witness until four 
 pence a head had been paid to the crier for every witness 
 whom the defendants should produce. What will be said 
 of the manner in which justice is administered by the sa- 
 cerdotal judges of the country after this ? Of all other 
 taxes, tithes are naturally the most odious to the people ; 
 they necessarily pay turnpike for Protestants, on the road to 
 Heaven, with reluctance ; they cannot but abhor that sys- 
 tem, which tears from them the fruits of their industry, in 
 order to gorge and pamper the sinecurists of the Establish- 
 ed Church. Such a tax should, therefore, be levied witli 
 decency, if not with justice; and when one priest drags an 
 unfortunate peasant before another, and calls upon his bro- 
 ther in Christ to adjudicate in a case which is substantially 
 the judge's own, the latter ought, at all events, endeavour 
 to preserve something like the semblance of fairness and 
 decorum, and should not leave the tiller of the earth to ex- 
 claim, <c I was not only wronged, but I was not even 
 heard/' How can any man wonder, with facts like these 
 before him, that the lower orders are dissatisfied with the 
 administration of justice ? How can any man feel astonish- 
 ment that the miserable peasantry of Ireland, despairing to 
 meet with redress in a public tribunal, obey the desperate 
 instincts of nature, and rush into the wild insanity of re- 
 venge ? But I break in upon the order of statement which 
 
347 
 
 [ intended to pursue. Before describing the conduct of the 
 Scclesiastical Judge, it is right that you should be apprised 
 )f the merits of the Ecclesiastical Litigant, in what he calls 
 l " Court Christian/' but which nobody but a Churchman 
 aril call a Christian Court. It is, however, quite right that 
 ^ou should be apprised of the manner iu which the Defen- 
 lants were treated in the Spiritual Tribunal, in order that 
 rou may not make such a sentence, obtained under such 
 circumstances, conclusive upon the defendants. I return to 
 he Rev. Mr. Morgan — he has been a beneficed Clergyman 
 or upwards of forty-three years, during which he has re- 
 ceived, for the cure of souls, upwards of <£49>000., which 
 rill stand to his debit in the account he shall have to pass 
 jefore heaven. In the year 1810, he became Rector of this 
 parish. His predecessor in Ross, was the Rev. Mr. Dunne, 
 i man in whose praise it is almost impossible to speak with 
 exaggeration. Notwithstanding the spirit of animosity which 
 sways the contending parties of this country, Mr, Dunne 
 was beloved by all those by whom be was approached. He 
 could scarcely be said to belong to any sect, as the abstract 
 
 Epirit of Christianity pervaded his whole life. His heart was 
 aised to Heaven, as well as the hand which he lifted to in- 
 oke it ; and, while he iC allured to brighter worlds," it may 
 □e added, with perfect truth, that %< he led the way." I 
 Peel that I am speaking of him in language, which to those 
 who did not know him, may appear to be overwrought ; 
 3Ut they who did know him — they who heard and saw him 
 ^for it was requisite to see, as well as to hear him,) those 
 who beheld that fine countenance, cast in so noble a mould, 
 that it looked as if one of Guido's saints had been taken by 
 nature for a model. They who heard that voice, whose ac- 
 cents were pregnant with the emotions of a pure and a be- 
 nevolent heart ; and, above all, they who beheld him ex- 
 ercise the functions of a Christian Clergyman, and saw him 
 bearing into the habitations of the unfortunate and afflicted, 
 :: faith and hope " along with him, while he was himself a 
 personification of " charity," in her finest form. They, in 
 me word, who knew him, will feel that this panegyric, 
 strong as it is, is not undeserved. I have told you what he 
 nraa ; I shall now tell you what Mr. Dunne was not. He 
 >vas not a heartless and unblushing extortioner, whose spirit 
 )f unprincipled exaction exhibited a hideous contrast between 
 :he lessons of poverty and self-denial, whicli he delivered 
 Tom the pulpit, and their practical exemplification in his 
 )wn remorseless rapacity. He was not a consecrated pi- 
 *ate; he was not a holy plunderer ; an anointed bandit. — 
 
348 
 
 He did not avail himself of every pretence afforded him by 
 the law, or rather by the perversion of all law, and the 
 violation of all justice, to swell his stipend as a Christian 
 teacher, beyond all former limit and proportion, He was 
 not consumed by the vile thirst, or I should rather call it, in 
 a literal and appropriate translation of the original epithet, the 
 the sacred famine for gold. Neither did any disgraceful 
 strife take place between him and his parishioners ; it was 
 not found necessary to remonstrate against any of his 
 demands on the people ; he never gained a flagitious noto- 
 riety by the extent, variety, and continuity of his exactions; 
 he never figured in the Ecclesiastical Courts, nor hauled his 
 parishioners before a tribunal, where Justice herself is in 
 " orders," and being attired in a surplice, feels a professional 
 sympathy for every member of the sacerdotal corporation- 
 he never brought any conceited and pragmatical Surrogate 
 to his assistance, for the enforcement of his obsolete and 
 long-dormant claims. I have told you what Dunne was 
 not ; it is not necessary that I should tell you what Mr. 
 Morgan is. I forbear from instituting any comparison 
 between the two Rev. Gentlemen, for their parishioners are 
 the best judges of any affinity between them, and it is no 
 part of my duty to point out the features of resemblance. — 
 Mr. Morgan, the Rev. Incumbent of this Parish, was named 
 to it, as I have said, in 1810, and he immediately observed 
 that Mr. Dunne had been a very negligent shepherd, as he 
 had omitted the " shearing n of his flock ; and seeing many 
 a fat wether with a golden fleece, he forthwith set about 
 sharpening his theological shears ; and such is his talent for 
 this line of his pastoral occupations, that to the " shearing " 
 part of the business he has since exclusively attended. 
 There never was a greater adept at fleecing at the great 
 shearing-court at Ferns. He raised his tithes in an instant 
 from £ 1,100 to £2,600 a-year. It may, perhaps, be sup- 
 posed that I mention this for the purpose of condemnation. 
 No such thing, The Rev. Gentleman is well aware that 
 riches are an impediment to sal vation, and that it is <c harder 
 for a rich man to get into heaven, than for a camel to pass 
 through the eye of a needle." Being anxious for the spiri- 
 tual benefit of his parishioners, and in order to enable them 
 to pass through the narrow way, he determined to make 
 them paupers, in order to make them better Christians ; and 
 with a view to relieve them from their spiritual burdens, he 
 insisted upon removing them from their shoulders, and 
 charitably placed them upon his own. From 1810 to 1822, 
 a series of fierce contentions took place between Mr, Mor- 
 
349 
 
 gan and his parishioners. At length, in 1822, the Act 
 enabling the Clergy to lease their tithes was passed, and 
 both Catholics and Protestants endeavoured to enter into an 
 arrangement with the Rev. Gentleman. A liberal and even 
 splendid offer was made to him of a fixed and certain income. 
 This offer of £ 1,200 per annum, exceeding what had ever 
 been received by Mr. Dunne, was peremptorily rejected. I 
 now come to the statement of the facts, which, in law, 
 justice, common honesty, and religion, constitutes a com- 
 plete defence for my clients. In the year 1822, the peti- 
 tioners set out the tithes; they did the same thing in 1824 
 and 1825, and (I beg the attention of the Court to this most 
 important, and to Mr. Morgan, most discreditable fact,) those 
 tithes of 1822, 1823, and 1824, the Rev. Mr. Morgan has 
 been actually paid; and yet, for these very tithes, after the 
 lapse of four years, he sues in the Ecclesiastical Court ; 
 after the tithes had been actually lodged in his holy hag- 
 gards, this Priest of God sues for those very identical tithes 
 in the Ecclesiastical Court, where the Surrogate would n<;t 
 even listen to the parishioners' defence. Again I repeat 
 my averment — the Rev, Mr. Morgan has been paid the 
 tithes of 1822, 1823, and 1824. I am prepared to prove 
 this plain and simple case, to which the brother-priest of 
 Mr. Morgan would not listen ; and although it may appear 
 strange to those who think that a parson cannot be so 
 flagitiously oppressive and unjust, yet I repeat slowly, 
 solemnly, and emphatically, that the Rev. Mr. Morgan has 
 long since been paid the tithes which he now seeks to reco- 
 ver. 
 
 [Mere the Rev. ALLAN MORGAN, the son of the 
 Plaintiff, who was sitting beside the Chairman, upon the 
 Bench, got up and said, " And I slowly, solemnly, a id 
 emphatically, on the part of my father, deny the al!ega-» 
 tion."3 
 
 Mr. SHEIL — I rejoice at this interruption. It does 
 great honour to the Rev. Gentleman, that his filial piety 
 should have thus broken out in defence of his fatherl- 
 and, although he sits upon that Bench, while his father's 
 cause is going on, I shall not complain either of his 'vantage 
 ground, or of his exclamations, because I attribute his inter- 
 position to the honest emotions of his heart. It does credit 
 to him, that he should start up and say, " My father could 
 not be guilty of so base and nefarious a proceeding." It 
 does credit to him, that he should thus indignantly repudi- 
 ate the charge, which, notwithstanding his indignation, my 
 clients come prepared to make out. Yes I let the son stand 
 2 H 
 
350 
 
 up in the defence of the father, for Nature has made him his 
 advocate. I will not adopt the same measure of dealing in 
 his regard, which was pursued in respect to my client. 
 The poor peasant, in whose cause I am now addressing you, 
 had his son beside him in the Ecclesiastical Court. The 
 father stood feeble and tottering under the burden of years, 
 and the heavier load of wrongs that was accumulated upon 
 him ; his son started up in his defence, but he was not 
 heard — " bear him to prison \" cried the despotic Priest 
 whom he had presumed to address. I will not, God forbid 
 that I should, make the treatment of the old man by the 
 young Parson, a precedent, upon which I shall call upon 
 this Court to act. I shall not do unto others as my clients 
 have been done by ; I shall act more in conformity with the 
 precepts than with the conduct of the Rev. Gentleman, and 
 therefore I will not strike from him the crutch which nature 
 has provided to assist his lame and tottering cause. But, 
 notwithstanding the denial of the son, I reiterate my accu- 
 sations against the father. I am prepared to prove them, 
 not only by the clear and satisfactory evidence of irre- 
 proachable witnesses, but by the evidence of the Rev. J. 
 Morgan himself. I hold that evidence in my hand ; here it 
 is — an unquestionable and unequivocal act made by the 
 Rev. James Morgan. This letter was written in consequence 
 of a public meeting which was held, in order to petition 
 Parliament against both Mr. Newland and Mr. Morgan. He 
 proposes an accommodation. The letter commences with a 
 preamble of cant, such as might have been expected from 
 the Rev. Gentleman, and thus proceeds : — 
 
 sc Having, therefore, by a late decree of the Ecclesiastical 
 Court of Ferns, fully established my right, and shown the 
 futility and imprudence of illegal resistance, I come 
 forward, influenced by the most anxious wish to promote 
 harmony and good-will between my parishioners and me, 
 to make a considerable sacrifice of my just rights and income, 
 and unequivocally to shew, that with me shall not rest the 
 fault, should a spark of dissension unfortunately continue/' 
 
 Well, indeed, might he talk of the futility of resisting a 
 Parson in an Ecclesiastical Court ! But, mark what the Rev. 
 Gentleman proposes. But, before I read his proposal, it is 
 right to inform you of one main and essential fact. The 
 living of the Rev. Gentleman was under sequestration in 
 the years 1822, 1823, and 1824. Mr. Townsend, who is 
 now in Court, and whom 1 am prepared to produce as a 
 witness, was appointed sequestrator. He had a legal right 
 to receive the tithes, and did receive in part, while the 
 
351 
 
 Parson pocketed the residue. The fact and the law are 
 indisputable. Well, what do you imagine that the Rev. 
 Gentleman proposes as an inducement to give up a petition 
 to Parliament on the subject ? I shall give you his own 
 words : — 
 
 " And such is my disposition to yield whatever prudence 
 and justice will allow, that I am satisfied to extend the same 
 benefit of the above concessions to all those against whom I 
 have already obtained decrees, provided my present propo- 
 sals shall be accepted by my parishioners." 
 
 " Under these feelings I now propose — 
 
 t€ First, that all monies paid by individuals to Mr. Tow T ns- 
 end, the sequestrator, on account of tithes, for the years 
 1822, 1823, and 1824, shall of course be allowed- 
 
 n I next propose to deduct from the valuations of these 
 years the full amount produced by the sale of the titheabk 
 articles, drawn by Mr. Townsend in three years/' 
 
 Here, then, is a clear admission that the sequestrator of 
 his living received the tithes of 1S22, 1823, and 1824, But 
 it may be said that tithes due by the defendants were not 
 received. His letter establishes the fact, for he goes on and 
 says — mark the words — " against whom I have already 
 obtained decrees" — these are my clients, and the Rev. 
 Gentleman admits, not by implication, but directly and 
 distinctly, that their tithes were paid. He offers to deduct 
 from the decrees obtained by him, without a hearing, in the 
 Ecclesiastical Court the tithes paid to the sequestrator. It 
 therefore is clear that he has sued for tithes already paid, — 
 Now, then, I turn to the Rev. Mr. Allan Morgan, his son, 
 and ask what explanation he can give of his father's letter ? 
 Why does he not now start up in a paroxysm of filial emo- 
 tion, and cry out — " My father could not have been guilty 
 of suing the wretched peasantry for tithes already paid ?" 
 There is the letter — will it be denied? Does the Reverend 
 Son venture to deny the composition of the Reverend Father ? 
 Does he ? I repeat my interrogatory — Does he venture to 
 deny the inference? He cannot. Thus, then, from the 
 evidence of the plaintiff I make out ray case. I tear from 
 his own lips the testimony against himself, and send it back 
 to his own heart. But my evidence does not rest here. 
 Independently of the length of time which has elapsed, 
 namely, four years, during which he never claimed these 
 tithes, (which would, in itself, afford a presumption,) and 
 independently of the admission which I have from the Rev. 
 Gentleman himself, I have a horde of witnesses to prove the 
 fact, namely, that the whole tithes were paid, and that they 
 2H 2 
 
35g 
 
 were either received by the sequestrator, or by Mr, Morgan 
 himself. 
 
 The CHAIRMAN — Mr. Sheil, whatever evidence you 
 have, and however just your defence may be, and although 
 I may lament that I cannot go into the merits of the case, I 
 fear, or I should rather say, I have no doubt, that the Act 
 of Parliament prevents me from so doing. The monition is 
 made " conclusive evidence of the sum due" and therefore, all 
 that you come now prepared to prove, should have been 
 proved in the Ecclesiastical Court. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL— Good God ! Mr. Chairmain, after what I 
 have stated of the proceedings in the Ecclesiastical Court, 
 will you shut out the evidence by which as clear a defence 
 can be made as ever yet was established. The Statute 
 which makes the monition conclusive, in the next section 
 renders this Court a Court of Equity for the defendant. 
 
 The CHAIRMAN — Yes; so as to prove any fact subse- 
 quent to the monition ; and, therefore, if you can prove an 
 actual payment to the plaintiff since the monition, I will 
 hear the evidence ; but 1 cannot hear what might have been 
 proved in the Ecclesiastical Court. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL — I cannot prove a payment made since, but 
 a subsequent admission of a prior payment. The Statute, 
 notwithstanding the monition, is rendered conclusive evi- 
 dence in favour of the plaintiff, yet it makes this Court a 
 Court of Equity, and it does so without limit or qualification. 
 Have I not a case in Equity ? Suppose the case of a 
 Judgment obtained at Common Law. If a Bill were filed, 
 alleging that the Judgment had been obtained by covin or 
 fraud, and that the sum due had been paid, and the charge 
 were admitted in the answer, would not a Court of Equity 
 grant an Injunction ? Certainty. Apply that principle to 
 this case ; a motion in an Ecclesiastical Court is analogous 
 to a Judgment at Law, Here is an admission that the sum 
 for which that monition was fraudulently recovered was 
 paid ; and if this be a Court of Equity — 
 
 The CHAIRMAN— This little Court has not the power 
 of upsetting the judgment of the Ecclesiastical Court. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL — Little as this Court is, the result of its 
 decisions may be great and important indeed. I do not 
 hesitate to say, that the eyes of the nation will be fixed on 
 these proceedings. ' What matters it to the poor peasantry 
 whether their causes are heard in a little Court or in a great 
 Court, if the wrongs which result to them are equally enor- 
 mous. Mr. Chairman, I implore you to pause before you 
 determine not to let us go into our defence. We have a 
 
353 
 
 clear substantial defence in law, equity, and conscience. 
 Good God ! is such a sentence as that of the Rev. Mr. 
 Newland to be carried into execution without the possibility 
 of questioning it ? Look at what has taken place. The 
 tithes are paid to the Parson, or to the sequestrator of his 
 living. Four years elapse ; the Parson then sues his parish- 
 ioners before his brother Priest ; the brother Priest closes 
 the mouth of the defendant's Counsel, and turns him out of 
 Court. He declares that he will decide, no matter what 
 evidence be given, against any persons who have subscribed 
 to oppose the Reverend Incumbent. He goes so far as to 
 arrest the son, who attempts to defend his father ; and will 
 it be said, that such a sentence, thus obtained, and virtually 
 acknowledged by the plaintiff himself to be iniquitous, is 
 not to be disturbed ? 
 
 The CHAIRMAN— I have the Act of Parliament before 
 me, and I am bound to abide by it. Whatever regret I may 
 feel that I cannot relieve the defendants, the Act confines 
 me. I have no jurisdiction, and must leave you to appeal to 
 the Judge of Assize. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL — Since your mind is made up on the sub- 
 ject, it woidd be idle of me to persevere. I am sure you 
 are convinced, since you tell me so, that you cannot avoid 
 deciding as you do ; you certainly have heard me, and on 
 that ground I have reason to complain. But let me make a 
 proposition. The plaintiff may, if he thinks proper, waive 
 the advantages given him by the Act of Parliament ; for his 
 own sake he ought to go into the case. He has been black - 
 beaned by the imputations cast upon him. The charges 
 which I have been instructed to make, are of the most 
 enormous nature. If they are unfounded, I shall rejoice in 
 being able to recal them. What, then, is the course left to 
 the plaintiff? If he be innocent let him not shun investiga- 
 tion ; let him not seek a shelter in his monition ; let hint 
 come forward and purify himself. Here is a pool of Bethesda 
 ready for him, where he may wash himself from the moral 
 leprosy with which he is incrusted. 
 
 Mr. DONOVAN — I am the agent for Mr. Morgan, and 
 I will not let him consent to go into this case, after the 
 
 Ecclesiastical Court has decided. But I make this offer I 
 
 will go into an account with the defendants whenever they 
 please, and they shall be allowed every deduction and credit 
 to which they are entitled, I offer an amnesty, and a full 
 investigation of the case out of Court. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL — I demand an investigation before a public 
 tribunal. W^hy should Mr. Morgan fear the light? 
 "Z H 3 
 
354 
 
 The CHAIRMAN— The Act of Parliament is peremp- 
 tory—and Mr. Morgan has a legal right to take advantage 
 of the monition. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL — I see, then, this sacerdotal Shy lock must 
 have his pound of flesh. 
 
 Mr. DONOVAN — Mr. Sheil has asked why Mr. Morgan 
 allowed four years to pass before he sued for the tithes 
 
 Mr. SHEIL — I do not want any answer from you. 
 
 Mr. DONOVAN — When the question is put why should 
 ■it not be answered ? 
 
 Mr. SHEIL — Let us have done — the Chairman ha* 
 decided. Mr. Morgan has refused to have the matter inves- 
 tigated. I did not want his Attorney to answer my interro- 
 gatories ; let him be sworn if he desires to become a witness, 
 and to vindicate his client by abandoning his monition. I 
 have made my statement — if it be untrue Mr. Morgan was 
 furnished with the opportunity of refuting it. He shrinks 
 from investigation ; I leave him, then, with his money in his 
 pocket, and all the consequences to his reputation, and to 
 that of his Church, with which his acquisitions will be 
 attended. 
 
MR. SHEIKS 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 IN VINDICATION OF THE 
 
 VIOLENCE OF THE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL said — You are assembled upon an occasion 
 of no ordinary moment ; you meet in order to determine 
 upon the general system which you are hereafter to adopt, 
 and to intimate to your advocates and to your antagonists, the 
 principles upon which your proceedings are intended to be 
 regulated, and the general course which you mean to follow. 
 I do not exaggerate when I say, that whatever little weight 
 may be attached to individuals, and however our opponents 
 may affect to hold, at a cheap rate, the most active of the 
 members of our own body, yet, that the cause itself is of 
 such a magnitude, and upon its progress, so much of the 
 stability of parties depends, that the eyes of the country are 
 directed to our measures, and it is a subject, both amongst 
 our supporters and our opponents, of anxious enquiry, 
 whether, at all hazards, we shall press the discussion of our 
 question in the ensuing Session of Parliament. Although 
 the period for discussion is yet remote, it is of consequence 
 that it should be previously well known how far we are dis- 
 posed in order to accommodate ourselves to the conveniencies 
 of the present Administration, to abstain from all " ignorant 
 impatience " (to use the ministerial phrase ; of our grievances, 
 and to keep our question back, lest it should be a source of 
 molestation to our supporters, and its agitation, by embroil- 
 ing them with their confederates in authority, may ruffle 
 the pillows of office. It is right that the people of Ireland 
 should be apprised (because upon their anticipations much 
 of their zeal and energy must depend) of the course 
 which the managers of their question purpose to take. — 
 A decision upon this point is the more requisite, because a 
 hope has been expressed, that we should refrain from any 
 rude and uncourteous intrusion of our sufferings upon the 
 consideration of the Ministry, and that we should leave the 
 introduction of our cause to the discretion of our friends ia 
 
356 
 
 the Cabinet, in which, as well as in the integrity of their 
 views, and the sincerity of their support, it is said that w r e 
 ought not to entertain any doubt. Nobody will deny who 
 is at all acquainted with the character of the Irish Catholics, 
 that by the suppression of our question, the public feeling 
 will be very considerably modified. In considering the ex- 
 pediency of committing the entire management of the cause 
 to our Parliamentary a.dvocates, the result of the debate in 
 either House of the Legislature is not alone to be taken into 
 account ; we must recollect, besides, that we are acting 
 for a sanguine, an impetuous, ardent and impassioned mul- 
 titude, to whose wishes, and I w T ill add 3 to whose passions 
 something must be conceded, and that, while upon one 
 hand it is of importance to consult the official conveniences 
 of our advocates in power, it is of still greater consequence 
 to keep alive the feeling in this country, which it has cost 
 much labour to call up, and which may subside as rapidly 
 to such a point of depression, that it w ill hereafter be dif- 
 ficult, if it do not become almost impossible, to raise it again 
 to that degree of excitation, which it has now usefully at- 
 tained, but from which, if care be not taken, it may irre- 
 mediably recede. The persons who are most active in the 
 management of our question are often blamed for their ap- 
 parent indifference to the interests of their friends and their 
 recklessness of all circumstance : it is alleged that we push 
 our question into discussion when the passions of the Eng- 
 lish multitude are roused into the most vehement activity 
 against us, and when the cabal, who derive their political 
 existence from opposition to our claims, are enabled, by 
 taking advantage of the prejudices which we contribute to 
 excite, to thwart our advocates in their salutary designs, and 
 deprive them of that power, which, to be usefully, must 
 be slowly, exercised on our behalf — we are told that we 
 should wait until time, that great arbitrator of political diffe- 
 rences, shall have worked a political reconciliation, and that 
 the Minister who is to emancipate us, must be allowed to act 
 upon the tactics of Fabius " cunctando rcstituet rem " I 
 am by no means insensible to the value of these arguments, 
 which are greatly deserving of consideration ; but I am dis- 
 posed to think, that the persons who press upon us are not 
 the best acquainted with the state of public feeling in this 
 country, and that they take but an imperfect and partial 
 view of the case. If the effect which the bringing forward 
 of the Catholic question is to have, were to be confined to 
 the people of England, and I will even add to the House* 
 of Parliament, the reasoning to which I have referred for 
 
357 
 
 the postponement of the discussion would be just. But al- 
 most all Protestants, who are prodigally liberal of their ad~ 
 vice, have fallen into one essential mistake, by entirely 
 overlooking the consequences with which the postponement 
 — I should rather call it — the temporary abandonment of the 
 question, must be attended in Ireland. The plain and sim- 
 ple state of the case is this : — the directors of Catholic poli- 
 tics in Ireland have two things to attend to — namely, the 
 success of the question in Parliament, and also (which our 
 censors entirely overlook) the management of the public 
 mind in Ireland. That we should consult the accommoda- 
 tion of our friends, provided it be not a serious expense of 
 other still more important considerations, I am quite free to 
 admit. But (and I beg to call not only your attention, but 
 that of every liberal Protestant who may happen to disap- 
 prove of what is called the violence of the Catholic Associ- 
 ation to this view of the case,) it should be recollected that 
 we have to take into an account the influence which our pro- 
 ceedings must have upon our own body. A wise General,, 
 who, to accommodate his allies, is advised to delay an en- 
 gagement with the enemy, will consider how far that de- 
 lay will weaken the confidence of his own troops, and 
 may have the effect of dissolving and disbanding those 
 levies, which it was difficult to bring, and it is not easy 
 to keep together. This illustration will present the policy 
 on which we have acted in a proper light, and will shew 
 that where our own measures were apparently rash aud 
 ill-advised, they were dictated by substantially solid con- 
 siderations, which were not present to the minds of those 
 who were disposed to censure us for precipitate folly and 
 presumptuous indiscretion. The Irish Catholics must be 
 attended to as well as the Protestants of England. By 
 consulting the proud prejudices and lofty caprices of the 
 latter, the energies and enthusiasm of the former body may 
 be gradually suspended, and by a system of perpetual sub- 
 serviency to circumstances, the moral power which arises 
 from the ardour and confederacy of an immense and vehe- 
 ment population, may be dissipated and wasted away. Six 
 millions of people cannot be kept bound up in the same sys- 
 tem of confederacy, and animated by the same ardent and 
 unabated solicitude for the attainment of a single great ob- 
 ject, excepting by a perpetual and unremitting appeal to 
 their expectations. Take away hope, lethargy succeeds, 
 and at length indifference and oblivion find their way into 
 the public mind. This will be (it has already been — expe- 
 rience proves it) the consequence of not pressing the Catha- 
 
358 
 
 lie question : that the people, who had fixed their hopes 
 upon the event of the next Session, finding that their rights 
 are not even considered worthy of deliberation, will turn 
 away from the question altogether. The weak and the base 
 will resign themselves to their political degradation, while 
 the more proud and enterprising will look into futurity, and 
 indulge in the anticipation of events, in which they may 
 seek for vengeance as well as for redress. These are not 
 mere idle speculations — the theory itself is sustained by 
 probability, but facts give confirmation to the obvious sug- 
 gestions of reason. The individuals who are disposed to 
 recommend a temporising, and, to use a word which has been 
 much abused, a conciliatory system of policy, would do 
 well to recollect the effects which it produced in Ireland. 
 We are often told that our violence, as it is called, and the 
 eternal obtrusion of our question on the legislature, are 
 equally exasperating and wearisome — that while our vehe- 
 mence produces anger, our reiterated demands generate 
 tedium, and the people of England are alternately irritated 
 by and tired by Catholic Emancipation. This may be true ; 
 but look to the effects which are produced in Ireland by the 
 cessation of Catholic meetings which took place in the year 
 1821. We virtually abandoned the question. Not only 
 was it not debated in Parliament, but in Ireland, there was 
 neither Committee, nor Board, nor Association. The re- 
 sult was, that a total stagnation of public feeling took place, 
 and I do not exaggerate when I say, that the Catholic ques- 
 tion was nearly forgotten — all public meetings had ceased— 
 no angry resolutions issued from public bodies — no exciting 
 speeches appeared in the papers — the monstrous abuses of 
 the Church establishment — the frightful evils of political 
 monopoly — the hideous anomaly in the whole structure of 
 our civil institutions — the unnatural ascendancy of a hand- 
 ful of men over an immense and powerful population — all 
 these, and the other just and legitimate causes of public ex- 
 asperation, were gradually dropping out of the national 
 memory. The country was then in a state of comparative 
 repose, put it was a degrading and unwholesome tranquillity. 
 We sat down like galley slaves in a calm, A general stag- 
 nation diffused itself over the national feelings. The pub- 
 lic pulse had stopped — the circulation of all generous 
 sentiment had been arrested, and the country was 
 palsied to the heart. At this period the Roman Catho- 
 lics were peculiarly moderate, to use the phrase — habi- 
 tually employed by Catholic candidates for admission 
 into such Societies as Kildare-street Club-house, who 
 
359 
 
 befoul their own cause, and reviling their party, vainly 
 hope to overcome, by their political baseness and subser- 
 viency, the objections to their exceedingly ungentlemanlike 
 religion. I think it will be conceded to me, that it would 
 have been difficult for the Catholics to have been more mo- 
 derate. It would be hard to conjecture a condition of more 
 complete and unqualified debasement. The " beau ideal " 
 of political turpitude was realised, and in the full stretch of 
 his imagination, Mr. Peel could scarcely have conceived us 
 to be more degraded. The experiment of " moderation," 
 which is only another expression for contented thraldom, 
 was fully tried — and what was the result ? It was two-fold, 
 The question receded in England, and fell back from the 
 general notice. There it was utterly forgotten, while in 
 Ireland, the spirit and energy of the people underwent an 
 utter relaxation, and the most vigorous efforts became neces- 
 sary to repair all the moral deterioration which the whole 
 body of the Irish Catholics had sustained. It was at length 
 decided by those, who, whatever may be their imprudence, 
 have never shewn any want of due zeal in this great cause, 
 that some exertion should be made. I shall give you a 
 proof of the low ebb to which political feeling had fallen. 
 Mr. O Connell and myself took upon ourselves to write cir- 
 cular notes, which we jointly signed, to the leading Roman 
 Catholics, entreating them to assemble together, in order to 
 devise some means of raising the question from its low con- 
 dition. These notes were treated, by the] majority of per- 
 sons to whom they were addressed with indifference, and it 
 was w T ith great difficulty that a few individuals of any res- 
 pectability were collected together. The foundations of the 
 Catholic Association were then laid, and it must be confess- 
 ed, that its first meetings afforded few indications of the im- 
 portance and magnitude to which that institution was sub- 
 sequently raised. The attendance was so thin, and the pub- 
 lic appeared so insensible to the procedings, that any men, ex- 
 cept those who were determined not to be deterred by any 
 obstacles, would have abandoned the enterprise in despair. 
 The Association, in its origin, was treated with contempt, 
 not only by the adversaries of Emancipation, but Catholics 
 themselves spoke of it with derision, and, if I may so sav, 
 spurned at the walls of mud which their brethren had ra- 
 pidly constructed, but which were afterwards to ascend into 
 a more imposing and lofty fabric. Still we persevered, and 
 at length the great body of the Roman Catholics were 
 awakened from their torpor. The national lethargy was 
 shaken off, and a considerable and gradually increasing in- 
 
360 
 
 terest was felt in our discussions. The speeches delivered 
 in the Association were read, and whatever might have been 
 their defects in style, and however widely they might have 
 departed from the rules of pure and simple oratory, still 
 they contained a powerful appeal to the feelings of the peo- 
 ple—their degrading condition was presented in its just 
 light. They were called upon to look upon their own shame, 
 and were made to blush at the turpitude of their condition. 
 Truths of a most painful and exasperating kind were told. 
 The Catholic aristocrat was made to feel that his ancient 
 blood, which slavery had made stagnant in his veins, was 
 of no avail — the Catholic merchant was taught, that his cof- 
 fers filled with gold could not impart to him any substan- 
 tial importance, when every needy Corporator looked down 
 upon him from the pedestal of his arristocratic religion — 
 the Catholic priest was informed that he had much 
 occasion to put the lessons of humility inculcated by 
 the gospel, into practice, when every coxcomb minister 
 of the establishment could, with impunity, put some 
 sacerdotal affront upon him. The very humblest pea- 
 sant in the land was desired to look at his Protestant 
 neighbour, and compare his condition with his own. In 
 short, from the proudest nobleman down to the meanest serf, 
 the whole body of Roman Catholics were rendered sensible 
 of their inferior posture in the State. The stigma was 
 pointed at — men became exasperated at their grievances, 
 when they were roused to their perception— a mirror was 
 held up to Ireland to shew her her own degraded image, 
 and when she beheld the brand upon her forehead, it bega:: 
 to burn. In a little time a great movement was produced 
 through the country— the meetings of the Association 
 became crowded — individuals of all classes gradually joined 
 it, and insensibly its attraction became stronger every day, 
 till it grew into one great national incorporation. The 
 Catholic Rent was introduced by Mr. O'Connell, and 
 established in almost every parish in the country. This 
 was a new bond of affiliation. Every contributor considered 
 himself as linked with the institution which he aided to 
 support, and it may be said, that at length six or seven milli- 
 ons of Roman Catholics were engaged in one vast and powerful 
 confederacy. And here let me for a moment pause, and 
 ask, whether reviled and vilified as the Catholic demagogues 
 have been, they still did not accomplish great things, when 
 they thus succeeded in marshalling, and bringing the whole 
 population of the country into array. Compare the state of 
 the Roman Catholics in the year 1821 with their condition 
 
361 
 
 in the year 1825, and say at which of those periods was 
 their attitude most imposing and imperative ? Nor were 
 the effects of the Association confined to this country. The 
 English people had previously been taught to hold us in 
 their contempt : but when they saw that such an immense 
 population was actuated by one indignant sentiment, and 
 was combined in an impassioned, but not the less effectual, 
 organization, and above all, when they perceived one thou- 
 sand pounds a week pouring into our exchequer, their 
 alarm was excited, and although their pride was wounded, 
 they ceased to despise where they had begun to fear. At 
 last the Legislature were called upon to interfere, and all 
 the power of the Ministry was exerted in order to crush the 
 body, which owed its very existence to the grievances 
 which they had refused to redress. At that period an 
 opportunity was, perhaps, afforded to carry the Catholic 
 Question. If the friends of Emancipation who voted with 
 the Ministers had said, that relief to Ireland should be the 
 preliminary condition to their support, the great measure 
 would, in all probability, have been carried. But unhappily 
 the suppressing bill was allowed to pass; nothing was done for 
 Ireland, while the Association was attempted to be extin- 
 guished by an Act of Parliament, which has, thanks to the 
 excited spirit of the country, been found of no effect. The 
 Catholic Question came on almost immediately after the 
 vote for the suppression of the Association had passed. At 
 that time the mind of Ireland was in a glow, and that of 
 England was almost equally excited. The result of the 
 discussion in the House of Commons affords a tolerably just 
 test of the general prudence of discussion. It was said on 
 the eve of the debate, that the virulence of the Catholics 
 had exasperated the House of Commons to such a degree, 
 that there was no chance of the measure being carried. In 
 this feeling even our best and most undoubted friends parti- 
 cipated. On the very day on which Sir Francis Burdett 
 brought the measure forward, (the incident is deserving of 
 mention) he came, attended with several eminent persons, 
 to a meeting of the Deputies, and informed us that it was 
 considered exceedingly hazardous to bring on the measure. 
 We remonstrated, and pressed for a discussion. Sir Francis 
 Burdett and his distinguished companions retired, stating 
 that they would return to a meeting of our friends, from 
 which they had come, and let us know their determination, 
 and shortly after it was announced that Mr. Tierney had 
 given his decided opinion in favour of a discussion, and that 
 the present Master of the Mint had overcome every objec- 
 2 I 
 
S6 C 2 
 
 tion. The question was accordingly brought forward and 
 carried in the Commons. The virulence of the Association 
 was urged as the leading argument,, but it was of no avail. 
 On the contrary, I am convinced that the Irish people 
 never assumed so imposing an attitude. The measure was 
 afterwards lost in the Lords, but no candid person will 
 attribute that loss to the Catholic Association. Its rejection 
 was not put upon any such ground. But was the spirit of 
 Ireland subdued or dismayed by that rejection ? Certainly 
 not ; and as the best evidence of it, I may appeal to an 
 event in the history of the country, which will not be readily 
 forgotten, and from which very important issues may yet be 
 expected to follow— I mean the political insurrection of the 
 forty-shilling freeholders, which took place immediately 
 after the failure of our question. It will be asked, perhaps, 
 why I refer to an incident, which, in its origin, did not 
 redound much to the credit of the Catholic Deputies. I 
 admit that in offering to sacrifice the forty- shilling free- 
 holders, a mistake — a serious, but innocent, mistake was 
 made. But while I am thus frank, let me be allowed to 
 add, that we, who are blamed for an apparent readiness to 
 make this sacrifice, did not know the quantity of public 
 virtue which was to be found in rags, and that the demon- 
 strations of humble heroism which attended the last election, 
 resulted from the moral preparation which the minds of the 
 peasantry had undergone, and which the Catholic Associ- 
 ation had effected. We may be blamed for having ten- 
 dered the franchises of the people, as the considera- 
 tion for the national equalization, but let it not be for- 
 gotten, that if we were in fault in this particular, we 
 had ourselves previously awakened the lower orders to that 
 sense of their duties and of their importance, which was 
 afterwards displayed. I have no hesitation in stating, that 
 but for the Catholic Association the forty- shilling freeholders 
 would never have rebelled against their proprietors. — 
 The wonders which were achieved in Waterford, in Armagh, 
 in Monaghan, and in Louth, may be referred to that system 
 of energy which we had previously adopted : and, with the 
 blessing of God, and the aid of that spirit which will never, 
 I trust, die away in our hearts, in that system of energy we 
 will persevere. The fruits which it has already produced 
 have been signal, and still more important consequences 
 may yet be expected to follow. Therefore, I, for one, or I 
 should rather say, for the thousands who sympathise with 
 me, do declare, that never, under no circumstances — tempted 
 by no inducements — deterred by no fears — allured by no 
 
36'3 
 
 expectations, beguiled by no promises, will we ever consent 
 to allow a single Session to pass without pressing for a dis- 
 cussion in Parliament. I do candidly own, that the 
 very irritation produced by the rejection of our claims, and 
 the exasperation of the people are amongst the most power- 
 ful inducements to urge the question on. I am for that 
 system which will shew the Ministers that they never can 
 expect to tranquillize Ireland, except by conceding our 
 claims ; I am for that system which will render our question 
 a thorn in the sides of Government, and I w T ould drive that 
 thorn in as deeply, and make it fester and rankle as poig- 
 nantly as I am able. It is upon this principle, and because 
 everlasting discussion forms a part of that system, that I 
 suggest the propriety of having it known that we are deter- 
 mined not to suffer the Ministers to slumber in their places, 
 and that we will not yield up our liberties to their accommo- 
 dation. Let us not be told that we should not disturb them 
 in their repose, nor knock at the gates of the Legislature, 
 lest we should awake them from the tranquillity of office, 
 and rouse them from the golden dreams of power. We are 
 not, after all, like the captives of Calcutta, who were allowed 
 to perish rather than that the Rajah should be awakened 
 from his sleep. Let not the Ministers expect to slumber on 
 undisturbed by the wrongs, and unaroused by the cries of 
 Ireland. Ireland shall thunder at, though she may not be 
 able to break open their doors, till the Ministers shall them- 
 selves exclaim, "wake, England, with this knocking." I 
 have, Sir, stated my reasons for pressing a discussion, as 
 part of that system on which I conceive that we should 
 uniformly act. We must keep perpetually in view the 
 necessity of adapting ourselves to the passions of the Irish, 
 as well as of soothing the prejudices of the English people. 
 This never should be lost sight of, and those who are most 
 inclined to censure our conduct, and are sometimes at a loss 
 to account for our " violence/' as it is called, will find in 
 this simple remark, the obvious clue to our policy. What- 
 ever we do, men will always be found to cavil at our pro- 
 ceedings, and this being the inevitable consequence of 
 whatever course we adopt, I prefer the bold and manly 
 system to the base and servile, which will equally supply 
 arguments against our cause. This view of our condition, 
 and the principles on which we should act, is well put by 
 Edmund Burke in a letter to Dr. Lawrence, recently pub- 
 lished by the Archbishop of Cashel. Edmund Burke says— 
 " In the Parliament of Great Britain Lord Grenville turned 
 the loyalty of the Catholics against themselves. He argued 
 2 I 2 
 
364 
 
 from the zeal and loyalty they manifested — their want of a 
 sense of any grievance. If the people are turbulent and 
 riotous, nothing is to be done for them on account of their 
 evil dispositions. If they are obedient and loyal, nothing is 
 to be done for them, because their being quiet and contented 
 is a proof that they feel no grievance/' When we are 
 thus exposed to have either our servility or our irritation 
 turned equally against us, and as our continued degradation is 
 to be the premium of our loyalty, it becomes every man to 
 make an election between the two evils, and for my own 
 part I do not hesitate in making a choice of the alternative. 
 If I am to be treated like a dog, I had rather be chained up 
 as a furious hound, than beaten like a well-bred spaniel, and 
 repaid with blows for my sycophancy and fawning. But 
 independently of the superior manliness of taking a bold and 
 determined course, and of calling the attention of the whole 
 empire, and I may add of the world, to the oppression of the 
 Irish Catholics, which is so disgraceful to the English 
 nation, and makes all Europe cry out " shame/' the more 
 honourable is also, I have no doubt, the wisest course. No- 
 thing but the permanent exigency of concession will produce 
 it. It is for us to generate that exigency. How is that to 
 be effected ? By rousing, consolidating, and organising the 
 energies of the people. Let me not be misunderstood. I 
 am not sufficiently absurd to speak of physical force. By 
 organization I mean no more than a moral confederacy, and 
 a system of combined and simultaneous action in regulating 
 all the movements of our own body. Much has been 
 already done. But much more may still be done. We 
 have admirable materials in our hands. In every parish in 
 Ireland, there is a parish-priest and a curate. The Clergy 
 of Ireland constitute a sort of intellectual aristocracy, and 
 supply the place of an aristocracy of rank or wealth, in 
 which we are deficient. I shall take an early opportunity 
 of carrying into effect, a project which I before suggested, 
 of establishing a communication between a central Com- 
 mittee of correspondence and every parish in Ireland. Thus 
 simultaneous meetings through the whole country may be 
 produced. There are difficulties in the way, but difficulties 
 vanish before the spirit of genuine enterprise. A great 
 exertion ought to be, and, with the blessing of God, shall be 
 made. The whole population of Ireland shall be aroused ; 
 a fiercer ardour for liberty than ever yet was raised, shall be 
 called up, and the tables of the Legislature shall groan 
 beneath the burden of petitions that shall be accumulated 
 itnon them. Let our English legislators learn what they 
 
365 
 
 have to expect from the refusal of all justice to our country, 
 ft cannot be too often and too powerfully impressed upon 
 them. And as the number of our petitions should corres- 
 pond with the vastness of the population which is affected 
 by our grievances, so should their spirit be in union with 
 the feelings by which we are actuated. Let there be no 
 prostration, no debasement, in the sentiments which those 
 petitions shall breathe ; let us demand our equalization as a 
 right, indefeasible and immutable, and show that when we 
 ask for liberty, we are animated by the emotions of men 
 who are deserving of freedom. There are many — aye, and 
 in our own body — who tell us that we should approach the 
 Legislature in a base and servile attitude, as if Ireland 
 should be fearful lest the reiteration of her complaints should 
 weary the Honourable House, and she should preface her 
 supplications with an apology for her intrusion, and exclaim, 
 " I hope I don't intrude." Let me not be told of the pride 
 of the English people. If they are proud they will even- 
 tually respect us the more for adopting a little of their own 
 character and demeanor. The tone, and the attitude of 
 Ireland should correspond with her increasing importance 
 and power. She should stand at the Bar of the Legislature 
 erect and independent, and stretching forth her vigorous and 
 gigantic arm, (upon w T hich a chain should no longer be 
 worn,) she should remind her oppressors of the infraction of 
 treaties, of the breach of contracts, of the violation of all 
 right, of the outrage upon all honour ; and having demon- 
 strated her injuries — having disclosed all her wrongs — 
 having torn open her bosom, if I may so say, and shewn the 
 hideous cancer of faction eating her to the heart, and cor- 
 roding the life and substance of her being, she should tell 
 them that she will be eventually as strong as she is miserable, 
 and exclaim, " Do me justice — rescue me from wretched- 
 ness, and from distraction — give me back my liberty — raise 
 me to the place I should maintain in the empire — give me 
 back my spoliated rights — restore me to my violated fran- 
 chises — give me back my liberty, or I pause upon the 
 
 brink of the alternative to which I had hurried, and, reced- 
 ing from it, leave it to } t ou to complete the sentence. I have 
 forborn from entering into any speculation on the probable 
 result of a discussion in the ensuing Session of Parliament, be- 
 cause, whatever may be our calculations as to that result, we 
 should persevere in the system of petition. Perhaps my 
 temperament is naturally over sanguine, but I own I am 
 not disposed to despond in my anticipation of the fortunes of 
 my country. The majority of the present Ministry are 
 21 S 
 
366 
 
 favourable to Ireland, and it is idle to suppose that our 
 petition can put them out of office, when we recollect 
 that there are no persons to supply their places. The 
 opposition is now reduced to a felicitous triumvirate — to 
 Sir Thomas Lethbridge, Mr. Peel, and his favourite Pren- 
 tice Boy, Mr. Dawson, and even upon their permanent 
 support, the Orange faction cannot place any very strong re- 
 liance ; for Sir Thomas Lethbridge is going upon his tra- 
 vels, and it is to be hoped, will touch at the island of Anty- 
 cira :— Mr. Peel, it is believed, having discovered the Royal 
 disrelish for what the King is reported to have designated 
 as " his genteel vulgarity," has determined to spin the re- 
 mainder of his days in domestic oblivion of the solicitudes of 
 political life — and with respect to the Right Hon. George 
 Dawson, the friends of Emancipation apprehend that the 
 cause will speedily lose the benefit of his opposition, and 
 that in some foggy morning in the suicidal month of No- 
 vember, the Hon. Gentleman will be discoverd in the ditch- 
 water of the modern Numantia ; for it is reported, that he 
 has been lately seen wandering along the Moat of the city 
 of Londonderry, with a hasty step and agitated demeanour, 
 and it is conjectured, that its dyke, covered with Orange 
 ooze, (the appropriate emblem of his mind,) may serve 
 him a good turn, by assisting his heroic enterprise 
 against himself. From such an opposition little is to be ap- 
 prehended, and therefore no argument can be drawn from 
 any danger to which the Ministers may be exposed. — - 
 With respect to the present Ministry, they remain to be 
 tried. As yet nothing has been done to induce us to look 
 upon them with distrust ; and although at first view, the 
 appointment of Lord Anglesea, who drew an unhappily 
 figurative phrase from his profession, seems ill-omened, 
 yet, there is reason to think, that his Lordship, whose 
 friends said that he spoke in a " civil sense," has no notion 
 of dragooning us into violence, or cutting us down into sub- 
 mission. His Lordship only used the rhetorical sabre — the 
 tcelum oratoris, as it is called ; and in justice we ought to 
 weigh all his former votes against the ebullition of English 
 pride into which, what he called, our violence had betrayed 
 him. Lord Anglesea is said to be an intelligent and an am- 
 bitious man, and his good sense should teach him, that an 
 honourable ambition would be best gratified by his being a 
 means of effectually tranquillising, by appeasing, the discon- 
 tents of Ireland. Nor can I think that Lord Lansdowne 
 would retain the Home Department, if an Orange Lord 
 Lieutenant were to succeed a Nobleman, whose power to 
 
367 
 
 o serve us did not correspond with his inclination. Sur- 
 veying the whole frame and constitution of the Ministry, I 
 iwn that I am disposed to place confidence in them ; and 
 lthough I recollect the difference between men in and out 
 f office — between 
 
 " Patriots, bursting with heroic rage 
 And Placemen all tranquillity and smiles/' 
 
 Still I cannot bring myself to think that the Whigs, who 
 vere so long our true and faithful advocates, w T ill yield to the 
 emptations of " tickling commodity/' and ever substanti- 
 al} 7 desert us. Suspicion is a bad and mean passion, and 
 intil I see strong reason to distrust them, I shall put a reli- 
 nce in the majority of the cabinet, who profess themselves 
 
 be our supporters. But let me tell you, in whom I place 
 
 1 far deeper and stronger trust. I trust, it is true, in Lord 
 ^andsdowne, I trust in Mr. Tierney, I trust in Lord Gode- 
 ich, and more than in Lord Goderich, and more than in 
 dr. Tierney, and more than in even Lord Lansdowne, and 
 tiore than in the whole array of ancient Whigs and new- 
 angled Tories, I put my trust in the firmness, the union,, 
 he consolidation, the unconquerable energy, the un quench- 
 .ble spirit, and the indomable determination of seven mil- 
 ions of the Irish people. 
 
MR. SHEXL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 ON 
 
 THE HOLDING OF 
 SIMULTANEOUS MEETINGS. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL said — The Catholics of Ireland — in other words,> 
 seven millions of the inhabitants of this country, have beem 
 called on to assemble— a summons has been issued to thet 
 Irish people, to gather in simultaneous conventions. They\ 
 have been enjoined to meet in the temples of their ancient ! 
 creed at the same moment. The Priest will appear in his: 
 stole — he will ascend the steps of the altar — he will offer thet 
 holy and mysterious sacrifice, and lift up the chalice with' 
 his consecrated hands to heaven. His fellow-believers will ! 
 bow down in the performance of that solemn and venerable ( 
 rite, and when the divine oblation shall have been conclud- 
 ed, the Minister of a worship endeared by long suffering 
 for its sake to the people, will turn round and say, " I am 
 a citizen as well as a priest, and in my double character, 
 and in the name of your country and of your God, I call on 
 you to seek redress for the wrongs of the one, and to relieve 
 from shame the religion of the other/' This language, a Ian- 
 guage like this, uttered at the same instant from every altar ini 
 this country, will achieve much. I am not in the habit of mak- 
 ing any vaunt of what I have done in this great cause. — but I 
 I own that I cannot suppress an emotion of pride at having 
 been the first to suggest a project which is not the least easy, 
 because it is bold, and to which I look as the principal means 
 of accomplishingthe equalization of all classes of the Irish peo- 
 ple, and through that equalization, the lasting peace, and the 
 tranquillity of the country. When once the Cabinet behold the 
 whole population completely organised and arrayed, they 
 will not be deaf to our requisition for redress. Confiding 
 not only in the justice, but in what is far better than the 
 
369 
 
 justice of our cause, and putting, as I do, my best, almost 
 my only trust in the power and the union, and consolidation 
 of the great community to which I belong, I shall sav 
 more : — No wise minister will dare to withhold what seven 
 millions demand, not only with an impassioned ardour and a 
 vehement adjuration, but what is far more important — what 
 they demand together, and call for in the name of justice 
 at once. Lord Bacon, whose imagination was the lamp by 
 which he threw light on his deep and vast meditations, says 
 u that the people are like Briareus, because he was the 
 giant of a hundred hands/' Hitherto the Irish people 
 raised up their arms irregularly and by starts — let them put 
 forth all their power in one simultaneous supplication — let 
 Briareus even upon his knees (for I would not allow Bria- 
 reus to get up) lift up his hundred hands together, and the 
 gigantic Petitioner will not be disregarded. " Do you mean 
 to threaten us ? " some Protestant, bloated and big with the 
 consciousness of his ascendancy, will, perhaps, exclaim- 
 No. But I entreat him to peruse a recent treatise of the 
 Under-Secretary of State, and he will find in the simulta- 
 neous meetings of seven millions of the Irish people, the 
 best practical commentary upon Mr. Spring Rice's patriotic 
 and impassioned lucubrations. What did the Under-Secre- 
 tary of State declare ? That which I dare not utter, but 
 which, in his official whispers with my LordLansdowne, Mr. 
 Spring Rice will not fear to intimate. Yet, to a certain ex- 
 tent I will speak out, and ask whether, if seven millions of 
 the Irish people are thus marshalled, it be possible that their 
 rights should long be kept back ? Who will be sufficiently 
 rash to answer in the affirmative ? Is it wise — is it — aye 
 — that is the word — is it safe to continue the system by 
 which such results are generated ? Was such a state of 
 things ever yet heard of? Has it a parallel in the history 
 of the world ? Is there an instance of any Government, ex- 
 cept that of England, thus arraying and disciplining the 
 people into alienation from the State, by a mad perse- 
 verance in a course which irritates the feelings, stimu- 
 lates the passions, and exasperates the indignation of seven 
 millions of its subjects ? W T hat but a diseased and deeply- 
 disordered state of things could thus raise the whole popu- 
 lation of the country into this orderly and pacific leve en 
 masse, and bring them into phalanx ? I may be asked, " if 
 you consider this mighty gathering an evil, why do you co- 
 operate in its production ?" My reply is this : — The gather- 
 ing is not the evil ; in the law, which thus organizes the peo- 
 ple, lies the essence and source of calamity. The assembling 
 
370 
 
 of the people is but the evidence of the condition of the 
 country, and I would not deny the Government the benefit 
 of that great phenomenon. If the people can thus meet to 
 petition — if they are so systematically organised, that at a 
 signal of peace (for we use no other) they immediately fall 
 into their ranks, and present an almost infinite array of sup- 
 plicants, what are we to expect if we What shall I 
 
 say ? If ever the prognostications of the Under- 
 
 Secretary of State shall be unhappily converted from specu- 
 lation to reality, and shall pass from possibility into fact. The 
 simultaneous meetings do not produce the evil ; they only 
 serve to illustrate and place it in a conspicuous and pow- 
 erful light ; they throw a glare upon the Penal Code. — 
 These suggestions are meant for our opponents, in order 
 that they may dispel the mist and obscurity which impede 
 their intellectual vision, and prevent them from perceiving 
 the brink on which they tread. I would shake, and some- 
 what rudely rouse these Somnambulists, who dream upon 
 a precipice, on whose verge they take their walks of 
 visionary security. But I have another task to perform. If 
 what is uttered in this room did not reach beyond it, I 
 should not waste my labour in thriftless declamation here. 
 But that which is spoken in this assembly is heard at a 
 great distance. The press is a speaking-trumpet — and every 
 word I utter is carried through that great vehicle of the 
 mind, to the remotest extremities of Ireland. I feel that 
 every syllable that I articulate will be heard, not only by the 
 hundreds within these walls, but by the millions without 
 them. The press, I repeat it, is the trumpet, into which I 
 put my spirit. I feel as if I stood upon some great eminence, 
 and from that elevation addressed myself to congregated 
 millions. To them, and not to you, I speak and say, 
 
 * ( Slaves slaves, you are seven millions — know your 
 
 own strength — appreciate your power — it is no longer fitting 
 that a handful of men should lord it over you. Meet on the 
 same day — at the same moment — meet loyally, legally and 
 constitutionally — but meet — assemble round your altars and 
 your priests —let the rites of your Church be celebrated — 
 let the chalice ascend and the cross be lifted up, and then 
 raise your voices for liberty together. Raise such a call for 
 freedom, as shall travel through every department of the 
 State. Let the representatives of the people hearken to that 
 burst of anguish from the peoples' hearts — let it reach into 
 the lofty halls of the titled senate, and amidst the luxurious 
 recesses of the kingly palace. Let it not be unheard. Let a 
 shout go foi*th for freedom, at which England shall start — to 
 
371 
 
 which France shall not be deaf— at which prince* shall be 
 amazed,, and cabinets shall stand appalled. Call for free- 
 dom, and call for it as your right — call for it in the name 
 of reason — call for it in the name of justice — call for it in 
 the name of expediency— call for it in the name of safety — 
 call for it legally but determinedly — and above all — let 
 seven millions call for it together. 
 
MR. SHELL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 AT 
 
 AN AGGREGATE MEETING, 
 
 HELD IN 
 
 CLONMEL, DURING THE ASSIZES, 
 
 THE Assizes for this county exhibit a deplorable specta- 
 cle of misery, fierceness, insubordination, turbulence, and 
 guilt. This alarming state of things may be connected, to a 
 certain extent, with local causes ; but, in my judgment, it is 
 also the result of the moral and political condition of the 
 people, and may be traced to the operation of laws, which 
 cannot have failed to produce an influence upon the charac- 
 ter, the feelings, and general disposition of the whole com- 
 munity. The Penal Code appears to me to afford an ade- 
 quate cause for all the mischief that prevails — the distrust 
 and alienation created between the higher and lower classes 
 by laws, which foster religious acrimony, are the mainspring 
 and fountain-head from which the public calamities flow. — 
 In Great Britain, the different departments of the commu- 
 nity are not divided by any immediate and palpable line of 
 separation — the boundary between the different degrees of 
 society is scarcely perceptible — all ranks are connected by 
 regular and successive gradations, and are chained by a 
 series of small and uninterrupted links. The whole body of 
 the people have a common interest in maintaining the law by 
 which they are equally protected ; but, in Ireland, the po- 
 pulation is divided into two distinct parts, by a barrier erect- 
 ed by the Legislature, which keeps them at a distance from 
 each other. The Catholic is separated from the Protestant, 
 not by his religion (because they live in other countries in 
 perfect harmony) but by the law, which renders religion 
 the standard of superiority. Thus the Penal Code becomes 
 a hot-bed of bad passion — an interruption of sympathy is 
 
373 
 
 produced by this artificial separation, and having no partici- 
 pation of feeling, both parties have become accustomed to 
 consider their essential interests as distinct. The gentry, who 
 are in a great measure composed of the professors of the pri- 
 vileged religion, have no influence over the mass of the popu- 
 lation., from which they are kept asunder by the law. — : 
 Thus a sentiment amounting to hostility, which is rendered 
 more or less active by local circumstances, is generated be- 
 tween the proprietors of the soil and their dependants, and 
 the people feeling themselves disqualified and degraded by 
 the code, which sets a mark of disgrace upon them, instead 
 of resorting to it for protection, are thrown into confedera- 
 cies and associations founded on a mistaken principle of self- 
 defence. The law first makes a caste, and that caste re- 
 solves itself into multiform combinations : an universal ten- 
 dency to organization is produced, and as the lower orders 
 are uncontrouled by the influence of education, their tur- 
 bulent passions acquire additional ferocit)' when brought in- 
 to confederacy, and lead to the perpetration of the most 
 atrocious crimes, of which they are themselves the ulti- 
 mate victims. If a better understanding existed between 
 the people and their superiors, I concive that a useful moral 
 intercourse would be established, the legitimate influence 
 which the gentry ought to possess would be restored, the 
 associations of guilt which justice has not been able to 
 break up would be dissolved, and habits of peace and sub- 
 ordination would gradually grow up. ' But how is it possi- 
 ble that any good understanding can exist between the two 
 classes of which I have been speaking, while kept apart by 
 the impolitic and exasperating distinctions created by the 
 legislature ? I feel the greater confidence iu the justice of 
 these views, because experience has proved the inefficacy of 
 the measures to which Government has successively resorted. 
 Special commissions, insurrection sets, constabulary troops, 
 have failed to subdue the people into civilization. The Go- 
 vernment (to use Mr. Plunkett's phrase) has not been able 
 to inflict peace upon the people. Measures of severity may 
 have had the effect of checking the moral disorder, or rather 
 of throwing back its symptoms for a time ; but the result 
 has afforded abundant evidence that the source of the mala- 
 dy was so deeply rooted as to be incapable of cure by local 
 and superficial applications. The venom, if I may say so, 
 has been absorbed into the constitution, and cannot be ex- 
 pelled except by changing the whole action of the political 
 frame. I think it must be admitted, that after the failure of 
 every other experiment for the pacification of Ireland, it is 
 2 K 
 
374 
 
 at least worth while to try the only means to which the 
 legislature has not yet resorted, and which many wise and 
 good men have pronounced to be the only means by 
 which peace and good will can be established. If Ca- 
 tholic Emancipation were substituted for the harsh and 
 inefficacious measures which our opponents recommend, a 
 general reconciliation between all classes would be produced 
 —mutual confidence would be created, and an interchange 
 of cordial feeling would take place — the obstacles to educa- 
 tion which arise from political causes would be romoved — 
 the habits of the higher orders would be insensibly commu- 
 nicated to their inferiors — a reliance in the law would be 
 diffused — the people would be tanght respect and gratitude 
 to their superiors — and the latter would grow anxious to 
 cherish and protect them. These views and opinions I have 
 endeavoured to embody in a petition to the legislature, which 
 under the existing circumstances of this county, I think it 
 judicious that you should submit to their consideration. 
 Having said thus much with regard to what I believe (how- 
 ever I may be mistaken) to be the source of the evils by 
 which we are afflicted, I consider it my duty to address to 
 this immense assembly, composed of several thousands, and 
 comprehending a vast body of the peasantry, some well- 
 meant advice. You know me to be an active, and I may 
 add, an honest member of your community ; and you are 
 well aware that in the course which I have adopted, I have 
 not displayed a mean and pusillanimous spirit, but am as 
 deeply sensible as any man of the wrongs which are inflicted 
 upon my country. What I shall say, therefore, in the shape 
 strong reproof, will, I hope, be taken in good part. I tell 
 you plainly and undisguisedly, that although I consider the 
 government to have adopted unavailing and inapplicable 
 means for the restoration of tranquility, yet that 1 look upon 
 the crimes committed amongst you, not only as destitute of 
 any (even the least) palliation, but as amongst the most 
 disgraceful — (but that is a feeble word) — 1 should say, 
 the most deserving of execration that stand in the annals 
 of atrocity. What have I not witnessed in the course 
 of the few days which the Assizes have occupied ! The 
 recollection of what I have seen and heard before the 
 public tribunals, is enough to make the blood cold, and to 
 suspend the heart in its beatings. Well might the excellent 
 judge, who is not only a profound lawyer, but a good and 
 tender-hearted man ; well might he say, with tears in his 
 eyes, that he had not, in the course of his judicial experi- 
 
875 
 
 ence, beheld so frightful a mass of enormities as the calen- 
 dar displayed. What a deep a stain have those terrible deeds 
 left upon the character of your country — and what efforts 
 should be made by every man who has a touch of humanity 
 in his bosom, and one drop of kindness in his nature, to ar- 
 rest the progress of villainy which is rolling in a torrent of 
 blood, and bearing down all the restraints of law, morality,, 
 and religion before it. Look, for example, at the murder of 
 the Sheas — look at the midnight conflagration of eighteen 
 of your fellow-creatures, and tell me, if there be any thing in 
 the records of horror by which that accursed deed has been 
 excelled ! Not only seventeen human beings, most of whom 
 had never offended the perpetrators of their death, were 
 sacrificed in that night which stands without a parallel — but 
 the unborn child — the little infant who had never lifted its 
 innocent hands, or breathed the air of life — the little child 
 in its mother's womb ******** I do not 
 wonder that the tears which flow down the cheeks of many a 
 rude face about me, should bear attestation to your horror of 
 that detestable atrocity. But I am wrong in saying that the 
 child who perished in the flames was not born. It was born in 
 fire ! — sent into the world in the midst of a furnace ! — trans- 
 ferred from the womb to the flames, kindled by fiends, who 
 exulted around them! There are mothers who hear me; 
 —this vast assembly contains women doomed by the 
 primeval malediction to the agonies of child-birth. 
 Stretched on a bed of down, woman groans upon the rack 
 on which she is laid by nature ; but what must have 
 been the pains of that delivery in which a mother felt 
 the infant that was clasped against her bosom, consumed 
 by the fires with which she was surrounded ! I should not 
 withhold from you an incident illustrative of maternal ten- 
 derness, which adds to the horror of this abominable crime. 
 The mother of the new-born child was found dead near a 
 tub of water, in which she had placed her infant to save it, 
 and the child was discovered with its skull burned off, and 
 the rest of the limbs preserved by the water in which the 
 expiring parent had striven in the united pains of death 
 and child-birth to preserve it. What shall we say of this ! 
 In what language shall we express the feelings which this 
 appalling deed sends into the heart ! — with what exclamation 
 shall we give vent to the emotions which are awakened by 
 the recital of that which you tremble to hear, and which 
 there were human beings found who were not afraid to do ! 
 We can but lift up our hands to the God of justice, and ask 
 2 K 2 
 
376 
 
 him why he has invested us with the same forms as the 
 demons who did that unexampled murder. And wiry 
 did they commit it ? By virtue of a horrible league by 
 which they were bound together, not only against their 
 enemy, but against human nature and the God who made 
 it ! — for they were bound together — they were sworn in 
 the name of their Creator, and they invoked Heaven to 
 sanctify a deed which they were confederated to perpetrate 
 by a sacrament of hell. Although accompanied by circum- 
 stances of inferior terror, the recent assassination of Barry 
 belongs to the same class of guilt. A body of men, at the 
 close of day., enter a peaceful habitation, on the Sabbath, 
 and, regardless of the cry of a frantic woman, who, grasping 
 one of the murderers, desired him € ' to think of God, and 
 of the blessed night, and to spare the father of her eight 
 children/' dragged him forth, and when he "offered to 
 give up the ground tilled and untilled, if they spared him 
 his life/' answered with a yell of ferocious irony, and 
 telling him, ec he should have ground enough/' plunged 
 their bayonets into his heart ! God may have mercy on 
 those who did the deed, but man cannot ! An awful spec- 
 tacle was presented on the trial of the wretched indivi- 
 duals who were convicted of the assassination. At one 
 extremity of the bar there stood a boy, with a blooming- 
 face, and with down on his cheek, and at the other an 
 old man, in the close of life, with a haggard look, and a 
 deeply furrowed countenance, and with his head covered 
 with hoary and dishevelled hair. However remote the 
 periods of their birth, they met not, indeed, in the same 
 grave, (for they are without a tomb,) but on the same scaf- 
 fold together. In describing the frightful scene, it is con- 
 soling to find that you share with me in the unqualified 
 detestation which I have expressed ; and I am convinced 
 that it is unnecessary to address to you any observation on 
 the subject. But I must call your attention to another trial 
 — I mean that of the Hogans, which affords a melancholy les- 
 son. The trial was connected with the baneful practice of 
 avenging the affronts offered to individuals, by enlisting 
 whole clans, who wage an actual war, and fight sanguinary 
 battles whenever thev encounter. I am very far from saying 
 that the deaths which occur in these barbarous combats are 
 to be compared with the guilt of preconcerted assassination, 
 but that they are accompanied with deep criminality, there 
 can be no question, and the system which produces them is 
 0$ much marked with absurdity as it is deserving of con- 
 
377 
 
 demnation. In this county, if a man chances to receive a 
 blow, instead of going to a Magistrate to swear informa- 
 tions, he lodges a complaint with his clan, who enter into a 
 compact to avenge the insult — a re-action is produced, and 
 an equally extensive confederacy is formed on the other 
 side. All this results from an indiposition to resort to the 
 law for protection, for amongst you it is a kind of point of 
 honour to avoid Magistrates, and not to have recourse to any 
 of the legitimate means provided for your redress. The battle 
 waged between the Hickies and the Hogans, in which not 
 less than five hundred men were engaged, presents in a 
 strong light the consequences of this most strange and 
 absurd system. Some of the Hickey party were slain in 
 the field, and four of the Hogans were tried for the 
 murder ; they w T ere found guilty of manslaughter, and are 
 to be immediately transported ; three of them are mar- 
 ried and have families, and from their wives and children 
 are condemned to separate for ever. In my mind these 
 unhappy men have been doomed to a fate still more dis- 
 astrous than those who have perished on the scaffold. In 
 the calamity which has befallen Mathew Hogan every man 
 in Court felt a sympathy. With the exception of his having 
 yielded to this unfortunate usage, and having made himself a 
 party in the feuds of his clan, he has always conducted himself 
 with propriety. His landlord felt for him not only an inte- 
 rest but a strong regard, and exerted himself to the utmost 
 in his behalf. He never took part in deeds of nocturnal 
 villainy — he does not bear the dagger and the torch — honest, 
 industrious, nay, even mild and kindly- natured, he was 
 seconded by the good will of every man who was acquainted 
 with him. His circumstances in the world were not only 
 comparatively good, but when taken in reference to his 
 condition in society, were almost opulent. He rather resem- 
 bled an English yeoman than an Irish peasant. His appear- 
 ance at the bar was in a high degree moving and impressive — 
 tall, athletic, and even noble in his stature, with a face finely 
 formed, and wholly free from any ferocity of expression, he 
 attracted every eye, and excited even among his prosecutors 
 a feeling of commisseration. He formed a remarkable con- 
 trast with the ordinary class of culprits who are arraigned 
 in our public tribunals. So far from having guilt and depra- 
 vity stamped with want upon him, the prevailing character 
 of his countenance was indicative of gentleness. This 
 man was convicted of manslaughter ; and when he heard 
 the sentence of transportation for life, the colour fled from 
 his cheek — his Hps became dry and ashy — his hand shook; 
 2 K 3 
 
378 
 
 and his eyes were the more painful to look at, from their 
 being incapable of tears. Most of you consider transporta- 
 tion a light evil, and so it is to those who have no ties to 
 fasten them to their country. I can well imagine that a 
 deportation from this island, which, for most of its inhabi- 
 tants, is a miserable one, is to many a change greatly for the 
 better. Although it is, to a certain extent, painful to be 
 torn from the place with which our first recollections are 
 associated, and the Irish people have strong local attach- 
 ments, and are fond of the place of their birth, and of their 
 fathers' graves — yet the fine sky, the genial climate, and the 
 deep and abundant soil of New Holland, afford many com- 
 pensations. But there can be none for Mathew Hogan ; he 
 is in the prime of life — is ^a prosperous farmer — he has a 
 young and fond wife, and a group of young and helpless 
 children; but alas ! 
 
 " Nor wife, nor children more shall he behold^. 
 Nor friends, nor sacred home." 
 
 He must leave his country for ever — he must part from all 
 that he loves, and from all by whom he is beloved : — his 
 heart will burst in the separation. He will soon behold his 
 family for the last time. I do confess to you, that the pic- 
 ture which offers itself in anticipation to my mind overcomes 
 me, and I see that you are not unaffected by it. What a 
 victim do you behold in that unfortunate man of the spirit 
 of turbulence that rages amongst you. Mathew Hogan will 
 feel his calamity with more deep intensity, because he is 
 naturally a sensitive and susceptible man. He w f as proved 
 to have saved the life of one of his antagonists in the very 
 hottest fury of the combat, from motives of generous com- 
 misseration. One of his own kindred, in speaking to me of 
 his fate, said, he would feel it the more, because (to use the 
 poor man's vernacular pronunciation) " he was so tinder/' 
 This tenderness of nature will produce a more painful lace- 
 ration of the heart, when h* bids his infants and their mother 
 farewell for ever. The prison of this town will present, on 
 Monday next, a very afflicting spectacle. Before he ascends 
 the vehicle which is to convey him for transportation to 
 Cork, he will be allowed to take leave of his family. His 
 wife will cling with a breaking heart to his bosom ; and 
 while her arms are folded round his neck — while she 
 sobs, in the agony of anguish, on his breast — his chil- 
 dren, who used to climb his knees in playful emulation for 
 his caresses, his little orphans, for they are doomed to 
 
S79 
 
 orphanage in their father's life-time 1 will not go 
 
 on with this distressing picture — your own natural emotions 
 will complete it. The pains of this poor man will not end at 
 the threshold of his prison — it would be well for him if they 
 did. He will be conveyed in a vessel, freighted with afflic- 
 tion, across the ocean, and will be set on the lonely and 
 distant land from which lie will depart no more. Others, 
 who will have accompanied him, will soon forget their 
 country, and will devote themselves to those useful and 
 industrious pursuits for which the Colony affords a field, and 
 which, by rendering them better, will also make them more 
 happy men. But the thoughts of home will still press upon 
 the mind of poor Hogan, and adhere with a deadly tenacity 
 to his heart. He will mope about in the vacant heedlessness 
 of a deep and settled sorrow — he will have no incentive to 
 exertion, for he will have bidden farewell to hope. The 
 instruments of labour will hang idly in his hands — he will 
 go through his task without a consciousness of what he is 
 doing ; or, if he thinks at all. while he turns up the earth, 
 he will remember him of the little garden beside his native 
 cottage, which it was more a delight than a toil to till. — 
 Thus his day will go by, and at its close, his only consolation 
 will be to stand on the sea shore, and fixing his eyes in that 
 direction in which he will have been taught that his country 
 lies, if not in the language, he will, at least, exclaim, in the 
 ^sentiments which have been so simply and so pathetically 
 expressed in the song of exile, 
 
 u Erin, my country, tho' sad and forsaken, 
 
 In dreams I revisit thy sea-beaten shore ; 
 But, alas, in far foreign lands I awaken, 
 
 And sigh for the friends that can meet me no more, 
 Where is my cabin-door, fast by the wild wood, 
 
 Sisters and sire did you weep for its fall ? 
 Where is the mother that looked on my childhood, 
 
 And where is the bosom-friend dearer than ail ? 
 
 I have dwelt, perhaps, longer than I ought to have done 
 upon the details of this poor man's misfortunes ; but mv 
 time has not been mis-spent, nor have I abused your pa- 
 tience, if I have, in any degree, succeeded in making you 
 sensible of the extent cf calamity which follows the in- 
 dulgence of that disastrous predilection for tumult which 
 characterises the mass of the population. Let not what 
 has taken place at these Assizes be thrown away upon 
 you ! I implore you for your country's sake, for your own 
 
880 
 
 sake, and above all, for God's sake, to take warning from 
 the melancholy examples which have been presented to you 
 — give up those guilty feuds which lead to savage blood- 
 shed, and end in everlasting exile. Remember the ad- 
 vice which has been repeatedly given to you by the Catho- 
 lic Association, and especially by Daniel O'Connell, whom 
 you all respect and love, to abstain from and correct those 
 habits of ferocity, and those dispositions to turbulence, 
 by which you are not only disgraced but deeply injured ; 
 and recollect, that by the practice which I have thus strongly 
 and vehemently denounced, you violate the laws of God, 
 and the fundamental ordinances of society, and become 
 ultimately the victims of your own misdeeds. I am sure you 
 will not blame me for the advice which I have offered you, 
 and you may rest assured, that I have nothing but your 
 interest at heart, and am actuated towards you by just and 
 honourable motives. 
 
THE 
 
 SPEECHES 
 
 OF 
 
 COUNSEL 
 
 ON A MOTION TO SHEW CAUSE WHY A CRIMINAL INFORMATION 
 SHOULD NOT BE FILED AGAINST 
 
 MR. AENEAS M'DONNELL, 
 
 AT THE PROSECUTION OF 
 
 ARCHDEACON TRENCH. 
 
 In order to avoid any imputation of unfairness in selecting tfie 
 Speeches for the Defendant, the Report of the whole of the 
 debate of this interesting case is inserted — including the 
 Speeches of Mr. Bennett and Mr. North, as well as 
 Mr. O'Connell and Mr. Sheil. 
 
 COURT OF KING'S BENCH— Tuesday, May 8, 1827. 
 
 The King at the Prosecution of the Hon. and Venble. Chas. LePoer Trench, 
 Archdeacon of Ardagh, v. ^Eneas M'Donnell. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL, after reading the affidavits, said — I have 
 stated, at very considerable, but I hope not at any unneces- 
 sary length, the affidavits of the prosecutor and of the defen- 
 dant, together with the matter contained in the affidavits 
 which have been filed in sustainment of the defendant's case. 
 It remains that I should submit to your Lordships such 
 observations as appear to me to arise out of the facts set 
 forth in the affidavits, and which, in my judgment, ought to 
 induce the Court to refuse a Criminal Information. I think 
 it is right to state, in the first place, the principles on which 
 this Court exercises its discretionary power in allowing 
 criminal informations. That they are entirely in the option 
 of the Court, and are not a debt of justice, will not be dis- 
 puted. Still this Court does not act in an uncertain and 
 
382 
 
 capricious spirit, but applies to the circumstances of every 
 case a fixed standard of decision. In the case of the King 
 against Robinson, Lord Mansfield laid it down that the 
 Court will not grant a criminal information where the prose- 
 cutor is himself to blame, or where considerations of public 
 policy render it inexpedient. The question was connected 
 with an election, and involved much popular passion. The 
 words used by Lord Mansfield are remarkable. There is, 
 he said, " bad blood enough already." For that, among 
 other reasons (but it was not the least cogent one) he refused 
 the motion. In the present case, the political and religious 
 animosities of two powerful classes of the community are 
 involved, and I cannot refrain from asking (though I devi- 
 ate from the order of observation which I had prescribed to 
 myself) whether there is not already between the par- 
 ties themselves, and the bodies which they respectively 
 represent, a sufficiency of bad blood ? I shall distinct- 
 ly state the grounds on which I am instructed to rely. 
 They are threefold. First, I insist that the prosecutor is 
 himself to blame : and does not come into Court, (to use the 
 technical expression) with clean hands. Secondly, the 
 charges brought against him are substantially established ; 
 and thirdly, the subject is of such a nature, that the Court 
 will be loath to interfere. Who is the prosecutor ? What 
 are his merits in the transaction ? Is he entitled to any spe- 
 cial interposition in his favor ? These are questions which 
 offer themselves at once to the Court. He is the member of 
 a powerful family, with an earl and an Archbishop at its 
 head, which lias devoted itself, with a very ardent zeal, to 
 the scriptural education of the Irish peasantry. Among 
 those who are remarkable, Doctor Trench has rendered him- 
 self conspicuous. He was onee a soldier, and belonged to a 
 profession whose habits are essentially different from those 
 which are supposed to belong to his present occupation. His 
 life, according to his own description of himself, does not 
 appear to have been undefiled, and if he brought no other 
 qualification to the performance of his sacred duties, he 
 seems at least to have possessed that adaptation to virtue 
 which ought to arise from the weariness of enjoyment, and 
 the fatigue, if not the satiety of vice. He was not only a 
 soldier, but an Adjutant, and I hope I shall be pardoned 
 for suggesting that the man, who admits that he beheld a 
 woman flogged under his manly auspices in the Barrack-yard 
 of Cork, and to have presided in his official capacity over 
 her tortures, must have acquired certain pecliarities of cha- 
 racter not in very exact conformity with that vocation, to 
 
383 
 
 which he must have been called by some very special inter- 
 position of providential fovor. However, into the councils 
 of the Almighty, and of the Archbishop of Tuam, it is 
 not for me to intrude. The Doctor became a very enthusi- 
 astic Christian so far as mere strenuousness of belief is con- 
 cerned, and in the year 1818 entered into a compact very 
 creditable, it must be confessed, with the Roman Catholic 
 Parish Priest, to educate the children af Catholics and Pro- 
 testants, without distinction of religion, and that no book or 
 usage should be introduced at variance with the creed of either 
 sect. The Priest, however, discovered that the Doctor had 
 introduced a manuscript catechism of his own composition, 
 and proceeded to the school in order to remonstrate. He 
 went accompanied by two friars, and met the Doctor at the 
 entrance of the school, who advanced with outstretched arms, 
 and exclaimed, " Welcome, Garret, Garret, (for Garret was 
 Mr. Larkin's christian name) welcome Garret. The flock is 
 numerous, but the shepherds are few/' The result, how- 
 ever, of the discussion between the Friars, and the Arch- 
 deacon was, that the children of the Catholic parents with- 
 drew from the school, and the Archdeacon caused the Priest 
 of the parish to be distrained for a hanging gale of rent — 
 all intercourse between the Archdeacon and Mr. Larkin 
 ceased ; but the Doctor was not deterred from the presecu- 
 tion of his favourite scheme, for he published a notice, 
 which was posted up in his own hand-writing, that none of 
 the tenants had any favour to expect who did not send their 
 children to his school, and procure certificates from two 
 devout ladies who were mentioned in the notice. The Doc- 
 tor is a man of his word, and it became a matter of religious 
 obligation that he should fulfil his engagement, which he 
 did, with the most conscientions and scrupulous exactness, 
 for the tenants who obeyed his directions were liberally re- 
 warded and encouraged, while upon many a wretched fa- 
 ther and mother sentence was pronounced and executed, with 
 a rigour which would have done credit to any court-martial 
 of which the Archdeacon ever was a member I do not 
 attribute those proceedings to a vitiated nature and a bad 
 heart. He might have had much of the milk of human 
 kindness in his original composition, however, it subsequently 
 turned sour in the exercise of his holy functions. The graft 
 of piety upon the military genius of the Doctor, does not 
 appear to have been very successful, and the fruits which 
 were produced exhibit a good deal of the original stock in 
 which they grew. A great deal of misery M as the result of 
 
384 
 
 the Doctor's excessive enthusiasm, which led him to consi- 
 der the means, no matter how severe, as justified by the 
 sanctity of the object which they were intended to attain. 
 The labourers who declined to follow the ordinances of the 
 Doctor were dismissed, and the houses of such of the occu- 
 piers of Lord Clancarty's lands as manifested any conscien- 
 tious contumacy were thrown down. They and their fami- 
 lies were thrown upon the world. It is needless to state 
 that this somewhat anomalous, though not very uncommon 
 mode of disseminating the tenets and enforcing the precepts 
 of the Gospel, occasioned much affliction. The peasantry 
 were placed in a condition truly pitiable. The Doctor threa- 
 tened them with the terrors of this world, and their Priest- 
 hood with those of the next. The Catholic and Protestant 
 gentry took part in the contest, and while the peasantry 
 were persecuted and oppressed, the county which had hi- 
 therto been remarkable for the concord and unanimity which 
 prevailed among all classes, presented the most painful 
 scenes of political and religious discord. To the Doctor 
 the whole merit (whatever it may be) of these results it is to 
 be ascribed. It was in this state of things that Mr. McDon- 
 nell arrived in the county of Gal way — thither he proceeded 
 to visit his family. Doctor Coen, the Roman Catholic Bi- 
 shop of the diocess, knowing that Mr. M'Donnell was em- 
 ployed by the Roman Catholic body as their agent, request- 
 ed him to attend a meeting at Loughrea, which was con- 
 vened in order to petition Lord Clanearty to put some check 
 on the Doctor's injudicious zeal. The Bishop, deeply afflict- 
 ed by the sufferings of his flock, had himself previously 
 applied to Lord Clanearty, in vain. A public meeting 
 was called, in the hope that a supplication to his Lordship, 
 proceeding from a numerous and respectable assembly, on 
 behalf of his tenantry, would be attended with better re- 
 sults. Mr. McDonnell states, that the strongest evidences 
 of distress and profound affliction were displayed among the 
 people, many of whom were moved to tears, and whether 
 their scruples were well or ill founded, is of little conse- 
 quence in the mind of any humane man, who takes the 
 power of religious terror into account. Mr. M'Donell was 
 deeply affected by what he saw and heard, and it was under 
 the influence of the impressions which were produced upon 
 him on the occasion, that he attended the meeting of the 
 London Hibernian Bible Society, held upon the l6th of 
 October, at Balinasloe. The object of this institution is 
 stated by the prosecutor to be the dissemination of the Scrip- 
 tures without note or comment. None of its regulations 
 
385 
 
 were inserted in the notice, nor was any prohibition intro- 
 duced into it against the attendance, speaking or voting of 
 any individuals who were not members of the Society. — It 
 does not appear that Lord Dunlo, the Chairman, or even 
 Doctor Trench himself, or any one individual who attended, 
 with the exception of Mr. Pope and Mr. Gordon, belonged 
 to the institution. Doctor Trench states, indeed, that it was 
 one of its rules, that none but members should be permitted 
 to speak ; but that rule was not only not adhered to, but was 
 not even noticed in the course of the proceeding. Mr. 
 McDonnell moved an amendment ; he was not prevented 
 from so doing ■ on the contrary, the Chairman actually put 
 the amendment from the Chair on the second day of the 
 meeting. The assembly was adjourned from the 10th to the 
 succeeding day, when Captain Gordon opened the discussion. 
 Mr. McDonnell replied, and, as I have already intimated, 
 moved an amendment, and pressed the Chairman to put the 
 question. Lord Dunlo observed, that new matter had been 
 introduced, and that Mr. Pope should be permitted to reply. 
 To this proposition Mr. McDonnell assented, provided that, 
 in case Mr. Pope were permitted to make any further 
 observations, he should be permitted to exercise the 
 right which he derived from established usage, of mak- 
 ing the final reply. On this understanding the meeting 
 adjourned to the next day. During the first two days, it can- 
 not be pretended that there was any impropriety committed 
 by Mr. M'Donneil, either in speaking or in moving an 
 amendment, for his right to speak and vote were distinctly 
 recognized by the Chairman, who was the organ of 
 the meeting. It appears, therefore, to be manifest, that 
 Mr, McDonnell did not commit any original deviation from 
 propriety. During the first two days, there were only two 
 policemen stationed in the meeting, and Dr. Trench did not 
 actively interfere; but on the morning of the 12th the aspect 
 of affairs underwent a material alteration. The moment the 
 doors were opened, Dr. Trench placed himself at the en- 
 trance, and under his direction a number of Protestants of 
 the lower class, with, as it is alleged, arms under their great 
 coats, were specially admitted, and stationed by the Doctor's 
 orders, in the assembly. The Doctor*felt the importance of 
 carrying the day, and brought to the meeting the powers of 
 a Magistrate, the habits of a Soldier, and the passions of a 
 Priest. His favourite project was to be promoted ; it was of 
 the greatest consequence, in his mind, that it should appear, 
 that in a great assembly, held in what may be called a Ro- 
 man Catholic County, the circulation of the Scriptures, with- 
 • 2 L 
 
386 
 
 out note or comment, had been publicly approved. To gain 
 this object an effort was required, and it was deemed advis- 
 able to put Mr. McDonnell down. For this purpose the 
 room was filled with police, who appeared to be under the 
 Doctor's orders, and a large body of these Irish Gens- d'Armes 
 were stationed outside the place of meeting. The Arch- 
 deacon, who was well accustomed to military operations, 
 placed himself beside my Lord Dunlo, who is his nephew, 
 and stood with an attitude, looked with an air, and spoke 
 with an intonation of command. The debate was opened by 
 Mr. Pope, when Mr. M'Donnell recalled to the Chairman 
 the reservation of his right to reply. Lord Dunlo, who dur- 
 ing the two preceding days, had permitted Mr. McDonnell 
 not only to speak but to propose an amendment, and had ac- 
 tually put that amendment from the Chair, having received 
 a whisper from Doctor Trench, now, for the first time, in- 
 formed Mr, McDonnell that he had no right to open his 
 lips, and in place of putting the amendment, proposed a 
 series of resolutions favourable to the objects of the Society, 
 which he declared to be carried, and left the Chair, Mr. 
 McDonnell moved that the Hon. Gonville Ffrench should 
 take it. He was a magistrate, the son of a peer, and the person 
 next in rank to Lord Dunlo. He advanced to take the Chair, 
 when Dr. Trench, turning to the police, exclaimed, u do your 
 duty." The police were not slow in obeying his orders, and 
 rushed in an instant, with fixed bayonets, upon the people ! 
 I stop here in the narration of the facts, and beg leave again 
 to call the attention of the Court to the principles upon 
 which criminal informations are granted or refused. I have 
 already referred the Court to the authority of Lord Mans- 
 field, and although it was merely in the course of argument 
 that Lord Erskine pronounced, what may be called, a com- 
 mentary upon the law, still as the Court decided in his 
 client's favour, in Captain Bayley's case, and as the positions 
 he lays down are indisputable, it may not be improper to 
 quote what was said by that great advocate, not, indeed, as an 
 authority, but because the doctrine which he lays down, is 
 clearly and succinctly expressed : — " This is not a complaint 
 in the ordinary course of law, but an application to the Court 
 to exert an eccentric, extraordinary, voluntary jurisdiction 
 beyond the ordinary course of justice: — a jurisdiction which 
 I am authorised, from the best authority, to say, this Court 
 will not exercise, unless the prosecutors come pure and un- 
 spotted; deny, upon oath, the truth of every word and sen- 
 tence which they complain as injurious ; for although in 
 common cases the matter may not be the less libellous, be- 
 
387 
 
 cause true, yet the Court will not interfere by information, 
 for guilty or even equivocal characters, but will leave them 
 to its ordinary process. If the Court does not see palpable 
 malice and falsehood on the part of the defendant, and clear 
 innocence on the part of the prosecutor, it will not stir ; 
 it will say, this may be a libel ; this may deserve punish- 
 ment ; but go to a Grand Jury, or bring your action ; all 
 men are equally entitled to the protection of the laws, but 
 all men are not equally entitled to an extraordinary interpo- 
 sition and protection beyond the common distributive forms 
 of justice." That what I have read is law will scarce- 
 ly be disputed. The Court will enquire whether the pro- 
 secutor is himself to blame, and will look to the incep- 
 tion of the proceedings, without attending minutely to 
 subsequent details. The principle applied every day to cases 
 of duelling, may, without any violence, be extended to 
 cases of libel. If an individual gives the first offence, no 
 matter by what outrages he may be subsequently provoked 
 to fight, this Court will leave him to proceed by indictment. 
 If, then, Doctor Trench was originally in the wrong — if, 
 when under the influence of his religious passions, he acted 
 in such a manner as to deserve condemnation, the Court 
 will not enquire whether the condemnation was excessive 
 and disproportioned to the mistake committed by the pro- 
 secutor, no more than it will ask whether a challenge 
 was warranted by the offence, or look to the gladiatorial de- 
 tails of a duel, but will simply enquire whether the Doc- 
 tor was not guilty of a very signal transgression of propri- 
 ety, in his conduct at Ballinasloe. I am loath to use any 
 coarse or contumelious phrase in his regard- — I will not ac- 
 cuse him of any directly sanguinary intent — I will not say 
 that he went armed with the Riot Act, and attended by the 
 police, in order to avail himself of the first opportunity of 
 letting them loose upon a defenceless body of his fellow-ci- 
 tizens. But it is one question, whether a purpose so bloody 
 entered distinctly into his contemplation, and another, whe- 
 thether he did not, while under the operation of those fa- 
 natical opinions, which obscure the understanding, w T hile g they 
 extinguish humanity and petrify the heart, he did not 
 (though, I suppose, with the best intentions in the world) 
 perpetrate a gross and flagitious outrage — an act inconsistent 
 with the character of a Clergyman, the principles of a Chris- 
 tian, and the good feelings of a man — and which ought to 
 deprive him of every title to your Lordship's special 
 interposition on his behalf. Without charging him with a 
 deliberate and sanguinary depravity, I accuse him of a wild 
 2 D 2 
 
388 
 
 fanaticism, which is analogous to ferocity in its results — and 
 I collect from his previous habits, on which I have insisted 
 for that reason, the motives and the passions by which he 
 was instigated in the incident which is more directly before 
 the Court. The man who, in the prosecution of his object, 
 had trampled upon and crushed the miserable peasantry who 
 had the misfortune to be subject to his dominion ; who had 
 prostrated their hovels, and, unmoved by tears, by cries, and 
 by supplications, had, in the name of God and of his Gos- 
 pel, scattered misery, desolation, and despair about him, 
 and done all this from the best imaginable motives — the man 
 who combined with his religious habits the habits of Courts- 
 martial, was, of all others, the most likely to be hurried 
 into the perpetration of what, in an Archdeacon, may be 
 called a mistake, but, in a less venerable person, would 
 be accounted a most flagitious enormity. What, my Lords ! 
 can you bring yourselves, or can you permit yourselves to 
 be brought to the approval (for if you grant the informa- 
 tion, you must approve) of the introduction of a military 
 force into the midst of an assembly, convened for the propa- 
 tion of the Word of God ? I do not think that I can be charged 
 with exaggeration, or with putting a question inapplicable to 
 this case, when I ask whether genuine Christianity is to be 
 enforced at the point of the bayonet ? W 7 hat are the facts ? 
 They may be compressed into a short compass. A meeting 
 of the Hibernian London Society is convened — their object 
 is to circulate the Scriptures — they assemble to listen to two 
 itinerant delegates from the parent branch — the people are 
 invited to attend — Mr. M c Donnell urges his arguments 
 against a scheme offensive to the feelings, and incompatible 
 with the religion of the people — during two days his right 
 to take a share in the proceedings is not disputed—Lord 
 Dunlo leaves the Chair — a magistrate, a gentleman of family 
 and of fortune, and in every way respectable, is called to it 
 ■ — there was no riot — there was not even confusion — no 
 blow was struck — no injurious exclamation was employed — 
 no violence, nor symptom of violence, appeared. The object 
 of the meeting — the rank and character of the persons 
 assembled — every thing forbade the expedient to which Dr. 
 Trench resorted; and yet, notwithstanding the combination 
 of circumstances which prohibited the use of a military 
 force, a Clergyman, an Archdeacon, a Dignitary of the 
 Established Church, rushes forth, in the impetuosity of his 
 frantic zeal, and calling on the police " to do their duty," 
 precipitately reads the Riot Act, while swords are bran- 
 dished, and bayonets are glittering about him, as the sane* 
 
389 
 
 tion of outrage, the warrant for massacre, and the authoriza- 
 tion of blood. And all this is done in the name of, and in 
 the honour of, God ! I see nothing in the whole transaction 
 which can afford a palliation for his conduct ; and notwith- 
 standing his own sacerdotal protestations, it appears manifest 
 that he had determined to disperse the meeting by the logic 
 of the bayonet. He carries the Riot Act to the meeting — 
 he fills it with police — he admits his own peculiar supporters 
 to the meeting, and arranges them in a body — he superin- 
 tends the proceedings — he gives the signal — he calls upon 
 the police to advance — he bids them rush upon the multi- 
 tude, and a scene takes place which was calculated to excite 
 the indignation of the people, and that of every honest man 
 who hears the details of the proceedings in this Court, The 
 police, who were stationed in the meeting, precipitated 
 themselves upon the people. Another body rushed up 
 stairs, with their swords drawn and their bayonets fixed. 
 They drove the Catholics before them, and mingled in- 
 vectives against their religion with their ferocious excla- 
 mations. The people fled before the men who had the 
 instruments of massacre in their hands ; the open windows 
 afforded refuge to many of them, and women threw them- 
 selves for safety upon the adjoining roofs ; and all this is 
 done by Doctor Trench's orders. If it was not by his orders, 
 by whom were any orders given ? All this is done at his 
 behest ; and give me leave to ask, whether all this was not 
 calculated to excite the indignation of the multitude on 
 whom this atrocious attack was made ? If the people had 
 resisted — if, fired with a natural resentment, they had 
 turned upon the men by whom they were so wantonly 
 assailed — if, under the influence of their religious passions, 
 which had been insulted and exasperated, they had merged 
 the duty of citizens in the feelings of outraged human nature 
 — good God ! what would have been the result ? The lives 
 of hundreds might have been lost — the public streets might 
 have ran with blood — a general carnage might have ensued, 
 and the Honourable and Rev. Charles Le Poer Trench, the 
 ex-Adjutant ex the Galway Militia, and Venerable Arch- 
 deacon of the Established Church, instead of having the pre- 
 sumption to come, with his foul and polluted hands, for a cri- 
 minal information, into this Court, would appear at the bar 
 of justice, and stand a trial for his life I come now to 
 the circumstances under which the speech was spoken, of 
 which Doctor Trench complains. Mr. McDonnell, after the 
 assembly had been broken up, used every exertion to tran* 
 quillize the people. A public meeting was called upon thg 
 2L 3 
 
890 
 
 16th,, in order to consider the propriety of presenting a 
 memorial to the Lord Lieutenant. In the interval, Doctor 
 Trench did not procure informations to be lodged against 
 any one individual for a riot. He read the Riot Act — he 
 caused the police to charge the people, and yet no single 
 individual was accused by the Doctor of having taken part 
 in the tumuli. The Roman Catholics assembled upon the 
 16th, and at that meeting Mr. McDonnell spoke m the lan- 
 guage of strong censure of Doctor Trench. Independent of 
 the actual outrage committed upon him, the newspapers in 
 the interest of the Doctor had represented his conduct in the 
 most odious light. In his speech he charged Doctor Trench 
 with the insertion of an attack upon him, and that allegation 
 is not denied by the Doctor, But compared with the alfront 
 (although that is too feeble a word) — compared with the 
 outrage offered to him, and to every Roman Catholic, such 
 aspersions are of no account. This Court will not grant an 
 information against a man, who, provoked by a single offen- 
 sive phrase, sends a challenge, and seeks a reparation in blood. 
 Will the Court grant an information against an individual 
 who was provoked — not with a phrase — not with a taunting 
 word- — not with a contumelious expression— not with a con^ 
 temptuous look — but by an outrage, as monstrous and exas- 
 perating as it is possible to conceive ? It is said that his 
 retaliation was disproportionate to the injury which he 
 had received, and that the charges brought against 
 Doctor Trench were unfounded. I will admit, for the 
 sake of argument, that he never presided over the torture 
 of a miserable female — that he never applied to a sub-Sheriff 
 for liberty to play the part of an executioner, and inflict a 
 frightful torment with his own hands — that he never was 
 known by the coarse but powerful designation of skin-him- 
 alive — that he was never guilty of any species of persecution 
 in promoting his favourite object — that he never prostrated 
 houses, expelled their wretched occupiers, and filled the 
 hearts of parents with despair and sorrow — nay, further*, I 
 will admit that he never was an Adjutant — that he was 
 distinguished for the purity of his life — and that he does not 
 come reeking into this Court, after having rolled and wal- 
 lowed in the stye of a common and promiscuous concubinage: 
 but while I admit all this, I appeal to the cardinal principle 
 upon which this Court regulates its decisions, and I put this 
 question—" Does not the man who sends a hostile message 
 act against the laws of God, and the ordinances of society 
 —yet, if he has received an affront — if he has been called by 
 some ignominious appellation, no information will be granted 
 
391 
 
 against him. Shall, then, the provoked gladiator find a pro- 
 tection, which is to be denied to the insulted writer of a 
 libel ? Is duelling an excepted rase — and will this Court 
 consider the individual who seeks to take away human life, 
 as sheltered from a criminal information by the offence which 
 he has sustained, and shall the mere utterer of words be the 
 object of the sternest judicial rigour ? Shall he who levels 
 a pistol at my heart escape with impunity — and shall the man 
 whose pen drops gall, be deprived of the benefit of the same 
 extenuation? If it be urged that Mr. M'Donnell went 
 beyond the bounds of fair comment, and that although he 
 sustained an affront, still that his anger was not in measure 
 with the provocation, I answer, apply that argument to the 
 case of duelling, and let me ask, whether, in a legal or moral 
 point of view, deciding upon your judicial oaths, you can 
 hold that the offence, which embraces the guilt of murder 
 and suicide together, can be justified by any quantity of 
 exasperation ? — If a man calls me (t villain," and I de- 
 mand his life this Court will not grant an information 
 against me ; and wherefore ? Not because it considers 
 me as defensible, but because it looks to the quarter 
 from whence the original injuries came. This Court tells 
 many a prosecutor, " although your life has been aimed at 
 — although the defendant sought to wipe out the offence 
 which you have offered to him with your blood — yet, as you 
 were originally to blame, you are not entitled to favour • 
 other remedies are open to you, and we leave you to seek 
 them." Let me, then, bring before your Lordship's consi- 
 deration, the nature and extent of the provocation which 
 Mr. M'Donnell received, in order that you may judge whe- 
 ther he was originally to blame. He went to a public 
 meeting at Ballinasloe, to discuss a subject in which he felt 3, 
 profound interest. The proceedings of the Hibernian Bible 
 Society are not exempt from the cognizance of public opinion, 
 and are liable to strictures to which even the measures 
 of Government are exposed. Whether right or wrong he 
 acted under the influence of strong impressions. He thought 
 it absurd to put a Book, upon the construction of which the 
 wisest and best men have differed., into indiscriminate circu- 
 lation, amongst those whose minds are as obtuse as then- 
 hands are hard. He was at a loss to discover the benefits 
 that could result from a medley of religions, and a miscel- 
 lany of creeds. He conceived that it would be as well to 
 allow the humble peasant to continue in the exercise of that 
 form of worship in which he was born, in which he had 
 lived, and in which it is his best hope and confidence to die. 
 
392 
 
 He was convinced, and he had the authority of the Clergy 
 of his own church to warrant him in that conviction, that 
 the system of which Dr. Trench is the advocate, is incompati- 
 ble with the essential spirit of the Catholic religion. He 
 looked upon the itinerant hawkers of a new-fangled Chris- 
 tianity as the emissaries of dissension, and he saw that 
 religious rancour, and all the fury of theological detestation, 
 marked the steps of these vagabond Apostles of discord 
 wherever they appeared. With these impressions he attended 
 the meeting at Ballinasloe. He spoke, and his right to 
 speak was not disputed. He was guilty of no greater of- 
 fence than that of vindicating the Roman Catholic Clergy 
 from the accusations which Mr. Pope and Mr. Gordon 
 had cast upon them. He avoided all angry recrimination. 
 He did not, in answer to the charges brought against the 
 Catholic Clergy, lift the veil from the abuses of the Establish- 
 ment — he did not, when the Catholic Priesthood were 
 charged with profligacy, say one word about Doctor Trench. 
 When the calumniators of his church went back to the dis- 
 tance of centuries for instances of depravity in Catholic 
 Bishops, Mr. M'Donnell did not allude to the execrable 
 misdeeds of no very remote occurrence, on which Protes- 
 tants should reflect before they bring their charges against 
 the poor and unendowed Clergy of the Catholic Church. 
 He did not, in discussing the propriety of circulating the 
 Scriptures among all classes, without distinction, enquire 
 whether the details of unnatural vice and appalling abomi- 
 nation, contained in the history of a corrupt and sensual 
 people, were fit for the perusal of boyhood and a virgin's 
 meditations. He did not put any one argument, or make an 
 observation which would excite the prejudices, or alarm the 
 sensitiveness of the most enthusiastic of his hearers. He 
 was contented with the vindication of the Catholic Hierar- 
 chy and Clergy from the most foul and false aspersions, and 
 remonstrated, in the language of gentle expostulation, on the 
 evil effects of the system which the London Hibernian So- 
 ciety employed its emissaries to promote ; and yet, for this, 
 for no more than this, a body of infuriated police are let 
 loose upon the people. They are halloed on by this sacer- 
 dotal Adjutant, this consecrated Magistrate, this regimen- 
 tal Divine. The Roman Catholics are assailed with every 
 species of insult and of outrage, and Mr. McDonnell him- 
 self is driven and thrust out of the assembly, amidst the 
 shouts of Doctor Trench's mirmydons, with the grasp of 
 ruffianism on his neck, the sabre over his head, and the 
 bayonet at his back ; and shall I be told that Mr. McDonnell 
 
393 
 
 received no provocation ? There is not a man with a drop 
 of manly blood in his veins, and with an honourable emo- 
 tion in his heart, who would not be fired, and almost mad- 
 dened by it. Where is the man who hears me (I care not 
 how cold, and torpid, and dead, nature may have made 
 him) who would brook such an outrage as this ? Where 
 is he ? It would, indeed, require even a larger portion of 
 Christian resignation than is possessed by the Doctor him- 
 self, (who comes into this Court in order to evince his prac- 
 tical progress in the spirit of forgiveness and of mercy) to 
 acquiesce and bow down to such an insult as this: and 
 where is the justification or pretence for it? The Doctor, in- 
 deed, swears that there w r as a riot. He may well say so, for he 
 did himself engender and create a frightful tumult. But 
 what evidence is there that before the Doctor gave the com- 
 mand, and drew the Riot Act out of his pocket, there was 
 any, the least symptom of disturbance ? If there was, why 
 is it not stated by the Doctor ? Was a blow given ? Was 
 a menacious gesture used ? Was there a threat in attitude 
 or in words ? The Doctor, with all his promptitude to ap- 
 peal to heaven, does not venture to suggest it. What is a 
 riot ? The word has a strict legal meaning, and this Court 
 ought not to be satisfied with general allegations that a riot 
 existed, without having the precise facts and circumstances 
 before it, which are the ingredients of the offence, and 
 which constitute its legal essence. I impeach the Doctor's 
 affidavit upon two grounds. First, that he does not state 
 any one fact which goes to establish that there was a riot, 
 and secondly, that he did not afterwards take any proceed- 
 ings against any one of the alleged rioters. Was a single 
 person arrested ? No ! Were there informations lodged for 
 a riot ? No ! Was any step taken by this enraged ma- 
 gistrate to punish the offence which had induced him to 
 uncage ail the ferocious passions of the police, and set them 
 upon the people ? I have argued this case as if the charges 
 brought against the Doctor were wholly unfounded, and 
 insist that the impropriety of his conduct disentitled 
 him to a criminal information. But, my Lords, Mr, McDon- 
 nell has in his affidavit justified the accusations which 
 he has preferred, and it was my duty to comply with 
 his instructions, and read not only his own affidavit, but 
 those of the numerous witnesses by whom he is corroborated, 
 I will not go so far as to say, that truth affords complete 
 defence, but I do say that there is a manifest distinction be- 
 tween an indictment and an information. In the former^ 
 
394 
 
 truth is no defence — but as an information is entirely in the 
 discretion of the Court, the truth of the charges will be ta- 
 ken into consideration, and will be thrown into the balance 
 in order to adjust it. I am free to admit, that if the accu- 
 sations are unfounded, Doctor Trench is most aggrieved, 
 and justice ought to start up in indignation in his defence. 
 I do not say that the charges are well founded — it is not my 
 province to decide that question — but if they are, (and your 
 Lordships will weigh all the probabilities) I think that you 
 will pause before you grant a favour to Dr. Trench,, and de- 
 cide whether he is the best qualified person to superintend 
 the morals of Ballinasloe. What, then, are the charges 
 against him ? They are three-fold. It is alleged that he is 
 not a fit person to preside over the education of youth — 
 firsts because he was a man of dissolute habits, and addicted 
 to open and undisguised debauchery — secondly, because he 
 has inflicted the greatest misery upon the unfortunate pea- 
 santry under his dominion — and thirdly, that he is a man of 
 the most cruel and savage propensities, which created for 
 him an appellation with which the most shocking images of 
 horror are associated. With respect to the first charge, (and 
 I again repeat that I am only arguing hypothetically, and in 
 obedience to my client's positive instructions) Mr. M'Donnell 
 has sworn that the Doctor, since he became a Clergyman, 
 has led a licentious life. His miscellaneous amours are 
 set forth with minuteness — the names of his courtesans, 
 and the places of their abode, are given — and the progeny 
 of his indulgences are also specified. Mr. McDonnell has, 
 indeed, given as nice and particular details of the Reverend 
 Gentleman's sacerdotal frailties as your Lordships could re- 
 quire, and every thing has been done by him to remove any 
 disposition to incredulity with which charges against an 
 Archdeacon ought to be received. It may be objected that 
 these statements are made upon belief. Mr. McDonnell, 
 however, has encountered this objection; but when I was 
 about to read the affidavit of an unfortunate female, contain- 
 ing some particulars calculated to satisfy your Lordships, if 
 you entertained any doubt of the fidelity of Mr. M'Don- 
 nell's delineations of debauchery, Mr. Bennett stopped me, 
 and insisted that the affidavit was filed too late, and was not 
 admissible. The Court decided that it was not, and there- 
 fore I shall not even state what that affidavit set forth. But 
 I shall be permitted to say, that it does strike me as extraor- 
 dinary that the Clergyman who comes into this Court with 
 such ostentatious claims to sanctify, and who demands a re- 
 
395 
 
 paration for the injury done to his character, should seek a 
 shelter from investigation in mere forms of law, and rely 
 upon the tardiness with which the affidavit has come in, as 
 a ground for withholding the facts from your Lordships' 
 minds. If the charges are untrue, why not treat them with 
 the scorn with which conscious virtue should always encoun- 
 ter the accusations of malignity ? The Doctor enters the tem- 
 ple of justice as proudly as he would mount the steps of his 
 own church, and with a lofty demeanor demands redress ; 
 but the moment proof is offered of the charge, he flies and 
 shrinks, and hides himself in the first dark corner of the 
 law where he can find a refuge. Having said thus 
 much upon this suppression of a most material affida- 
 vit, I think it an act of justice to Doctor Trench to 
 say, that the charge of gross debauchery relates to his for- 
 mer life ; but, that although for many years after he enter- 
 ed the church, he persevered in those addictions to gallantry, 
 which he had acquired in a less ascetic profession, he has 
 lately, as I have been informed and believe, reformed his 
 conduct, and allowed time to apply its moralising influence 
 to a fiery and impassioned temperament But (and I pro- 
 ceed to the next charge) men of vehement characters engage 
 in the pursuit of virtue with the same excessive ardour with 
 which they obey the allurements of vicious pleasure, and 
 the transition from boundless debauchery to the most extra- 
 vagant fanaticism, is not uncommon. The Doctor's letters 
 to the Parish Priest, asking his leave to preach in the Ca- 
 tholic Chapel, afford evidence of this. It is not easy 
 to imagine a more extraordinary composition than the 
 following : — " Dear Garret, dear fellow-servant, have we 
 not the same Master over us — oh, how long and how 
 often have I perverted his gifts, abandoned his works, 
 and done despite to the spirit of his grace, and truly it is 
 high time to awake out of sleep. Let us cast away the 
 works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light. I 
 have along account to settle — an account of 20 years' stand- 
 ing, at which time, as his ministering servant, he delivered 
 to me his goods. Gracious God ! what an awful prospect is 
 before me, and if he hath in mercy snatched me as a brand 
 from the burning, am I still to continue the same wilful, 
 disobedient, rebellious, slothful servant as before." This 
 letter is accompanied by others in the same delirious strain, 
 and in one he applies to the aforesaid Garret Larkin, to al- 
 low him to usurp his functions in the Chapel, and from the 
 altar to denounce the errors of his religion. This proposi- 
 
396 
 
 tion might only excite a smile, as it indicates a 
 diseased mind, if we did not recollect that the very 
 man who indulged in these drivelling effusions, was 
 invested with the power of inflicting dreadful oppres- 
 sion. It is positively stated, that the Doctor posted up 
 a notice, in his own hand-writing, and signed with his name, 
 denouncing vengeance on all those who should not obey his 
 fanatical injunctions, and send their children through that 
 process of apostacy which he had devised. He carri- 
 ed his menaces with a frightful fidelity into execution. 
 Look at the example of Catherine Heney, for instance, who 
 swears, that having, in obedience to the Parish Priest, re- 
 fused to send her five children to the Anti-Catholic School 
 kept by the Doctor, she was turned out of her cabin, with her 
 starving and shivering orphans, and when her house had 
 been thrown down, was obliged to seek refuge in a pig- stye, 
 where she lay upon heaps of filth in a fever, surrounded by 
 the miserable offspring for whom she was no longer able to 
 procure nourishment. It may be urged that she is not de- 
 serving of belief, because her evidence is tainted by her po- 
 verty — it may be said that her affidavit is covered with the 
 mire in which she lay ; but let it not be forgotten that the 
 Parish Priest swears, that he attended her when she was 
 driven from her house, and gives his confirmation to 
 her statement. I trust that your Lordships will not say, 
 that the affidavit of a Catholic Clergyman of respectabi- 
 lity is to be discredited, for no other reason than that it con- 
 tains imputations upon a Protestant Archdeacon. The affida- 
 vit of Catherine Heney is sustained by a vast number of 
 other depositions to similar instances of oppression. Doctor 
 Coen, the Roman Catholic Bishop of the diocese, has made 
 an affidavit, in which the general conduct of the Archdeacon, 
 which is characterised by cruel frenzy, is described. Doc- 
 tor Coen is merely a Titular Bishop ; he has not a gilded 
 mitre, and is a poor, although an episcopal, Minister of God ; 
 I trust that his allegations, given on his solemn oath, 
 will not be treated with derision. Pie represents Doc- 
 tor Trench as managing and directing a barbarous and 
 most heart-rending persecution. The next charge against 
 him is expressed in the alleged libel in the following 
 words : " I never was charged with bringing a female to the 
 triangle." In answer he states, that he never exercis- 
 ed any power vested in him with cruelty, and that he 
 never did bring a female to the triangle, and he proceeds 
 to put your Lordships in possession of the circumstances 
 under which he admitted that he did preside over the pub- 
 
397 
 
 lie military whipping of a female in the barracks at Cork. — 
 He states that he was Adjutant of the Gal way Militia, from 
 the year 1797 to the year 1799, an d tnat he was present, in 
 his official capacity, when the sentence of a court-martial 
 was executed upon a woman, who had been detected in steal- 
 ing some articles belonging to the soldiers of the regiment, 
 to the best of his recollection. To the best of his recollec- 
 tion ! I do not think that he should have any very obscure 
 or imperfect remembrance of such an incident in his life as 
 this. At that time it appears there was a great tendency to 
 pilfering, and this female propensity in the regiment it was 
 deemed adviseable to scourge out. The Doctor tells us, that 
 so efficacious was the example given by the flogging of a 
 woman in the barracks, that the crime was, to the best of 
 his recollection, suppressed. She was sentenced to twenty- 
 five lashes, he says, but very few were applied. What does 
 he call u a few?" It would have been condescending of him 
 to have stated his notions of number, but he does not enter 
 into that trivial particular, nor does he mention the name of 
 the commanding officer, nor that of a single member of the 
 court-martial ; he does, indeed, say that General Lake ap- 
 proved of the sentence, and proceeds to pronounce a gra- 
 tuitous encomium upon the General's humanity, which, I 
 suppose, includes a latent panegyric upon his own. The 
 woman, however, was flogged in his presence, and under 
 his holy auspices. His narration, however, does not precisely 
 correspond with that of an eye witness to the scene. Patrick 
 Muldoon, a soldier of the 13th regiment, states, " that he 
 was in it for twenty-five years, and was Serjeant for seven 
 years, and has now a pension of £35. for his service ; that 
 before he went: into the line he was in the Galway Militia, 
 and remembers that a woman was flogged in the barrack, 
 when Archdeacon Trench was Adjutant ; that the Archdea- 
 con was the only officer that was present — that the woman 
 was flogged for having stolen a brass candlestick — that he 
 saw the woman stripped down to the waist, and flogged in 
 the usual way between the shoulders." This affidavit is 
 corroborated by that of Edmund Melody, who says, " That 
 Winifred Hynes, the wife of a private in the regiment, was 
 accused by Richard Marmion, of having pledged two can- 
 dlesticks, his property, whereupon the said Adjutant, the 
 Hon. Charles Le Poer Trench, ordered her to be put into 
 the guard-house, where she remained the whole night, and 
 on the next morning, when the regiment was on parade, 
 said Winifred was, by order of said Adjutant, brought out, 
 guarded by a file of soldiers, and in the presence of the 
 2 M 
 
398 
 
 regiment, which was formed into a hollow square to witness 
 her punishment, the said Winifred Hynes was tied up hands 
 and feet, to the triangles ; and the said Winifred Hynes hav- 
 ing made vehement struggles to avoid being stripped naked, 
 for the purpose of punishment, the said Adjutant went up 
 to the Drum-Major, cursed and damned him for not tear- 
 ing off her clothes, and in a great passion, giving him a 
 blow with a stick, ordered the said Drum- Major to tear and 
 cut them off, upon which the said Drum-Major, with a 
 knife, cut open said Winifred's gown, and then tore her other 
 covering from her shoulders, down to the waist, after which 
 she received 50 lashes on the bare back from two drummers, 
 in the usual way of flogging soldiers. That during said 
 horrid exhibition, a Mr. Davis, an Officer in the said regi- 
 ment, went up to the said Adjutant and told him, in the hear- 
 ing of deponent, that Peter Hynes, the husband of the said 
 Winifred, was absolutely fainting in the ranks, at seeing his 
 wife exposed in such a manner, and begged of said Adjutant 
 to allow Peter Hynes to retire to his room, upon which the 
 said Adjutant answered he might go where he pleased, and 
 he did not care if the devil had him. Saith that after said 
 flogging, the said Winifred, with her back still bleeding, was 
 publicly drummed out of the barrack yard, to the tune of 
 ' the Rogue's March/ Saith he never heard, nor does he 
 believe, that said Winifred Hynes was tried by any Court- 
 martial, but was punished, as aforesaid, by the sole order and 
 authority of the said Adjutant, the Honourable and now 
 the Rev. Charles Le Poer Trench, who, on account of his 
 many severities, and particularly of the said flogging of said 
 Winifred Hynes, was called in the regiment by the name 
 of ' Skin him alive/ I make no comment for the present 
 on the facts stated in this Affidavit, except that they com- 
 pletely bear out the allegation of Mr, M'Donnell, and merely 
 submit it to your consideration, whether that gentleman has, 
 in this transaction, at least, very greatly misrepresented this 
 very humane and merciful teacher of the word of God. — 
 But it may be said, that the conduct of Doctor Trench was 
 very essentially and amiably different, after entering into 
 Holy Orders — that notwithstanding the identity of person, 
 no identity of character existed between the Adjutant and 
 the Archdeacon, and that the Doctor presented, in his sub- 
 sequent demeanor, a Christian and interesting contrast. Per- 
 haps he is at bottom a very kind and softly-natured man, and 
 that those, who think ill of the facts I am about to mention, 
 mistake, for an inborn severity of character, an over-earnest 
 solicitude for the administration of justice. The follow- 
 
399 
 
 in£ incident in the Doctor's ecclesiastical life, which is 
 stated by Mr. M'Donnell in his Affidavit, throws some 
 light upon the Doctor's disposition, and ti ill enable the Court 
 to judge how far the Doctor is right in his conceptions of 
 himself, for lie intimates that he never was guilty of cruelty, 
 and insinuates that he is a man of a very sensitive and ten- 
 der heart. Mr. McDonnell states that he was informed by the 
 Sub-Sheriff of the County of Galway, that in the absence of 
 the common executioner — (gracious God ! what a man to 
 undertake the teaching of the religion of Christ !) — in the 
 absence of the common executioner, when the sentence of 
 whipping was to be executed in the town of Loughrea upon 
 two culprits, the Archdeacon proposed that he should take 
 the lash into his own consecrated hands, and whip the male- 
 factors through the principal streets of the town. It may, 
 perhaps, be said that the thing is incredible — that it is im- 
 possible that any minister of religion should gratuitously 
 offer to perform such an office. Perhaps it will be said that 
 I have no right to state any thing upon the mere hearsay of 
 Mr. M'Donnell. Well, be it so ; but Mr. M'Xevin has made 
 an affidavit. I repeat it — The Sub- Sheriff of the County of 
 Galway has sworn an affidavit in the following words : — 
 
 u Daniel M'Nevin, of Middle Gardiner-street, in the 
 County of Dublin, Esquire, maketh oath, and saith. that in 
 the year one thousand eight hundred and ten. deponent was 
 acting Sub-Sheriff to Peter Blake, of Corbally Castle, in 
 the County of Galway, Esquire, who was High Sheriff of 
 said County, for said year ; saith, that at the Quarter Ses- 
 sions of Loughrea, in the summer of said year, as deponent 
 best recollects, two tenants of the late Lord Clonbrock's 
 were convicted of stealing a small quantity of wool, and 
 sentenced to be whipped, on a market-day, in the town of 
 Ballinasloe, from one extremity of said town to the other ; 
 saith, on the day previous to the one appointed for putting 
 the said sentence into execution, deponent sent a man, ac- 
 companied by a military party, for the purpose of execut- 
 ing said sentence, to Ballinasloe aforesaid, from Loughrea. 
 in said County, where deponent then resided, but said man 
 absconded in the course of the night out of the guard-hous*e, 
 where he was with the prisoners, and when deponent arrived 
 at Ballinasloe. on the morningof the day on which the sentence 
 was to be carried into execution as aforesaid, deponent was 
 much alarmed at rinding that he had not any person to per- 
 form the duty : deponent saith, he thereupon informed the 
 prosecutor in the cause, of the man's having so absconded, 
 2M2 
 
400 
 
 inasmuch as deponent saith the said prosecutor had presided 
 with the Barrister on the Bench, at the Sessions at which 
 the man had been so convicted and sentenced ; deponent 
 saith, the said prosecutor was very much displeased at de- 
 ponent having informed him that deponent had not then any 
 person to flog the said prisoners, and said prosecutor threa- 
 tened this deponent with the consequences, alleging, that the 
 said prosecutor would bring deponent's conduct in that in- 
 stance before the Court of King's Bench, and have deponent 
 fined five hundred pounds ; deponent saith, that thereupon 
 deponent informed said prosecutor he was ready and willing 
 to pay any sum that could in reason be demanded by any 
 person for performing such duty, provided he, said prose- 
 cutor, who had influence in the town of Ballinasloe, could 
 procure a person to do it, on which the said prosecutor pro- 
 posed to deponent to accompany him to the Colonel of a 
 regiment of cavalry, then quartered at Ballinasloe, who, 
 prosecutor said, he had no doubt would give a man for the 
 purpose ; deponent saith, that accordingly deponent did ac- 
 company the said prosecutor, to the Colonel, when the pro- 
 secutor made the application, which said Colonel indig- 
 nantly refused to comply with ; deponent saith, that there- 
 upon the said prosecutor was more provoked than before, 
 and he again threatened deponent with the Court of King's 
 Bench, and the utmost rigour of the law, and deponent be- 
 ing really afraid that said prosecutor would carry his threats 
 into execution, asked him what he could do to extricate him- 
 self from the difficult situation in which deponent was then 
 placed, and that deponent was willing to do any thing that 
 could in reason be expected from him, to which deponent 
 positively saith, the said prosecutor distinctly replied to de- 
 ponent in the words, C( we will do the duty between us, I 
 will flog them from Cuffs down to Custom-house-gap, if 
 you will flog them from that to Doctor Kelly's house de- 
 ponent saith, deponent indignantly rejected the proposal so 
 made to him ; deponent saith, deponent, with the assistance 
 of a friend, afterwards fortunately procured a person to exe- 
 cute said sentence ; saith, the prosecutor accompanied this 
 deponent, and walked after the car to which the criminals 
 were tied, between two files of soldiers, and deponent and 
 said prosecutor had proceeded a very few yards, when pro- 
 secutor found fault with the man, for not inflicting the pu- 
 nishment with sufficient severity, and at length said prose- 
 cutor became so abusive to deponent on the same account, 
 that deponent was obliged to call in the officer commanding 
 the military attending on said occasion, to put said prosecutor 
 
401 
 
 out of the ranks ; deponent further saith, that deponent 
 having been at the Earl of Clancarty's, some time previous 
 to the day on which the aforesaid sentence was to be put into 
 execution, that deponent was invited by him, the said Earl, 
 to dine at Garbally on said day, but deponent, in consequence 
 of the conduct of the prosecutor, declined going to Garbally 
 on that day, as deponent could not think of dining in com- 
 pany with a man who could treat him as the prosecutor had 
 done." 
 
 I cannot tell what impression the statement of these facts 
 may make upon others, but, for my own part, I confess that 
 they fill me with astonishment and horror. It has been my 
 painful duty to state them. If the charges contained in 
 these affidavits be unfounded, I beg to be understood again 
 to say, that I consider Archdeacon Trench to be most deeply 
 injured and aggrieved ; but if (and in every thing I say re- 
 lative to Dr. Trench, I speak upon an hypothesis) the facts 
 are correctly stated, I own that I not only do not consider 
 the language employed by Mr. McDonnell as surcharged 
 with vituperation, but I believe the English tongue could 
 not supply, out of all its ample and abundant stores, 
 phrase commensurate with the prosecutor's conduct. — 
 He was either serious in the proposition he made to 
 Mr, M'Xevin or he was not. If he was serious in that pro- 
 position — if he really intended to perform the part of a pub- 
 lic executioner — if he was anxious for the enjoyment of the 
 moral luxury which was to be derived from his manual aid 
 in the infliction of justice — if it was, indeed, his purpose 
 to take the cat- o'-n in e- tails into that hand with which he 
 distributed the sacramental bread, and circulated the conse- 
 crated chalice — if, with that hand which he raises up to Hea- 
 ven from its altars to invoke mercy for mankind, he intended 
 to go through the process of bloody laceration ; to lay bare 
 the bone, and to send the flesh in fragments from the 
 back, what sort of heart must he carry in his bosom ? And 
 if he was not serious — if he spoke in mockery and in 
 joke, good God ! what a subject for humour, what matter 
 for merriment in a minister of Christ ! Two wretched 
 men were to be whipped — they were to undergo a 
 frightful, and to any man who has ever witnessed the 
 execution of such a sentence, an appalling execution, 
 and it is upon their anticipated tortures, upon their convul- 
 sions, and their groans, that this teacher of the gospel in- 
 dulges in the spirit of truculent hilarity and of sanguinary 
 jest. But why should I suggest or imagine that he was not 
 serious in this amiable proposition, made to the Sub-Sheriff 
 2 M 3 
 
402 
 
 of Gal way, who swears to the fact. The Doctor took care 
 to shew what his real feelings and intentions were, in offer- 
 ing to accommodate the Sheriff with his holy hands ; for he 
 followed the cart, he urged on the torture, he fed upon their 
 agonies, and refreshed himself with their groans ; and this 
 is the man who propagates the word of God, without note 
 or comment. This is the man who bids us look for Christia- 
 nity, and seek the waters of life at their pure, fresh, and 
 inccrrupted source. This is the minister of a mild, and mer- 
 ciful religion, in its most perfect and refined shape— the man 
 who had tendered his own hand to do the work of savage- 
 ness and of blood — the man who had gloated over the torments 
 of two human beings, made of the same flesh as himself; 
 the man who had presided over the tortures of a woman — 
 who had ordered her to be brought forth, guarded by a file 
 of soldiers, and in the presence of the whole regiment, 
 caused her covering to be torn from her back, and woman as 
 she was, ordered her shift to be dragged off, until she stood 
 naked to the waist, and then — I am not now relying upon the 
 prosecutor's affidavit, nor upon any affidavit made in its cor- 
 roboration: — The great, the leading, the essential fact is con- 
 fessed, I should rather say, is admitted — aye, and avowed 
 and proclaimed by Doctor Trench himself: — He states, that 
 as Adjutant he stood by while the horrible operation was 
 going on. — I stop not here to say one single word of the 
 illegality of this shocking proceeding, — I will not suggest 
 that the flogging of a woman, under the sentence of a 
 Court-martial, was a monstrous violation of the law:-*- 
 All considerations of illegality are lost in the unmanly bar- 
 barity of that inhuman and most atrocious deed : — The mis- 
 demeanor against the law, is merged in the felony against 
 human nature : He stood by — he himself admits it— 
 the Priest of Christ stood by — he saw the^ wretched wo- 
 man brought to the triangle — he beheld her garments torn off 
 —her shoulders laid bare — he beheld the scourge laid upon 
 her naked and quivering flesh — he beheld her writhing and 
 convulsive motions — he heard her shrieks — he listened to 
 
 her screams and he comes into this Court to demand a 
 
 criminal information ! My Lords, I feel that I have been 
 carried away in the description of this horrid spectacle, 
 whose image rushed upon me as I advanced, beyond that 
 tone of deliberation which would become the ordinary cases 
 which are discussed in this Court, I could not help it ; but 
 though I have spoken with ardour, still let me, almost in the 
 moment that I am doing so, state again and distinctly, that 
 all that I have uttered is founded upon a supposition of the 
 
403 
 
 truth of these affidavits, and if they are false, let every thing 
 that has passed my lips be considered as mere idle sound, 
 and vain declamation. I fulfil a most painful duty, in speak- 
 ing as I have done of a Clergyman, who, if the accusations 
 of Mr. M'Donnell are destitute of truth, is, indeed, a deeply 
 injured and calumniated man. But are those accusations 
 void of truth and probability ? It is for your Lordships to 
 determine. It may, perhaps, be urged, that much of what 
 I have said is really not relevant to the exact legal question. 
 I submit that it is so in two points of view. First, that truth is 
 to be an ingredient for your consideration in the exercise of 
 your discretion ; and, secondly, that from the general habits 
 and tendencies of the prosecutor, you will be better enabled 
 to judge of his motives in dispersing a public assembly at the 
 point of the bayonet. I have said thus much upon grounds 
 applicable to the prosecutor himself. Let me be pardoned 
 for saying a very few words, with great humility and self- 
 distrust, upon a ground of objection to the conditional order 
 applicable to yourselves. You are not bound to grant this 
 information. Is it, then, judicious of your Lordships to 
 interfere in the contest which is now waging, not only be- 
 tween these parties, but between two great religious factions 
 in this country. You do no wrong to the prosecutor by 
 refusing him relief in a specific form. He has still a remedy 
 by indictment or by action. On grounds, therefore, of pub- 
 lic policy, I submit that it is unwise that you should inter* 
 mingle in this angry contention, especially where the inter- 
 position of your Lordships, instead of allaying the popular 
 passions and animosities, is calculated to excite them. Let 
 it not be said (as it will be said if you grant the information) 
 that the Court of King's Bench solemnly and deliberately 
 approved of the dispersion of an assembly convened for the 
 purposes of religion, by a military force — let it not be said 
 that your Lordships unnecessarily interfered in the fierce 
 controversy which is carrying on with all the proverbial 
 rancour of theological detestation — let it not be said that 
 justice left her lofty seat to rush into the midst of a polemi- 
 cal affray, and that when she stretched forth the arm of her 
 strong prerogative, it was not in order to part and separate 
 the disputants, but to protrude and urge them on, and make 
 herself a party in the combat. 
 
404 
 
 SECOND DAY — WEDNESDAY. 
 
 Mr. BENNETT rose to support the conditional order.— 
 He said, that in this case it fell to his duty, as Counsel for 
 the prosecutor, to lay before the Court the grounds upon 
 which he conceived that the conditional order should be 
 made absolute. As one of their Lordships (Mr. Justice 
 Jebb) was not present at the argument in this case on a 
 former day, he, Mr. Bennett, would succinctly state the 
 grounds upon which the conditional order had been ob- 
 tained, and he would then refer to some of the affidavits 
 which had been put in on the part of the defendant. The 
 conditional order was obtained on the affidavits of the Hono- 
 rable and Venerable Archdeacon Trench, sworn on the 20th, 
 and filed on the 23d of November, 1826. In that affidavit 
 he states, that he is Archdeacon of Ardagh, a Justice of the 
 Peace, and a Magistrate for the Counties of Gal way and Ros- 
 common. He read in a newspaper, called The Dublin 
 Weekly Register, purporting to have been published on 
 Saturday, the 21st of October, 1826, a certain article, enti- 
 tled " Ballinasloe Meeting," and purporting to be a Report,' 
 from the special Reporter of said newspaper, of the speeches 
 and proceedings of a meeting of the Catholic inhabitants of 
 Ballinasloe, held on the preceding Monday. He states, that 
 in this Report there appears a speech, purporting to be one 
 spoken by Mr. iEneas M'Donnell, and in it are to be found 
 the following paragraphs :•— 
 
 " I was about having my amendment put from the Chair, 
 and in a few minutes we would have all separated in peace, 
 but without waiting for that, Archdeacon Trench calls out 
 for the police, and this minister of God substitutes the Riot 
 Act for the Bible, and swords for his evangelizers. — (Cheers.) 
 The people were quiet — why then read the Riot Act ? — and 
 even if they were disorderly, why did he come prepared 
 with the Act in his pocket ? — was this a concerted plan— or 
 shall I call him, in intention, a murderer ? Having read the 
 Riot Act, he called on the police to do their duty, and the 
 fellows were ready enough to do it. The Hon. G. Ffrench, 
 a Magistrate, was repulsed from the Chair by these armed 
 men, war was declared by the Doctor, the peace of society 
 was disturbed, heads were cut, and blood was spilt/' 
 
 And also the following paragraph :— 
 
 " The four Magistrates were, Dean Mahon, Dr. Trench, 
 Lord Dunlo, and potato-faced M'Donogh— (loud laughter) 
 — one would imagine that they would have endeavoured to 
 
405 
 
 protect the public, and that as blood has flowed, these Magis- 
 trates would have made enquiry how far the law was vio- 
 lated. They did no such thing. Having accomplished 
 their intent they returned to their meeting with perfect 
 composure, and to this hour they have not expressed regret, 
 nor made a single enquiry." 
 
 And also the following paragraph : — 
 
 " Now to Dr. Trench. — It had been said that he has 
 improved Ballinasloe. He has got up a system of deceit and 
 disunion — of separating neighbour from neighbour — afflict- 
 ing the country at large, and distracting society. To what, 
 then, comes his boast ? He has whitewashed a few houses, 
 which, like haunted charnel-houses, are white without and 
 black within. The hearts of fathers have been broken, 
 mothers have been sent to their graves, and children torn 
 from their parents — the ties of filial and parental love have 
 been dissolved. Never did I hear more blasphemy— never 
 did I see more filth than in this town, and not a single manu- 
 factory to employ its population. Some of the walls are 
 whitewashed. A poor man is glad to get six-pence a day in 
 winter for his labour, eight-pence a day in summer, and 
 ten-pence from the Canal Company is considered a gift. Is 
 this encouragement for industry ? The other day this man 
 attacked me, I fling back his aspersions. Let him know 
 that my pretensions have not the same foundation as his. I 
 never was charged with bringing a female to the triangle ; I 
 never was called e ' skin-him-alive n in my corps ; I never 
 tore down the houses of the poor ; I never manufactured 
 parsons to provide for illegitimate daughters ; I never fol- 
 lowed the convict Rowan to Cork, and, because he became 
 an apostate to his faith, brought him back to Ballinasloe ; 
 I have never suborned witnesses, who afterwards came here 
 to confess their guilt, and the name of the suborner ; I never 
 was accustomed to intrude into the peaceable habitations of 
 the poor ; I do not make the Riot Act my Bible, and take 
 from it my lessons of government. If I do not do so, I ask 
 who does ?" 
 
 It a^so contains the following paragraph : — 
 
 " Though I declare, that on my entrance I saw an in- 
 creased force of policemen, called, in Ballinasloe, Doctor 
 Trench's faction ; that above stairs and below stairs I beheld 
 carbines, swords, and bayonets ; and that I saw the Doctor 
 admitting, under the name of gentlemen, people whose 
 appearance accorded ill with that class, and heard him say, 
 ( Let them go to the upper end of the room/ to men who 
 
406 
 
 were covered with frize coats and felt hats. Though I saw 
 all this I scarcely suspected the object." 
 
 And also the following paragraph : — 
 
 " But I shall go on with the scene. After Archdeacon 
 Trench had introduced all his myrmidons above, he made 
 arrangements for the developement of his plan. I have 
 evidence to support the fact. Even before the attack, 
 Robert Trench, son of the Archdeacon, expressed a hope 
 that there would be a riot. I have certificate testifying to 
 this fact ; and Mr. Trench can hear it if he choose. The 
 night previous to this brutal outrage, Gordon and Pope were 
 at the house of Garbally. I will not say that any arrange- 
 ment was entered into there ; I will not say that any com- 
 pact was made ; I will not suppose that any thing was done 
 to make Lord Dunlo forget his pledge ; I will not, in fine, 
 imagine that a plan was concerted to assassinate the peo- 
 ple." 
 
 The following words also occur : — 
 
 " Was this a concerted plan, or shall I call him, in inten- 
 tion, a murderer ?" 
 
 The affidavit further states, that the deponent has read in 
 a newspaper, called The Morning Register, paragraphs to 
 the same effect, and equally calumnious. He, Mr. Bennett, 
 w T ould shortly trouble the Court with a few observations 
 upon the nature of those imputations and inuendos which 
 were cast upon Dr. Trench. It appears that Dr. "Trench 
 swears in his affidavit that every one of the above charges 
 are false ; and he further swears that no complaint was 
 made to him, as a Magistrate, for redress, in consequence of 
 what had happened at the meeting ; that no serious injury 
 took place there, and therefore that it was not necessary to 
 make an enquiry. He swears that he never willingly 
 excited disunion, or instigated any person to a breach of the 
 peace. He totally denies the truth of the charges which 
 have been put forward against him, and of the more particu- 
 lar one respecting the triangle, he gives the following expla- 
 nation : — He states, that a woman, who accompanied the 
 Galway Militia, was repeatedly found stealing various arti- 
 cles belonging to the soldiers ; after endeavouring to prevent 
 her by every means, the Commanding-officer found it his 
 duty to have her tried for the offence by Court-martial ; she 
 was there found guilty, and sentenced to receive fifty lashes ; 
 Archdeacon Trench was then Adjutant of the Galway 
 Militia, and he swears, what is well known to most people, 
 that it is the duty of the Adjutant to attend the infliction of 
 every punishment in the regiment ; he states that he attend- 
 
407 
 
 ed at the infliction of this sentence, according to his duty a3 
 Adjutant ; he states, that, to the best of his recollection, the 
 woman was only sentenced to receive twenty-five lashes, and 
 that but few w r ere actually inflicted ; that the punishment 
 was merely intended by way of example, and that he believes 
 it had the desired effect, as he was informed that the prac- 
 tice of stealing afterwards entirely ceased in the regiment ; 
 he then proceeds to state the object of the meeting which 
 took place in Ballinasloe, and which is alluded to in the 
 paragraphs already quoted ; he states that it was a Society 
 of Gentlemen, met together for a particular purpose ; he 
 proceeds to state, that the London Hibernian Society had 
 sent a deputation to Ballinasloe, to hold a meeting there of 
 its members, and that the object of the meeting was for the 
 purpose of educating the poor of Ireland, by the establish- 
 ment of Free Schools, and the gratuitous circulation of the 
 Holy Scriptures, without note or comment. A branch of 
 the Society had been established at Ballinasloe ; and he 
 states, that although the meeting was open to the public, no 
 person except a member had a right to address the Chair. 
 Archdeacon Trench then proceeds to detail the occurrences 
 at this meeting, which continued for three days. Upon the 
 first day he states, that Eneas M'Donnell, though it was 
 contrary to the rules of the Society, was allowed by the 
 Chairman to speak for three hours and a half ; that on the 
 second day Mr. M'Donnell spoke for five hours, and the 
 whole object of both his speeches was to oppose the Society. 
 One would think that here there was speaking enough for 
 any Barrister who was not paid for it. Dr. Trench proceeds 
 to state, that the passions of the people were, as might be 
 expected, greatly excited by those speeches, and that in 
 consequence, on the third day a violent and alarming riot 
 took place, raised, as he believes, by the opponents of the 
 Society, in order to prevent the members thereof carrying 
 their laudable objects into effect. He swears, that seeing 
 the appearance of a riot, and fearing that the members of 
 the Society would be attacked with personal violence, he 
 read the Riot Act, which he happened to have in his pocket, 
 having carried it with him during the fair of Ballinasloe, 
 that had just concluded. He swears that he did not give 
 any orders to the police to attend at the Market-house, 
 where the meeting was held, but having perceived them 
 there, without any direction from him, he wrote a note on 
 the evening of the first day, to the chief constable, requesting 
 that the doors would be kept shut next morning, until the 
 Ladies and Gentlemen connected with the Society should be 
 
408 
 
 provided with seats. He swears that he repeated the same 
 request on the evening of the second day, and that these 
 were the only communications he had with the police. He 
 states that he cannot charge his memory with having told 
 the police to do their duty, though he believed their pre- 
 sence necessary for the suppression of the riot. He states 
 that the police acted under the orders of their commander, 
 who, being asked by the Hon. Gonville French, a magis- 
 trate, by whose orders he had brought in his men, replied 
 he had no orders, but he acted on his own responsibility. 
 Doctor Trench proceeds to swear, that he believes no unne- 
 cessary violence took place on this occasion, nor was there 
 blood spilled. He states, that he did not read the Riot Act 
 until he found himself called upon, in the discharge of his 
 magisterial duty, to protect the members of the Society from 
 personal violence. This affidavit of Dr. Trench is accom- 
 panied by one from Mr. Gal way, the agent for the prosecu- 
 tion, who states, that finding the publication, he went to the 
 Editor of the newspaper in which it appeared, and he was 
 there informed that Mr. M'Donnell was ready to admit it. 
 Indeed, on application being made to Mr. M'Donnell, he at 
 once, and without hesitation, avowed himself as the author 
 of the speech, and of the publication, Against the condi- 
 tional order Mr. M f Donnell has filed, as well as he (Mr. 
 Bennett) could count them, thirty-two affidavits. The first 
 one by himself, the other affidavits are made by Clergymen 
 of the Roman Catholic Church— -some by persons who call 
 themselves esquires — by butchers — by landholders — by beg- 
 gars-*-by beggarmen and beggar women. A few of these 
 affidavits alluded to the meeting in question — others of them 
 applied to the prosecutor, to his brothers, the Archbishop of 
 of Tuam and Captain Trench, and also to Lord Dunlo and 
 Mr. M'Donough. Some of those affidavits contain charges 
 of a criminal nature against the conduct of Archdeacon 
 Trench. Of the meeting at which the speech from which 
 the libellous paragraphs have been taken, was delivered by 
 Mr. McDonnell, none of the affidavits, except the one sworn 
 by Mr. McDonnell himself, speak. Of the charges of cri- 
 minality which these affidavits contain, this classification 
 may be made — First, imputations of criminal misconduct 
 on the part of the prosecutor, as a magistrate, at the meeting 
 on the 11th of October — Secondly, conduct on his part 
 reprehensible, if not criminal, respecting the tenantry on 
 Lord Clancarty's estate — Thirdly, several acts of immorality, 
 which may again be subdivided into the following charges : 
 Flogging a woman at a triangle— subornation of perjury— 
 
409 
 
 providing for his illegitimate daughters, by getting livings 
 for gentlemen and marrying his daughters to them — corrup- 
 tion as a magistrate generally, and r finally, for conspiring 
 with others, at the meeting of the 12th of October, to take 
 away the lives of the peaceable unoffending Catholics of the 
 town of Ballinasloe. This he (Mr. Bennett) took to be a 
 fair classification of the affidavits. He now came to discover, 
 if he could, in the speech of Mr. Sheil, what are the princi- 
 ples upon which he opposes this conditional order. As far 
 as he could ascertain them, they are as follows : — First, Mr. 
 Sheil says that Mr. M'Donnell, a gentleman of the Irish bar, 
 was warranted in making that speech, and afterwards pub- 
 lishing it to the country, on account of the conduct of Arch- 
 deacon Trench at the meeting on the 12th of October ; 
 Secondly, he justifies both one and the other (the speaking 
 and the publishing) from the truth of the charges contained 
 in that speech ; Thirdly, he says, that on account of the 
 truth of some of the charges, Mr. McDonnell was entitled to 
 hold the prosecutor up to the public as guilty not only of 
 those crimes, but of others which Mr. McDonnell has not 
 shewn to be true ; Fourthly, Mr. Sheil alleges that enough 
 of bad blood already exists in Ballinasloe, and between the 
 parties, and this he adduces as an argument-why this Court 
 should not grant the criminal information. There were 
 two topics which formed no portion of the defence, and to 
 which the Court could not fail to direct its attention. The 
 publication in question was admitted to be a libel, and the 
 defendant admits that he is the author of it, and glories in 
 being so. The Court is now called upon to say whether this 
 libel against a Clergyman, a Gentleman, and a Magistrate, 
 is to be put in the course of a legal investigation before a 
 jury, or whether it is to be stifled by disallowing the cause. 
 He, Mr. Bennett, would now proceed to consider the grounds 
 of the defence. Mr. McDonnell, who is a gentleman known 
 to them all as a Barrister of considerable practice on the 
 Connaught circuit, and who was known to be extremely 
 eloquent, in the month of September, 1826, went down to 
 the County Galway. His first appearance there is thus 
 announced in the affidavit of the Rev. Dr. Coen, Catholic 
 Archbishop at Loughrea. The Rev. deponent, after stating 
 that he had written a letter to Lord Clancarty, relative to 
 the oppression of his tenantry, on account of their refusing 
 to send their children to Bible schools, and to which letter 
 he received no answer, he proceeds to state, that " deponent 
 therefore determined that so iniquitous a system should no 
 longer be kept concealed, but that the wrongs of those pcor 
 2 N 
 
410 
 
 creatures should be proclaimed to the world; deponent 
 further saith, that Mr. Eneas M'Donnell, with whom depo- 
 nent was many years acquainted, having been, during part 
 of last summer and autumn, in the County of Mayo, from 
 whence deponent had heard of his great and successful exer- 
 tions in the cause of his religion and of his country, deponent 
 resolved, if possible, to procure his assistance and advice in 
 behalf of the persecuted tenantry of said Lord Clancarty, 
 and the aid of his powerful abilities in counteracting the 
 efforts of the Biblicals; and saith, that for that purpose a 
 meeting of the Catholic inhabitants of Loughrea was con- 
 vened by public requisition in September last, at which it 
 was resolved to invite the said Eneas McDonnell to a public 
 dinner in said town." The affidavit proceeds to state, that 
 the invitation was accepted of by Mr. McDonnell ; that a 
 public meeting was held in Loughrea ; that Mr. McDonnell 
 attended at said meeting, and " loudly inveighed against the 
 system of cruelty and persecution adopted, as herein-before 
 mentioned, against the poor tenants of Lord Clancarty;" 
 and that a petition on the subject was agreed upon to be 
 presented to Lord Dunlo. He, (Mr. McDonnell) in his own 
 affidavit, proceeds to state, that he went from Loughrea to 
 the provincial meeting about being held in Ballinasloe. This 
 was the first meeting at which he appeared, and he states in 
 his affidavit, that he addressed the meeting on the subject of 
 the persecution of Lord Clanearty's tenantry. It appears 
 that at this meeting he expatiated, at length, upon the con- 
 duct of the Trench family, and attacked and abused the 
 Archbishop of Tuam, Dr. Trench and Lord Clancarty. 
 This is the first appearance of this gentleman on any occa- 
 sion. The meeting took place on the 8th of October. On 
 the 9th Mr, M'Donnell states, that he saw an advertisement, 
 calling a meeeting of the friends of the London Hibernian 
 Society for the next day, and that he felt it his duty to 
 attend the meeting. He (Mr. Bennett) would pass rapidly 
 over the two first days of this meeting, contenting himself 
 with stating, that no person who was not a member of the 
 Society was entitled to address the Chair ; that Mr. McDon- 
 nell, through the courtesy of the Chairman, as being a mem- 
 ber of the Irish bar, was permitted to address the meeting 
 for three hours and a-half on the first day, and for five hours 
 on the second day. Archdeacon Trench states in his affida- 
 vit, that the people were considerably excited by those 
 speeches, and if they were any thing like the speeches 
 which he (Mr, Bennett) has heard Counsel address to this 
 Court, he should not be surprised that the people were 
 
411 
 
 excited by them. On the third day, Archdeacon Trencli 
 states upon oath, that some time after the meeting had 
 assembled, there being an appearance of riot, he felt it his 
 duty to read the Riot Act, and disperse the meeting. On 
 the 8th, 10th, and ] 1th of October, this man poured out, in 
 the presence of the lower orders, the most unceasing calum- 
 nies upon Lord Clancarty, the Archbishop of Tuam, and 
 Archdeacon Trench. On the fourth day, that is, the 12th 
 of October, he attended again, before a crowd of persons of 
 different religious persuasions, in order to give further vent 
 to his calumnies. He was then informed by the Chairman, 
 that he could not be allowed again to address the meeting. 
 Immediately the appearance of riot commenced. The affi- 
 davit of Archdeacon Trench testifies to the riot ; and, not- 
 withstanding the calumnies which have been heaped upon 
 him, his affidavit will be received as evidence upon this 
 occasion. His affidavit is corroborated by an affidavit on the 
 other side, from a man, or a gentleman for aught he (Mr. 
 Bennett) knew> named Pilkington, who thus describes the 
 transaction : — Deponenth saith, 
 
 " When Mr. M'Donnell insisted on his right to reply, 
 deponent saw the aforesaid person, and particularly one 
 Crozier, who belongs to the Gal way Militia, commence the 
 most deafening shouts and hisses, which deponent saith they 
 continued for some time, alternately, with claps and huzzas 
 at any observations made by his opponents, and deponent 
 then concluded that some preconcerted plan had been 
 formed among the friends and supporters of said Society, or 
 some of them, and saith, that dreading danger to depo- 
 nent's party, deponent immediately quitted his place, and 
 joined them at the other side of the Chair ; and said M'Don- 
 nell having concluded his observations, Lord Dunlo put 
 some question from the Chair, amid loud cries of aye, aye, 
 from one party, and no, no, from the other ; in the midst of 
 which, deponent saith, Lord Dunlo quitted the Chair. — 
 Deponent saith, the moment he did so, said M'Donnell 
 moved, that the Honourable Gonville £ trench should take 
 it." 
 
 It will be admitted that here is evidence to prove, that 
 Archdeacon Trench was called upon in his duty of Magis- 
 trate, to read the Riot Act on this occasion, in order to pre- 
 serve the public peace. Mr. Sheil says, that all this was 
 unnecessary and wrong. He says, that Archdeacon Trench 
 has not specified what was done which called for the reading 
 of the Riot Act. Mr. Sheil should recollect that the meet- 
 ing was composed of persons exasperated by three days* de- 
 2N 2 
 
412 
 
 clamatory invective, malignity, and calumny. He must know 
 that a mere opposition likely to take place at such a meet- 
 ing) if allowed to go on, must terminate in something seri- 
 ous. He says, that Doctor Trench should have waited, and 
 should not have read the Riot Act before any mischief oc- 
 curred, If a Magistrate perceives a disposition to riot, he 
 should read the Riot Act before the mischief has taken 
 place, and not after it has been effected. That would be 
 too late, at least, for the sufferers. Because Archdeacon 
 Trench considered it his duty to read the Riot Act at this 
 meeting, does that justify the defendant in becoming his 
 public calumniator ? The Laws of the Land are open to 
 punish a Magistrate, if he acts wrongly in the discharge of 
 his duty. Had the defendant applied to this Conrt for re- 
 dress, and sustained his charge by sufficient evidence, there 
 is no doubt he would find that this Court would act with 
 equal impartiality towards individuals of the highest^ as 
 well as individuals of the lowest rank. A Magistrate is 
 amenable to the tribunals of the country for his conduct. — 
 But there have been no complaints preferred before any le- 
 gal tribunal against Archdeacon Trench, for his conduct on 
 the 12th of October. Mr. Sheil said, Mr. M'Donnell was 
 indignant at the attack made upon him by Archdeacon 
 Trench. What was the attack made upon him ? He was 
 one of five or six thousand people who had assumed a riot- 
 ous appearance. Archdeacon Trench read the Riot Act, 
 called on them to disperse, and bid the people to go home 
 peaceably, which they did. There is no sudden appear- 
 ance of passion here on the part of Mr. M'Donnell ; he lies 
 by for four days, and having then summoned a meeting of 
 the people, he addresses them in a speech filled with the 
 foulest calumnies and vituperation against Archdeacon 
 Trench. Is that to be tolerated? An attempt has been 
 made by a Barrister to justify such conduct. It was his, 
 Mr. Bennett's, duty, as a Barrister, and one who had, he 
 thought, some rank in his profession, in the face of this 
 Court, to protest against such conduct. He was sure that 
 that portion of the bar who wished to act as gentlemen and 
 as good subjects, would join with him, Mr. Bennett, in con- 
 demning the conduct of an individual, who, instead of ap- 
 plying for redress to the tribunals of the land, had made his 
 appeal to an infuriated rabble, 
 
 Mr. O'CONNELL, who sat immediately behind Mr. 
 Bennett, happened here to say something, we believe, ta 
 Mr. Sheil. 
 
413 
 
 Mr. BENNETT, turning round suddenly towards Mr* 
 O'Connell, exclaimed with much vehemence-yes, Mr. O' Con- 
 nelly 1 have high rank in my profession, conferred upon me 
 by the Lord Lieutenant, and not of my own seeking. Mr. 
 Bennett then proceeded to state, that Mr. McDonnell lay by 
 for four days, and then instead of seeking redress, if he de- 
 served any from the constituted tribunals, he makes a long 
 and most calumnious address to an already exasperated mob. 
 He does more ; in five days after, he publishes his speech 
 in the Dublin weekly register, which circulates exten- 
 sively in this country, and, perhaps, throughout the globe. 
 The Court has already more than once heard read the pas- 
 sages from that speech, and they could have heard them 
 only with pain and disgust. This irritated Gentleman — this 
 Barrister — this man who felt, as he states, indignant emo- 
 tion at the conduct of other individuals, and who describes 
 that conduct as calculated to excite a breach of the peace, 
 lies by for four days without making a complaint, and then, 
 shrinking from an investigation before a legal tribunal, he 
 makes his appeal to an infuriated rabble, and he there pours 
 forth the greatest calumnies against the prosecutor, and five 
 days after publishes it to the world. Will the Court of 
 King's Bench of Ireland say, that he was justified in so 
 doing ? Have we (continued Mr. Bennett) no law on the 
 subject in this country ? If a Magistrate acts wrongly in 
 his magisterial office, cannot an appeal be made to the Lord 
 Chancellor and to the constituted authorities of the land ? — 
 But is every Magistrate in the land to be called to an ac- 
 count in the way which Dr. Trench has been treated ? Is 
 it to be contended, that a lawyer may go into a public as- 
 sembly, behind the back of a Magistrate and Gentleman, 
 and be allowed there to cast upon him the most scandalous 
 charges ; and to cover his character with the most shameful 
 vituperation ? If such be the case let us know it, that those 
 Barristers who think with Mr. McDonnell, may follow his 
 example. With respect to the first ground of the defence, 
 namely, that of provocation, it is utterly denied by Dr. 
 Trench, and the truth of the statement is corroborated by 
 the affidavits of the witnesses of the defendant. With re- 
 spect to the second ground upon which the Learned Gen- 
 tleman (Mr. Sheil) has relied, namely, that if a portion of 
 the libel be true, the order should not be made absolute, I 
 remember, that my Lord Chief Justice asked him, if he 
 meant to argue, that the truth of the charges contained in 
 the libel furnishes a defence against the conditional order?— 
 Mr. Sheil, in reply, distinctly stated that he did. Seeing, 
 2 N-3 
 
414 
 
 as I did, that the courtesy of the Court was manifested on 
 this occasion, as it always is when a Gentleman of the Bar 
 says, that he contends for a certain proposition being a legal 
 one, I did not say a word at the time. The Court exercises 
 that courtesy on this ground, that no Gentleman who has 
 passed the profession of the law, and attained to the rank of 
 Barrister, will willfully misstate what he conceives to be 
 the law. The Court accordingly gives him credit for be- 
 lieving what he seriously states to be law. I am far from 
 saying that Mr. Sheil did not act so on this occasion. In- 
 deed 1 will do that Gentleman the justice to remark, that 
 before he commenced his argument he entered his solemn 
 protest, that he was only obeying his client's instructions m 
 what he was about to state to the Court ; and how far Mr. 
 Sheil has carried his client's instructions sincerely into ef- 
 fect, this Court is pretty well able to judge. There was 
 scarcely a crime which the history of the most depraved or 
 mankind could suggest, that has not been imputed to Arch- 
 deacon Trench. There was scarcely one in the whole cata- 
 logue of disgusting and revolting charges brought against 
 the prosecutor, which Mr. Sheil did not repeat and amplify 
 upon. He was particulary eloquent and energetic upon the 
 triangle. He frequently brought that revolting charge be- 
 fore the view of the Court. He painted the suffering wo- 
 man before the face of a numerous Court, and of a favour- 
 able auditory. What is the great crime of which, it the 
 prosecutor is more immediately guilty ? It appears that 
 Doctor Trench, in conjunction with Lord Clancarty, and 
 Captain Trench, is anxious for the education of the poor, 
 and the distribution of the Bible. Mr. Sheil said, the 
 Court of Kings Bench, in Ireland, is not the place to argue 
 this controversial question. How far he himself adhered to 
 this maxim, it is for the Court to judge. Mr. Sheil spoke ot 
 fanatical cruelty, bigotry, &c. and all by the imperative in- 
 structions of his client— he spoke of the clergyman having 
 been grafted on the soldier, and he dwelt much upon the 
 cruelty of torturing a woman at a triangle. He should have 
 known that the circumstance took place in the year 1799, 
 and that it was the duty of Archdeacon Trench, who was 
 then an officer in the Galway Militia, to attend at the exe- 
 cution of the sentence of a Court-martial. I may he per- 
 mitted to say, and that, too, upon the authority of Mr 
 M'Donnell, that the diffusion of education would be no great 
 crime in the town of Ballinasloe. Hear what Mr. M Don. 
 riell himself swears in his affidavit, " that he has always 
 considered, upon his own view cf the business done m the. 
 
415 
 
 Crown Court of the County of Galway, that there were 
 more cases brought there for trial from Ballinasloe and its 
 vicinity, by said Archdeacon, than, from any other district 
 of equal extent, by any, or all the Magistrates of said Coun- 
 ty." It cannot be a great offence, then, against the laws of 
 society to evince an anxiety to impart education to the peo- 
 ple of Ballinasloe. There is another charge which Mr. 
 M'Donnell makes in his affidavit upon hearsay and belief 
 alone, namely, that the prosecutor provided for illegitimate 
 daughters by marrying them to Clergymen of the Protestant 
 Church. This Mr. M'Donnell instructs his Counsel to state 
 before a cro wded Court, and he accompanies the statement 
 with the names of the individuals. This charge thus made, 
 Dr. Trench has denied upon oath. With that statement and 
 denial before him, he has the cruelty to come forward and 
 repeat his charge against a dignified clergyman of the Es- 
 stalished Church, of his having procured husbands for his 
 bastards, by marrying them to Protestant Clergymen. — 
 There was this additional cruelty about the transaction, that 
 in the statement w hich Mr. Sheil was instructed to read, the 
 names of other innocent individuals are mentioned, and are 
 unnecessarily dragged forward. What had they to do with 
 the present proceeding ? If the respectable Clergyman al- 
 luded to shall read of the present proceedings, and it is im- 
 possible but he must hear of them, he will find that he was 
 openly accused in this Court, upon the affidavit of Mr. 
 M'Donnell, of having married an illegitimate daughter of 
 Archdeacon Trench, and of having been bribed to marry 
 this person by getting a small living. Could there be any- 
 thing more cruel ? Mr. Sheil has told us, that he acted 
 upon the positive instructions of his client. I believe he 
 has done so. But I will declare my opinion, that as long as 
 I wear the gown I now have on me, I w T ill never obey in- 
 structions of such a nature, let them come from what 
 quarter they may, or make a Court of Justice the scene of 
 such observations. Whatever may be the charges against 
 Archdeacon Trench, (and they have been all denied upon 
 oath), where was the object of dragging the name of an 
 innocent and absent individual before the Court of King's 
 Bench, while the very avenues of the Court were crowded 
 with numbers eager to listen to the calumny ? 
 
 Mr. SHEIL begged pardon for interrupting Mr. Bennett, 
 but he wished to set him right as to point. It was in the 
 affidavit of Mr. M'Donnell, which he (Mr. Sheil) had read 
 to the Court, and not in his (Mr. Sheil's) argument, that 
 the gentleman's name was introduced. He did no more than 
 
416 
 
 read his client's affidavit to the Court, according to the posi- 
 tive instructions which had he received. 
 
 Mr. BENNETT— I agree that Mr. Sheil read the whole 
 affidavit as he was instructed to do. But, if I recollect right, 
 Mr. Sheil was not so abstemious when he came to the trian- 
 gle. He indulged in that display on this subject, of which 
 he is so capable. But if all that was said on this subject 
 was true, when Dr, Trench was an Adjutant, yet, because 
 he has become lately completely reformed, a transaction 
 which occurred twenty-eight years ago, and in which he 
 was only obeying the orders of his commanding officer, is 
 made the subject of repeated and amplified invective, for the 
 purpose of wounding the feelings of a respected and reformed 
 Clergyman and Magistrate, who is thus held up to the peo- 
 ple of the country as a delinquent of no ordinary magnitude. 
 If he had been guilty, in the days of his youth, of faults, 
 to the commission of which all young men are more or less 
 exposed, it must be allowed, that at the present time, in the 
 decline of life, and when preparing for another world, there 
 is not a more pious, a more exemplary, or a more excellent 
 man living than Archdeacon Trench. Is such a man as that 
 to be gibbetted before the public, on account of a transac- 
 tion that occurred eight and twenty years ago ? Are the 
 transactions of a man's whole life to be thus ransacked ? I 
 would recommend to those who adopt such a line of con- 
 duct, to peruse for a moment the Sacred Volume, where 
 they will find in it recorded, that there " is more joy in 
 Heaven for one sinner doing penance, than for 99 just." I 
 would remind the gentleman on the other side, that the next 
 time he addresses a Court upon a subject of this nature, and 
 dwells upon crimes of such long standing, to reflect upon 
 this text. It is also but justice to Mr. Sheil to say, that he 
 stated his belief that Archdeacon Trench has been com- 
 pletely reformed. We are also told that the defendant had 
 a right publicly to accuse Archdeacon Trench of suborna- 
 tion of perjury. This is an awkward charge for Mr. M 'Don- 
 nell to make. What proof has he of it ? A man named 
 Higgins, prosecuted another man for wounding him, and 
 prosecuted him to conviction. The man was brought to 
 justice, through the interference of Archdeacon Trench ; 
 but after the conviction, it appears that Higgins, by what 
 means it is impossible to state, was induced to say, that the 
 convicted man was innocent of putting out his, Higgins's, 
 eye, which was the offence charged. Higgins then, in re- 
 ply to those who asked him how he had lost his eye, stated, 
 that he had shot it out himself! This is the charge of sub- 
 
417 
 
 miation of perjury. Mr. Sheil has stated, that he defended 
 his case upon the truth of the libel, and his right to do so 
 le has manfully asserted. I declare, that having all respect 
 br the talents and knowledge of the Learned Gentleman, I 
 ;hink there is not a Barrister in Ireland who is ignorant that 
 he truth of a libel can form no defence for it. That is a 
 >rinciple familiar to every man in the country, and particu- 
 arly to those who have studied the law of libel, or who 
 lave been engaged in that traffic. I never before heard such 
 , defence made by a Barrister, and I trust I never will hear 
 t again, 
 
 Mr. SHEIL would venture to remind Mr. Bennett, that 
 le merely adduced the truth of the charges as an argu- 
 nent against this Court making the conditional order ab- 
 olute. 
 
 The CHIEF JUSTICE said— Mr, Sheil has argued the 
 ruth of the charges not as a ground of defence, should 
 he case go before a Jury, but as a reason why this Court 
 hould not make the conditional order absolute. His Lord- 
 hip would not say, that he would go the length which Mr. 
 >heil had gone. He could conceive the distinction be- 
 ween shewing that a prosecutor did not come into Court 
 vith clean hands, and that of opening a man's whole life, 
 n order to obtain grounds to oppose a motion of this de- 
 er iption. 
 
 Mr. BENNETT— If the principle be at all admitted, that 
 he truth of the charges should be admitted as a defence, it 
 hould be rather admitted on the trial, than on an applica- 
 ion for a criminal information. On the trial the prosecutor 
 nay cross-examine the witnesses produced against him, but 
 a the case here before your Lordships, he has no such op- 
 >ortunity. Several individuals have made affidavits against 
 Vrchdeacon Trench, and he has been quite unable to dis- 
 over who they are. Many of them are, no doubt, from 
 narkswomen. One of the affidavits Mr. Sheil himself de- 
 :ribed as covered with the mire of the pig-stye. If wit- 
 esses were produced before a Jury, they could be cross- 
 xamined, but here these affidavits remain recorded, with- 
 ut the prosecutor having it in his power to adduce evidence 
 o rebut them. In Holt, on libel, page 260, it is clearly 
 lid down, that the defendant is not allowed to justify when 
 n information is prayed against him — neither is he allowed 
 3 justify when an information is brought to trial. The rea- 
 on given for this rule is, that the contrary would be most 
 ljurious to the public peace. There is no difference in the 
 lischief of libel, whether it be well founded or otherwise, 
 
418 
 
 It is bad — and its truth, or its falsehood, is totally imma- 
 terial. The act itself is a political crime, even admitting it 
 to be true. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE JEBB— When an information is prayed 
 for, it lies with the discretion of the Court to grant it, or to 
 refuse it. It is allowed to the defendant then to justify — to 
 shew cause against the information. But when the indict- 
 ment is found, the defendant is not allowed to justify. It 
 is an important consideration for this Court to ascertain, 
 whether the person applying for a criminal information has 
 so conducted himself as to be worthy of the extraordinary 
 interference of this Court. It is competent for the defend- 
 ant to shew the nature of the libel, as not to be deserving of 
 our interference. In the present case, the affidavits take in 
 the whole life of the prosecutor. Now, it appears to me 
 that the Court will not countenance such a principle. The 
 Court will not sanction the principle, that the whole life of 
 a prosecutor may be ransacked in order to furnish a justifi- 
 cation for the libel. 
 
 Mr. BENNETT — I go upon principle, and I submit to 
 the Court, that no cause has been shewn against the infor- 
 mation. If this be not the law of Ireland, any one may 
 trump up what charges he pleases against a Clergyman of 
 the Established Church, and he will easily find persons ready 
 to swear affidavits in support of the truth of his charges. — 
 Before the Court adopts such a principle, I know your Lord- 
 ships will take it into your serious considerations, and that 
 you will require some authority for such a step. When I 
 expected to hear of an authority, we were treated to a quo- 
 tation from one of Lord Erskine's speeches. I protest 
 against such an authority. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL — Mr. Bennett labours under a mistake. — 
 I quoted, in support of my argument, the case of the 
 King against Robinson, I read a passage from one of 
 Lord Erskine's speeches, because it illustrated the principle 
 for which I was contending much better than I could 
 myself. 
 
 Mr. BENNETT— The case of the King against Robin- 
 son is no authority in this case. Mr. Sheil said, that if one 
 man assailed another he had a right to retaliate. What was 
 done to Mr. M'Donnell that he had a right to retaliate ? — 
 Mr. Sheil spoke of the treatment of the tenantry on the 
 Clancarty estate. Lord Clancarty feels like every landlord, 
 that he has a right to select from society those whom he may 
 choose to be his tenants. I have witnessed the mode in 
 which that excellent Nobleman conducts himself towards his 
 
419 
 
 tenants, and a better landlord I never knew. His conduct 
 should shelter him from calumny here, and if there be any 
 one present who has not witnessed his Lordship's conduct, 
 I entreat of him to enquire from some one who has, and I 
 entreat of him further, if he possess the feelings of a gen- 
 tleman, or a Christian, before he allows the calumnies of 
 Mr. McDonnell to fill his mind with impressions against 
 the prosecutor, Dr. Trench, to go to the town of Ballinasloe, 
 and to witness there the active exertions of his virtue and 
 his religion. As I said before, I do consider that a man 
 who, in early life, supposing such to be the case, had been 
 guilty of an unmanly indiscretion, when he becomes com- 
 pletely reformed, is as worthy, if not more so, of our ad- 
 miration, as he who was never guilty of the offence. We 
 have seen proved a letter written by the prosecutor some 
 years ago, to a Roman Catholic Clergyman, in which he 
 expresses his great anxiety to exhibit himself, as furnishing, 
 in his own person, an instance of the goodness and mercy of 
 God. I am sorry that the gentleman to whom that letter 
 was addressed lent it on this occasion, and for this pur- 
 pose ; it would have been much better if he, at the time, did 
 join with Archdeacon Trench, in endeavouring to improve 
 the condition of the people. Does this furnish any proof 
 of crime in 1827? A Clergyman, and a gentleman who 
 had in his early years, perhaps, been guilty of some indis- 
 cretions, for which he was now deeply sorry, wishes to 
 exhibit himself to the people as an example for them to fol- 
 low. Mr. Sheil expressed some fears lest I should speak 
 disrespectfully of the Catholic Clergy. Such has not been 
 my practice. I hope my character is one to which I may 
 appeal — at least I intend it as such. Every one who knows 
 me will bear witness, that in the course of my life I have 
 not been accustomed to speak disrespectfully of any persons 
 [>n account of their religious opinions. I give full credit to 
 Jie affidavits of the three Roman Catholic Clergymen, as 
 read in this Court. I admit their credit — I did not dispute 
 it — I entertain no disrespect towards them, though, per- 
 laps, I differ from them as to the mode in which the people 
 >f this country should be taught. What right has any man 
 jo interfere with a Nobleman as to the treatment of his te- 
 lants, or the management of his estate ? A tenant of this 
 ST obi em an is at a certain time asked to send his children 
 ;o a school. He does not send them. His lease expires ; 
 md though he may have been guilty of every species of im- 
 )ropriety in the meantime, because, at the expiration of his 
 ease, he is turned out, ergo — here is an instance of persecu- 
 
420 
 
 tion on the part of Archdeacon Trench. If the act be at all 
 one of impropriety, Lord Clancarty is surely to blame, and 
 not the Archdeacon. But what right had any man to inter- 
 fere on the subject of education between the landlord and 
 his tenant ? What right had any individual on that account 
 to bring forward calumnious charges against an innocent 
 -Nobleman, and that, too, behind his back? The defendant 
 has gone further; The Archbishop of Tuam, a prelate of 
 the Church of Ireland, and whose name is associated with 
 every thing virtuous, respectable and good, is assailed in the 
 most malignant manner. What is his crime ? Because he, 
 as prelate of the Established Church, thought it his duty to 
 call the attention of the poor to that which he conceived 
 would be useful to their immortal souls. Is a man to be 
 calumniated for doing so ? If the Archbishop of Tuam 
 kept back, he would be described as living in indolence and 
 sloth — when he interferes, he is calumniated and represented 
 as a bigot. Is this to be tolerated in a Christian land ? 
 Are the Dignitaries and the Clergymen of the Church of Ire- 
 land, who are determined to discharge that duty which they 
 owe to their country and their God, to be thus maligned ? 
 What private character is safe, if such principles as these 
 are recognised ? The Bar of this country is a profession 
 for which 1 entertain, as I ought, the highest respect, and 
 I trust that, through life, I have endeavoured to act as be- 
 coming a worthy member of it. But if the Court of King's 
 Bench shall decide, that an Irish Lawyer has a right to ga- 
 ther together an infuriated rabble, and there malign the 
 first character in the land, I will fling the gown which I 
 wear off my back. I would not belong to the profession, 
 if a crime like that should pass unpunished. If such be the 
 case, the Irish Bar would be disgraced for ever. Whom 
 does the defendant next calumniate ? Captain Trench, a 
 gallant officer of the Navy : a Gentleman who is loved and 
 respected by all who know him. The defendant is a Bar- 
 rister, and that, I contend, is an aggravation of his crime. 
 Mr, Sheil says that the Court of King's Bench will not inter- 
 fere, because bad blood exists in this case. There is such 
 in existence, every one must perceive ; if malignity and 
 cruelty are ingredients to make bad blood, they are here in 
 abundance on one side. Where is the bad blood exhibited 
 by Doctor Trench or by the Archbishop of Tuam ? Was it 
 bad blood in Archdeacon Trench to exercise his magisterial 
 authority in the presence of Noblemen and Gentlemen, and 
 of the Honorable Gonville Ffrench, a magistrate, when he 
 thought a case arose for his interference to preserve the 
 
421 
 
 peace ? No human being complains of him for this before 
 a competent tribunal. What definition is this of bad blood ? 
 All the slander, and all the calumny are on one side, and 
 the individual who gave vent to them, calls upon this Court 
 not to award to the crime its punishment, on account of the 
 existence of bad blood. If I have spoken warmly of the 
 conduct of the defendant, it was because I was compelled by 
 my feelings to do so. I do declare to this Court, that one 
 of the instructions of Archdeacon Trench was, that I should 
 not employ invective, or irritating expressions against the 
 defendant, or any individual of his persuasion. 1 have 
 strictly followed the instructions of my client. After dwell- 
 ing upon the important duties of a magistrate, Mr. Bennett 
 cited a passage from Holt on libel, page l6{), in which a 
 libel against a magistrate is considered one of a most aggra- 
 vated nature. He also referred on the same subject to 5th 
 Coke's Reports, in which it is stated, that the greater the 
 offence the greater should be the punishment. He also 
 quoted from Popham's Reports, page 135, the case of Reyn- 
 ham, whose offence >vas, that he traduced Lord Chancellor 
 Bacon. It seems that he made some observations on a case 
 in which he was concerned, and in the deciding of which 
 he impugned Lord Bacon's purity. He published this in 
 an address to the Crown. Some imputations are certainly 
 thrown out in history on the character of Lord Bacon. The 
 defendant, however, was in this case guilty, and if the 
 same punishment existed now as then for libel, we should 
 not hear so frequently of the perpetration of the offence. 
 Reynham was sentenced to imprisonment, to stand in the 
 pillory, and to lose his ears. In Ford, on libel, there is a 
 case in which an individual, who was convicted of having 
 libelled a Magistrate, was sentenced to pay a large fine, to 
 ride on a horse, with his head to the tail, from the Fleet to 
 Westminster, and there to have one of his ears cut off, and 
 then to be carried back in like manner to Cheapside, there 
 to lose his other ear. This was the way in which libels 
 against Magistrates, in former days, were treated. Modern 
 times and usages have mitigated the punishment, but the 
 principle of the law remains unchanged. The Magistrate 
 is necessarily the object of judicial protection. The Court 
 do well to consider whether the principles of the law 
 do not imperatively call upon it to grant this order for a cri- 
 minal information. Is there a Christian amongst us, acting 
 in the discharge of his duty, endeavours to put an end to 
 tumult, but would be entitled to the protection of this 
 Court ? Will this Court, the highest tribunal in this coun- 
 20 
 
422 
 
 try, afford its sanction to the principles avowed by this de- 
 fendant ? There has not been a particle of legal defence 
 urged by the Counsel for the defendant. Will this Court 
 allow this proceeding to be dropped, and thus so far decide 
 for the man who tramples upon the law of libel — and who 
 appeals to an unauthorised tribunal, and who, collecting to- 
 gether an infuriated rabble, assails before them— assails, with 
 virulent calumny, the first characters in the country ? If the 
 Court of King's Bench shall stifle this proceeding, and thus 
 sanction the measures of this defendant, any Barrister may 
 then go into any society which he may get together, and 
 there he may deal forth calumnies against the most respec- 
 table men in the world. We desire that such a stigma should 
 not be inflicted on the profession. The public character is 
 interested in this question. The best characters in the coun- 
 try are at stake, if the conduct of this defendant be not pro- 
 nounced worthy of punishment. Though I entertain the 
 highest respect for your Lordships, if this Court do not 
 make this conditional order absolute, I shall feel no confi- 
 dence in the justice of the country. Here is a Gentleman 
 and a Magistrate calumniated in the grossest manner, and 
 all investigation is refused. Shall that be said ? Mr. Bennett 
 concluded by stating, that he did not intend to apply any of 
 the observations which he had made in the course of his 
 speech to Mr. Sheil. That learned gentleman had only 
 strictly followed the instructions of his client. 
 
 THURSDAY, MAY 10. 
 
 Their Lordships took their seats on the Bench at eleven 
 o'clock. The court was excessively crowded. 
 
 Mr. NORTH rose this day, a ndaddressecl the Court to the 
 following effect : — My Lords, in this case I am on the same 
 side with my learned friend, Mr. Bennett, in support of 
 the conditional order which has been obtained. I wish 
 that I could bring to the examination of this case that 
 temper and composure of mind, with which 1 would have 
 been able, I hope, to have addresse your Lordships upon 
 it, if I were satisfied that the single and justifiable object of 
 Mr. Eneas McDonnell, in the course which he has taken, 
 
423 
 
 was to prevent this conditional order being made absolute. 
 I say, if I were satisfied, on the perusal of the affidavits 
 which have been filed on the other side, that the single, fair, 
 and justifiable object of Mr. Eneas M'Donnell was to pre- 
 vent this information being issued againt him — I feel that I 
 would have been able to address the Court upon this case 
 with that calmness and composure which should actuate the 
 mind of an advocate in this High Court of Justice. But on 
 reading the affidavit of Mr, M'Donnell, and giving to it the 
 most candid interpretation which I was able, I do confess 
 that I feel coerced to this conclusion, that the object of this 
 gentleman in filing his affidavit, and in procuring the sub- 
 sidiary affidavits which have been filed in this case, was not 
 so much to defend himself, as having the opportunity of 
 putting upon record more foul libels against the character of 
 the venerable prosecutor, and of taking advantage of this 
 occasion to publish through this Court to the world, the 
 blackest calumnies against that respected and virtuous man. 
 In the whole course of my experience at the bar, I never 
 witnessed a defence put upon the grounds upon which this 
 has been put, and I trust I shall never witness a similar de- 
 fence. It is impossible for any man not to see through the 
 nature of this proceeding — it is impossible for any man not 
 to feel its object — it is impossible not to perceive that this so 
 far from being a defence of the defendant, or an attempt to 
 justify his conduct, is a deep laid scheme to heap calumny 
 upon an honorable family, and to blacken the character of a 
 beloved and virtuous dignitary of the Established Church. I 
 have not the least doubt that such is the object of this pro- 
 ceeding. I feel that I would be unworthy of the place 
 which I hold at the bar, if I attempted for a moment to stifle 
 the fact, that I was disgusted at the course of these pro- 
 ceedings. When this case came on the other day, and when 
 my learned friend, Mr. Sheil, was about to open the defence 
 of his client, could any man look around and not see the 
 galleries of this Court, and the avenues thereto, filled with 
 persons acquainted with Archdeacon Trench, and many of 
 whom were from the very town which formed the scene of 
 the transactions referred to in this case — it was impossible to 
 witness this, and not to acknowledge that a species of pu- 
 nishment was intended to be inflicted on that venerable per- 
 sonage. It was impossible not to have his feeling when one 
 beheld the familiar sneers, and sympathetic smiles, with 
 which the auditory received the attacks, made by my learned 
 friend, Mr. Sheil, upon the character and conduct of Arch- 
 deacon Trench. It was as if a tribe of Indian savages, had 
 20 2 
 
424 
 
 been assembled together, to witness the torture, and to gloat 
 upon the sufferings of their last-taken captive. I fear, my 
 Lords, that I have already more than satisfied the Court that 
 I am not able to bring to the consideration of this case that 
 calmness and composure which it undoubtly is my duty to 
 do. I will do all in my power to restrain my feelings, as if 
 no just cause had been given on this occasion to call them 
 into action. My learned friend, Mr. Sheil, has attempted to 
 vindicate this libel, or at least to shew that there existed not 
 grounds to justify this Court in granting the criminal infor* 
 mation, Mr. Sheil has relied upon the facts disclosed in the 
 affidavit of Mr, Eneas McDonnell, to prove that sufficient 
 provocation was given for this atrocious libel. But for my 
 part, I conceive that the affidavit of Mr. Eneas M'Donneli 
 must produce quite a different impression in every well re- 
 gulated mind. It is a tissue of calumnies from the begin- 
 ning to the end, and is not that which a Court of Justice, in 
 exercising its discretion, could at all consider as furnishing 
 a reason for refusing this criminal information. What are 
 the circumstances under which the alleged provocation to 
 Mr. M'Donnell has been given ? It appears that Archdea- 
 con Trench, holding a high situation in the Established 
 Church, and being sincerely devoted to the diffusion of that 
 Scriptural education which many persons, and I boast my- 
 self as one of the number, consider one of the greatest bless- 
 ings that could be conferred upon this country, has had the 
 presumption to connect himself with a Society instituted for 
 the purpose of effecting that great object. He becomes a 
 member of the Hibernian School Society, which is spoken 
 of in the affidavit as if it were composed of the vilest, mean- 
 est, the most bigoted, and the most intolerant of mankind 
 — a Society which numbers amongst its members and sup- 
 porters, all the distinguished ornaments of Great Britain 
 and Ireland — a Society which is presided over by men who 
 have proved themselves the friends of a free and liberal 
 toleration — a Society, in fine, which, until Mr. Eneas 
 McDonnell attempted to interrupt its operations, was pro- 
 ceeding through this country in a course of active benevo- 
 lence and true charity. Such was the Society, the members 
 of which held a meeting in Ballinasloe, for the purpose of 
 attending to their business, and of giving greater diffusion 
 to the principles upon which they acted. At that meeting 
 Lord Dunlo acted as President, and that is sufficient gua- 
 rantee that nothing could take place at the meeting to give 
 any person just cause of complaint. Mr. M'Donnell, who is 
 not a member of this society— who is opposed to their prin- 
 
425 
 
 ciples, and who dreaded the consequences of their proceed- 
 ings, and who proclaimed himself able to shew, by argument, 
 that the proceedings of this society were calculated to injure 
 the county at large, was an attendant at this meeting. — 
 Though not a member he is allowed to state his opinions — 
 though an intruder on the meeting, he is permitted by the 
 Chairman to address it. Is it complained that he did not 
 get ample and sufficient time to state his reasons for oppos- 
 ing the society ? He impugned the conduct of the society 
 — he attacked the motives of its members, and the principles 
 upon which it was conducted. On the first day of the 
 meeting he spoke for three hours and a-half. It being the 
 opinion of some gentlemen that he should be heard in reply, 
 he obtained permission to reply on the second day, in a 
 speech which lasted five hours. Shall I be told that there 
 was any thing in the conduct observed towards Mr. Eneas 
 M'Donnell which could admit of censure ? He was received 
 with the utmost courtesy and attention ; and though he 
 indulged in violent invectives against the society and its 
 members, had he any right, when he sat down, to complain 
 of want of courtesy towards him, on the part of Archdeacon 
 Trench, or of any person present ? He states, that he 
 returned that courtesy and attention by abstaining from any 
 topics which could possibly wound the prejudices, or embitter 
 the feelings of any one present. But if we are to judge of 
 the course which he then took, by that which he has taken 
 in this affidavit — if we are to determine the character of the 
 last works of the author, by those which are extant in our 
 hands, it appears to me that a very different character, 
 indeed, may be fairly applied to his deportment on that occa- 
 sion. Not satisfied with this hearing — not content with this 
 reception, on the third day Mr. M'Donnell insists upon his 
 right to interfere with the direct proceedings of the Society 
 — a right to which he was not at all entitled, and he, a 
 stranger, endeavours to put the Honourable Gonville 
 Ffreiich in the Chair, This proceeding naturally produced 
 resistance on the part of the society. It should not be for- 
 gotten that there were females of the highest class present ; 
 and it should be borne in mind, that the degree of alarm 
 excited upon such an occasion, is always more than com- 
 mensurate with the danger which really exists. Under 
 these circumstances Archdeacon Trench, anxious for the 
 safety of the persons there assembled, and desirous to pre- 
 serve them from improper violence, feels it his duty, as a 
 Magistrate and Justice of the Peace, to read the Riot Act, 
 and call on the meeting to disperse. We are told of assaults 
 20 3 
 
426 
 
 upon individuals, and of blood having been spilt. What 
 proceedings have been taken in the Courts of Justice, on the 
 part of such individuals, to obtain redress ? Will any man 
 say that an outrage was committed at that meeting by Arch- 
 deacon Trench ? That meeting was only properly cleared 
 of those who were disturbing its proceedings and violating 
 its order. The peace of the meeting was entrusted to the 
 members of the society, and those who attempted to disturb 
 it were removed from the sphere of their operations. Is 
 there any thing in that which should be justly said to have 
 excited, in the mind of Mr. McDonnell, feelings of provoca- 
 tion ? Is there any thing in those proceedings which could 
 be said to warrant him in acting the part which he did at 
 the meeting which took place on the l6th of October ? That 
 meeting occurred after sufficient time had been given for 
 the mind of Mr. McDonnell to cool, if it had been warmed at 
 all ; it took place after all disagreeable feelings in the mind 
 of Mr. M'Donnell had time to subside, if they ever existed 
 there. Yet, at thzt meeting we find Mr. M'Donnell pub- 
 licly speaking the blackest calumnies against the prosecutor, 
 and afterwards publishing to the world the libel of which 
 he boasts and glories. He has, it must be acknowledged, 
 made ample retaliation on the prosecutor, if the latter had 
 given him any cause of offence. The Rev. Prosecutor is 
 accused, by Mr. M'Donnell, of subornation of perjury — of 
 having compounded for felony for apostates, as the defen- 
 dant calls them, from the Catholic Church — of having com- 
 mitted various crimes, and of having violated the sacred 
 duties entrusted to his charge. Such is the provocation 
 which is held to warrant those charges. Mr. M'Donnell 
 seems to think, that a sufficient justification of his case is 
 afforded in the fact, that Archdeacon Trench has shewn an 
 active zeal for the diffusion of his opinions. But I feel 
 assured that your Lordships will not consider that a suffici- 
 ent justification of the libel. I do confess that I think a 
 Clergyman of the Church of England may still enforce the 
 diffusion of the Holy Scriptures, and may do so without 
 being justly charged in this High Court with the crimes of 
 bigotry and intolerance. I well know that considerable 
 differences of opinion exist in this country, on this most 
 important of all subjects. But I cannot understand why 
 these differences of opinion may not be canvassed, with per- 
 fect good feeling and good humour, by both parties in this 
 controversy. I do not see why Archdeacon Trench may 
 not be allowed to entertain the opinion that the Holy Scrip- 
 tures should be put into the hands of the people, and that 
 
427 
 
 they ought to be called upon, in matters of the most import- 
 ant concern, to exercise their right of private judgment. I 
 confess that I am one of the advocates of such an opinion, 
 and that I would not, for any consideration, surrender that 
 noblest of .all attributes, which he who relinquishes is at 
 best but a perfect slave. Archdeacon Trench has a 
 right to entertain such an opinion, and no man has a 
 right to slander him because he is bold enough to main- 
 tain it. I admit that a contention exists on this subject here 
 — that there are those in this free and tolerant land who 
 would wish to make religion a matter not of choice and 
 adoption, but of necessity — who would put a fillet upon the 
 eyes of human reason and not allow us to peep from beneath 
 the bandage, lest we should discover the deception. I ad- 
 mit that there are those who in this country advocate such 
 a system of darkness — I admit that the contending parties 
 have joined issue ; Mr Eness M'Donnell has taken one side 
 of the question, and Archdeacon Trench the other. The 
 combatants have met as they may meet again. Mr. Eneas 
 M'Donnell was heard the first day of the discussion for three 
 hours and a half, and on the second day for five hours. — 
 Ample indulgence was given to him. He had the full field 
 open to him to agitate the minds of those to whom he ad- 
 dressed himself. Probably his speeches on this occasion 
 were like certain medicines, which, according to the quan- 
 tity in which they are administered, either produce stupor 
 or delirium. Knowing, as we do, the powers of Mr. M'Don- 
 nell's eloquence, we have every reason to suppose the latter 
 effect resulted from it on this occasion. Did any thing oc- 
 cur in this discussion which could tend to excite the feel- 
 ings of Mr. M'Donnell ? If he had been told, in the room, 
 that he would not be heard — that he was not entitled to en- 
 force his arguments there — that any thing which he could 
 say was not worthy of attention — though such treatment 
 might excite a certain degree of annoyance in the mind of 
 Mr. M'Donnell, I am unable to say how it could at all 
 warrant him in the course which he has taken. My Learn- 
 ed Friend, Mr, Sheil, seems to misapprehend the grounds 
 upon which this Court proceeds, when it requires that the 
 prosecutor shall come in here with clean hands. It does not 
 revisit upon him things which he may have done through 
 life, and which are quite unconnected with the transaction 
 for which he seeks redress. Mr. Sheil endeavoured to sup- 
 port an analogy between this case and that of a person who, 
 on receiving an insult, commits a breach of the peace on the 
 moment, and from the sudden impulse of the provocation. 
 
428 
 
 It Is very true, that if I were guilty of insulting any per* 
 son, and if he, smarting under that insult, should call upon 
 me for reparation, or should seek the shedding of blood, 
 and insist upon that species of satisfaction which the cus- 
 tom of the world has too often authorized — if I should ap- 
 ply for a criminal information, under such circumstances, 
 the Court would say to me, " These consequences have been 
 produced by your own conduct — you produced a breach of 
 the peace to be committed, and now you call for punish- 
 ment." But suppose that a person who alleges that he has 
 been insulted, instead of yielding at the moment, and in the 
 heat of passion, to the provocation given to him, instead 
 of calling for satisfaction or reparation for the supposed in- 
 jury on the spot, should take the earliest opportunity of as- 
 sailing, with malignant slander, the character of the man 
 who has offended him— should take up the private transac- 
 tions of the individual in question, and hold him up to the 
 world as guilty of the black estand mosta bominable crimes — 
 and suppose that the slanderer, when called to account for 
 his conduct in a Court of Justice, should add to his cruelty, 
 by employing one of the ablest Counsel, and by instructing 
 him to come into Court, and there, in the presence of the 
 Bench, and before a willing auditory, assembled for the oc- 
 casion, to inflict a severe, an eloquent, and most unmerited 
 castigation upon his opponent — where is the man who pos- 
 sesses the least knowledge of the principles of Law — where 
 is the man who has the feelings of a gentleman or a Chris- 
 tian, that will not condemn such a proceeding ? And will 
 this Court protect an individual, who has thus outraged the 
 feelings of human nature, and who has violated the laws of 
 society ? Can any thing justify such a proceeding ? This, 
 I take it, is precisely the case of Mr. Eneas M'Donnell, 
 and ought that case to be justified ? I admit Mr. Sheil will 
 say, that Archdeacon Trench has been foully slandered — 
 that he has been charged with perjury, subornation of per- 
 jury, murder, rape, &c. &c. But Mr. M'Donnell was war- 
 ranted in so accusing him, as he prevented his, Mr. M'Don- 
 nell's, friend, the Hon. G. French, from taking the Chair, 
 at a Meeting of the Hibernian Society, (of which he was 
 not a member,) and because he put Mr. M'Donnell and his 
 friends out of the room. Was ever a case so justified in a 
 Court of Justice ? I know not the arguments which have 
 been brought forward on the other side to oppose this 
 conditional order. They crumble in your grasp when 
 you endeavour to hold them. I never expect to live to 
 see a rule of the Court of King's Bench founded upon 
 
429 
 
 ;uch arguments. With respect to the charge relative td 
 he flogging of the woman, I shall just observe, that it 
 ippears that the prosecutor, in early life, was called 
 ipon, in the discharge of his duty as Adjutant to the 
 •egiment to which he belonged, to enforce a sentence in 
 lursuance of that discipline, which, in my opinion, con- 
 ributes in a great degree to the superiority of our army, 
 md, without which, in some degree, our soldiers would 
 lever have been led on to victory. We find that this trans- 
 ition occurred eight-and-twenty years ago. Is this, even 
 supposing it to be a fault, to stain the future life of the pro- 
 secutor ? But his private life has been ransacked. Evidence 
 s produced to shew, that like others who follow the profes- 
 sion of arms, he yielded in early life to the seductions of 
 ileasure. But is it because such instances, even allowing 
 hem to be facts, (and I have not the least doubt but they 
 ire foul fabrications,) may be produced from the early life 
 tf a man who has since been completely reformed, that such 
 circumstances should be adduced as a ground to justify the 
 conduct of Mr. Eneas M'Donnell ? Even supposing, for 
 irgument sake^ the Rev, Prosecutor to be every thing that 
 le is represented — suppose him, in cruelty and debauchery, 
 lot to be surpassed by a Nero, and let him in other vices be 
 compared to that celebrated Cardinal, who is said to have 
 lad a mistress in every Nunnery in Rome, is he for that 
 lisentitled to this information ? What right has Mr. M'Don- 
 lell to sit in judgment on the private character of the prose- 
 :utor ? What right has he to drag the transactions of his 
 ife, after the lapse of twenty-eight years, before an unau- 
 horised tribunal, and there attack him with the utmost 
 nalignity, without judge or jury ? This Court will tell him 
 hat he was not warranted in so attacking the prosecutor, 
 iven had all the crimes laid to the charge of the latter been 
 )orne out by sufficient evidence. It has been sought to hold 
 lp to ridicule the passages which have been read from the 
 etters of the prosecutor, in which, with that fervent feeling 
 f contrition which characterises the true Christian, he 
 aments, and, no doubt, exaggerates the unfortunate circuni- 
 tances of his early life, and he calls upon a third to imitate 
 lis example ; he exhibits himself as a reformed sinner, and 
 s an example of the justice and goodness of God. Mr. 
 Iheil applied the epithets of fanaticism, bigotry, &c, to 
 hose passages. I cannot help feeling that religious opi- 
 lions, even when most erroneous, are the least capable of 
 brming a subject of legitimate ridicule. The subject is of 
 oo awful a character~-our feelings are too strongly inte- 
 
430 
 
 rested in it to admit of its being made, even in the hands of 
 a man of great talent, a topic for ridicule and jest. No one 
 is more able to employ the weapon of ridicule than my 
 learned friend, but in this instance I think he has totally 
 failed. The letters of Archdeacon Trench must produce, 
 even in the minds of those who differ from him, an impres- 
 sion that they are animated with sentiments of deep and 
 fervent, however mistaken, piety, Some gentlemen may 
 think this a subject for ridicule. They may talk of fanati- 
 cism and folly— but the fanatic will retort on them and: 
 survey, with ineffable contempt, the superstition beneath 
 which these gentlemen would bind the human mind. The 
 celebrated historian, Hume, relates an anecdote of two per-* 
 sons of opposite opinions who met together in Paris. The | 
 one was a Capuchin, and the other an Armenian. They' 
 happened to meet near the Louvre, and having surveyed 
 their reciprocally ridiculous dresses, they both burst out into 
 an immoderate fit of laughter at each other. It is so wher : 
 men of different religious opinions apply the test of ridiculi 
 respectively to their different sentiments. Mr. Eneas 
 M'Donnell represents Archdeacon Trench as a missionar) 
 of certain opinions. Why, Mr. M'Donnell is himself the 
 missionary of other and, perhaps, equally ridiculous opinions 
 in this country. It appears, that during last summer he 
 was engaged in making a political and religious circuit o j 
 Connaught— going to all the old Abbeys, and discovering ir 
 them, that the 6th century was an Augustan age in Ireland 
 He emerges from those ruined sanctuaries, with this burthei 
 on his back, like Pater Anchises on the shoulders of hi 
 namesake, going forward to lay the foundation of a Romai 
 empire. I do not say that he should be made the object o 
 ridicule for doing so, but that neither is ridicule to M 
 justly applied to Mr. Pope, and to Mr. Gordon, and t 
 Archdeacon Trench, who are the missionaries of opinion 
 different from those of Mr. Eneas M'Donnell. Deeper] 
 more malignant, and blacker slanders I never heard thai j 
 have been pronounced by Mr. M'Donnell against the prose 
 cutor; and they have been promulgated without any jus 
 provocation having been afforded. I am unable to recollec 
 any other grounds than those which I have stated to you] 
 Lordships, as having been adduced by Mr. Shed, and upo: j 
 which he rested his opposition to the making of this condi 
 tional order absolute. I cannot remember any other groum ; 
 upon which he relied, save and except the heated feelings c 
 Mr. M'Donnell. I am persuaded, that there was no excite 
 ment in Mr. M'Donnell's mind. I am satisfied that h 
 
431 
 
 vould, if he had an opportunity, have made those atrocious 
 harges against the prosecutor with equal readiness upon 
 he 1 6th of September, as upon the l6th of October. He 
 ias exhibited a desparate and determined malignity of de- 
 ign to pull down the fair fame of Dr. Trench, and of every 
 riember of that respectable family. The reason seems to 
 »e, because Dr. Trench, as a Clergyman of the Church of 
 England, is determined to discharge his duty. This Court 
 rill not surely countenance such conduct. Dr. Trench 
 omes to this High Court, and calls upon your Lordships 
 
 stand between him and this foul, this scandalous, and this 
 lost atrocious libel. Your Lordships will examine the con- 
 uct of the defendant ; you will weigh his black and malig- 
 ant motives ; you will look to what must have dictated the 
 3ul charges which he has here adduced against a most re- 
 pectable magistrate, and a virtuous clergyman, and you 
 riil finally take into your consideration the cruel course 
 fhich he chalked out for his Counsel, in resisting this mo- 
 ion. If this information be not granted, no rank or dig- 
 ity will afford protection against the slanderer in this coun- 
 ry — society will be rent asunder, and this land will be ren- 
 ered scarcely habitable, if Mr. M'Donnell be allowed to go 
 npunished. 
 
 Mr. O'CONNELL— 1 have only to complain of one thing 
 
 1 the speech of Mr. North, and that in duty to my client 
 rid my friend, and in duty to my learned friend, Mr. Sheil, 
 am bound to notice. Mr. North spoke of this Court hav- 
 lg been filled with an auditory gathered together to hear 
 le display. That could, even if true, not with justice be 
 id to the charge of Mr. M'Donnell, for he is absent from 
 lis country — I was going to say kingdom. He is in Eng- 
 ine! at the present moment. I am sure the charge is equally 
 
 > my friend, Mr. Sheil ; and for my part I am quite ready 
 
 > dispense with the greater part of the company. I have 
 ow, as a lawyer, not, to be sure, one of " high rank * 
 -for 1 cannot become possessed of any rank — I have, my 
 ords, to submit to your Lordships a few plain legal prin- 
 ples, and I shall endeavour to shew, that the case of Mr. 
 ['Donnell comes within them. If 1 succeed, your Lord- 
 tips will refuse to grant this information; if I fail, you 
 ill grant the information. But in either case, I will leave 
 ie Court with the full and decided conviction, that my 
 ient has received ample justice at your Lordship's hands, 
 take it, in the first place, to be a legal proposition which 
 ways governs this Court, on granting criminal informa- 
 ms, that no criminal information will be granted for a 
 
432 
 
 libel, unless the party seeking for the information shall 
 deny, upon oath, directly, distinctly, and particularly, the 
 several charges brought against him. All the charges must 
 be specifically denied. This principle is so plain, so obvi- 
 ous, so well established, that I did not think it necessary to 
 fortify it, as I could, by the citation of several cases to youir 
 Lordships. Mr. O'Connell here referred the Court to a case 
 in 1st Douglass, in which it was ruled, that it is not suffi- 
 cient to deny the charges generally, but that it is necessary 
 that there should be a positive and particular denial to eacliti 
 of the several charges. One of the charges in this case re- 
 lated to what occurred in the House of Lords, but as, ac- 
 cording to the Constitution, no one is to know what passei 
 there, this was made an exception. This very exception 
 continued the Learned Gentleman, proves the general rule 
 I may also refer your Lordships to the case of the tw< 
 \tkinsons, one of whom was a contractor for supplying th< 
 army with corn, and the other with rum. They were des 
 cribed as two rogues, the one in spirit and the other m grain 
 The roo-ue in spirit applied to the law, your spiritual uni 
 formlv shudder and quake at a true libel. He denied «b 
 charges in the libel generally. But the Chief Justice attoi 
 the Court refused to grant the information, unless he wouii. 
 deny the several charges positively and particularly. Atkimi 
 «on did so. He was afterwards indicted for perjdry ; he wa; 
 convicted, and stood in the pillory. I will admit that a Li 
 bel is no less a libel because it is true. I acknowledge tta 
 such is the rule of the law. Upon the propriety of such 
 rule I mav exercise my private judgment, but I do not du 
 pute its existence. But though the rule of law will not ac 
 mit the truth to be given as a defence in the trial for a libe 
 it is admitted as a defence against the granting of a crimin 
 information. . 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE BURTON enquired from what autnont 
 Mr. O'Connell had quoted the case of the Atkinsons * 
 
 Mr. O'CONNELL— I mentioned it, my Lord, from Lot 
 Erskine's speeches, merely as an historical record, and as a 
 illustration of a rule which has been repeatedly laid down 3 
 several cases. I may refer your Lordships on the subject 
 the case of the King v. Robinson, 4th Blackstone s Report 
 page 542. There are four conditions laid down, wnic 
 govern the Court, as to the granting or the refusing of cr 
 minal informations. First, the merits of the party appl\ n 
 —Secondly, the time of application— Thirdly, a suspicioi 
 state of the case, or, as in the legal parlance, of what 
 called the Evidcnlia Rei— and fourthly, the consequences 
 
433 
 
 granting the information. There are five rules, I have al- 
 ready mentioned the fifth — namely, that the party must dis- 
 tinctly deny the charges contained in the libel. It is quite 
 at your Lordships' discretion to grant a criminal information. 
 It is a mere question of judicial discretion, and a discretion, 
 from the exercise of which all caprice is excluded, by means 
 of the five rules which I have just enumerated. I insist that 
 my client can rely with confidence upon four of these rules. 
 As to the rule applicable to time, I will not deny but they 
 are within the time. Had they, however, delayed but one 
 term, this Court would not listen to their application, and 
 would refuse to grant the information at once. It is, there- 
 fore, manifest, that the Court can exercise its discretion 
 on the matter, in accordance with certain rules already cited. 
 The party who comes into Court, applies to the discretion of 
 the Court, and he must abide by it. Before I proceed 
 to the facts of the case, I shall notice some things which fell 
 from the other side. Mr. Bennett said, and he seemed to 
 think that a great point, that if your Lordships refuse to 
 grant this information, yon stifle all investigation in this 
 case, and put an end to all enquiry. Now, such is not the 
 fact — that is not law at all, or like law. Archdeacon Trench, 
 if this information shall be refused, has still the course open 
 to him of proceeding by indictment. He has the whole 
 island, and the entire British dominions, open to him, and 
 if he could not get a jury to convict Mr. McDonnell, he is 
 not of that class who need have fears about a jury. He 
 may also proceed by action. We have heard a great deal of 
 merits — we have heard long encomiums mingled in the ver- 
 biage of hired professional advocates. What ! if there be 
 so much of merits on the side of the prosecutor, why does 
 he not bring his action ? Then, according to the principle 
 of law, truth would be admitted as a defence, and my 
 client, Mr. M'Donnell, would confidentially go before a 
 jury to investigate the truth of every word which he has 
 said. As his Counsel, I now tender them that offer. Let 
 them bring their action for the alleged libel — let the matter 
 be inquired into. Mr, M f Donnell will go before a jury, and 
 prove the truth of the charges which he has made against 
 the prosecutor, or if he should not, he will pay the damages 
 that may be awarded. Let the prosecutor go upon his me- 
 rits, and let truth be admitted as a defence. This is the 
 offer which I make to the Venerable Archdeacon. Even 
 upon this ground I would call upon the Court to refuse the 
 information, and to let in truth, the handmaid of justice, 
 upon this transaction. A reference was made, I understand, 
 2 P 
 
434 
 
 to a case in which Lord Chancellor Bacon was concerned.— 
 A more unfortunate reference could not be made. The case 
 was — Mr. Reynham was engaged in a suit in the Court of 
 Chancery, in which all his property was involved. Lord 
 Chancellor Bacon decided it against him, and received £100 
 as a bribe for said decision. Reynham, in a very mitigated 
 statement, addressed to the King, suggested some reasons 
 against the decision. For that publication he was tried, 
 convicted, and sentenced to stand in the pillory — to have 
 his nose slit open — to have his ears cut off in different parts 
 of London ; and he was obliged publicly, in Westminster- 
 hall, to beg pardon for having insulted the majesty of Jus- 
 tice ! This occurred in 1618. In 1620, Lord Chancellor Ba- 
 con was arrainged before the House of Peers, upon twenty- 
 two charges, the 8th of which was, that he took, in Reyn- 
 ham's case, £100 as a bribe. His defence to this charge 
 was, that it was £110, and not £100, which he received in 
 that cause. There was a Judge Bennett, too, of the Pre- 
 rogative Court, arraigned at the same time. This was a 
 man of narrow intellect, but of great venality, He an- 
 nounced for sale, to the highest bidder, probates of wills, 
 &c. This Sir John Bennett was truly a moderate judge, 
 for in his defence, he alleged that he only took the sum of 
 £4000, in bribes, and this he stated was only a fraction 
 above £200, a year. Truth then, it appears, was no libel, 
 for, as we have seen, the wretched man was sacrificed, who 
 told the truth of corrupt judges. They could use the spiri- 
 tual swords then with as great activity as they were used by 
 the police at Ballinasloe. Lord Chancellor Bacon knew, as 
 well as Archdeacon Trench, how to employ the sword of 
 " the Lord and Gideon," and both one and the other were 
 put in requisition against unfortunate Reynham. He was 
 obliged to make his public apology in Westminster-hall.— 
 At that period there were, as, thank God, at all periods 
 there are, at the bar, individuals who separated themselves 
 from the common herd of hirelings, and who struggled for 
 constitutional liberty. At that period, as now, these in- 
 dividuals were laughed at by the men of " high rank," 
 and they bore their contempt in silence. The men of " high 
 rank " joined heart and hand with the venal tribe, and they 
 were particularly conspicuous and loud in their defence of 
 Lord Chancellor Bacon. The sacred names of religion and 
 justice were repeatedly invoked by those legal miscreants, 
 and truth seemed to be set at defiance by those men who 
 were too high to think about it. The Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury it was who pronounced judgment on the unfortu- 
 
435 
 
 nate Reynham. He, too, could quote texts of Scripture.— 
 He began by saying, that " yet in those latter days (quot- 
 ing from St. Peter and St. Jude, whom he called by the fa- 
 miliar appellation of Peter and Jude,) there shall appear 
 those who shall speak evil of magistrates, (this has clearly 
 a reference to the case of Doctor Trench,) and of men in 
 authority, and they will blaspheme them/' (we have blas- 
 phemed, I suppose, against Doctor Trench.) This Arch- 
 bishop proceeded to say, that the magistrate and men in 
 authority were the images of the great God. Who were the 
 images of the great God ? Chancellor Bacon, who took a 
 bribe of £l00 for giving a false decision, and who saw the 
 unfortunate man, whom he conspired to rob, obliged to beg 
 pardon of Parliament for having told the truth of him. — 
 The Archbishop then proceeded with the sentence, and con- 
 cludes by stating, that if the punishment decreed (the hor- 
 rible punishment which I already mentioned) had been 
 greater, he (the Archbishop) would have assented to it. — 
 This case was not cited by me — it was introduced by Mr. 
 Bennett, and I leave him the advantage of his namesake, 
 and of the pure Lord Bacon. Whether there was any wish 
 expressed by Mr. Bennett, that the punishment should be 
 renewed in the present day, I cannot say, as I was not in 
 Court ; but I do hope, that not a man at the bar, but Mr. 
 Bennett himself, would be found to cite such a case, or to 
 give any thing like a sanction to the spirit which pervaded 
 it. I know that this Court is not agitated by impassioned 
 feelings ; but, my Lords, if such a case were cited as a pre- 
 cedent before you, your condemnation of it would not be 
 the less emphatic, nor the less strong, though couched in the 
 firm and mild language of judicial interpretation. I have 
 endeavoured to shew the rules which guide this Court in 
 granting criminal informations — I have endeavoured to reply 
 to the law and the cases referred to on the other side. I 
 now come, respectfully, to point out to your Lordships how 
 far the rules which govern the Court are applicable to this 
 particular case. Counsel on the other side seemed to me cau- 
 tiously to avoid principles. We have heard a long tirade 
 against Mr. McDonnell himself. Mr. North has stated the 
 case as if it were a controversy about the mode of educa- 
 tion ; both parties (he says) differ from each other as to the 
 mode of educating the people, but he adds, that he sees no 
 reason why the matter should not be discussed in good hu- 
 mour. Most heartily do I wish it should be so conducted. 
 Mr. North and I so far do not differ. But I agree with Mr, 
 North, that we should discuss our respective opinions with 
 2 P 2 
 
436 
 
 good humour and charity. How do we find Archdeacon 
 Trench conducting this discussion ? We find him disturb- 
 ing the peace of widows — sending forth the orphans on the 
 world — tearing down the habitations of the wretched — se- 
 parating the ties of filial and parental affection, and punish- 
 ing, in every manner, those who refuse to send their chil- 
 dren to schools where they know they will be seduced from 
 the faith of their forefathers. Is this conducting a discus- 
 sion in good humour and with charity, as recommended by 
 Mr. North ? Will he shew any thing like that in the mode 
 in which Mr. M'Donnell conducted the discussion ? The 
 question of education has been discussed here by Mr. North, 
 and he has taken this opportunity of stating his own opinion 
 on the subject. It is a question upon which I do not like to 
 intrude my opinion in a Court like this. The man who glo- 
 ries in shaking off the yoke of all authority by some happy 
 fatality, lights upon an anecdote selected from the pages of 
 the philosopher, Hume, where the Capuchin and the Ar- 
 menian are made the subject of the Infidel's ridicule. Does 
 Mr. North forget that the author there points his ridicule at 
 Christianity itself? Mr. North indeed, goes half way with 
 his author Hume. He entirely rejects all authority, and 
 prefers to it the word of an infidel. We may be sneered at 
 because we yield obedience to that sovereign light that has 
 illuminated the Christian world for 1800 years. That light 
 is Christianity itself — it has reflected Christianity throughout 
 all nations — it has shone, and will continue to shine till the 
 consummation of time, with undiminished brillancy and 
 strength. It is, my Lords, rather hard that we should be 
 sneered at, because we prefer that splendid light, to the far- 
 thing candle of even the Venerable Archdeacon Trench. It 
 is rather hard that the said Archdeacon, who is in the en- 
 joyment of all the good things, should persecute those who 
 adhere to the ancient faith, and who contribute to increase 
 his wealth. But even Dr. Trench must bind his opinion to 
 the 39 Articles — if he dares to differ from one of them, all 
 the good things of the land would desert him,; who joined 
 the red coat of the Adjutant to the black gown of the Ve- 
 nerable Archdeacon. Notwithstanding the panegyrics of 
 Mr. North, I scarcely expect to witness a personal martyr- 
 dom on thepartfof the Archdeacon, who will carry the yoke, 
 though Mr. North boasted valorously of shaking off all 
 yokes, Mr. North himself drew on this discussion — I did 
 not lead to it. Those opinions, upon which I sincerely think 
 that my eternal destiny depends, I would not venture to in* 
 trude upon this Court. Mr. North differs from me, and he 
 
437 
 
 it was who led to this discussion. It was he who first intro- 
 duced his opinions — he who sneers at the followers of autho- 
 rity., and quotes from the pages of infidelity. Who was it 
 that arraigned the sworn sisters of charity, or the ancient 
 capital of the world ? The advocate of Archdeacon Trench, 
 who had thirteen mistresses, as mentioned in our affidavits, 
 and who has living twelve illegitimate children. It is the 
 advocate of that man that has provoked this discussion — that 
 has challenged this inquiry. It is the advocate of a man 
 whose sins were not the vices of youth, but those of a more 
 mature age, when he had become a husband and a clergy- 
 man — it is the advocate of such a man that sneers at the re- 
 ligion of a Fenelon and a Sir Thomas More, for he was a 
 good Chancellor. I am glad of it. It is just as it should 
 be. The individual, whose prostitutes are to be found in 
 the streets of Ballinasloe, advocates, with a strong and holy 
 zeal the discussion of the Bible without note or comment, — 
 Is that the man who is to give moral instruction to the peo- 
 ple ? This man would have himself supposed to be very 
 anxious for the education of the people. The education of 
 example is by far the most powerful. It is to be seen from 
 our affidavits, and it is not denied, that in no part of Ire- 
 land are morals at so low an ebb as in this tow r n of Ballina- 
 sloe, which is part of the parish of this Venerable Archdea- 
 con. I shall now draw the attention of your Lordships to 
 the affidavits. I have shewn that the principles of law can- 
 not be controverted, and that every one of them, except one, 
 are applicable to my client's case. So many topics, foreign 
 from the subject, have been introduced at the other side, 
 that I feel it extremely difficult to distinguish what legal ar- 
 guments have been urged by the prosecutor's counsel. Dr. 
 Trench, in his affidavit, describes Mr. McDonnell as having 
 spoken for three hours on the first day, and five hours on 
 the second day. He does not swear that Mr. McDonnell 
 used any insulting language. Mr. Bennett, indeed, stated, 
 that he was instructed to say, though it did not appear on 
 his brief, that Mr. McDonnell traduced the Trench family 
 in this discussion. There was no such thing ; in this parti- 
 cular both the affidavits agree, Mr. M'Donnell swears, that 
 after having pressed Pope and Gordon, in vain, to find out 
 their religion, he, Mr. M f Donnell, defended his own prin- 
 ciples, and argued, at length, against the indiscriminate 
 circulation of the Holy Scriptures. He denies, as utterly 
 untrue, that he calumniated the Trench family, or any of 
 them. Mr. McDonnell swears this, and the contrary is not 
 put forward in Dr, Trench's affidavit. There are other affida- 
 2P3 
 
438 
 
 vits to the same effect. Mr. M*Donnell, at this discussion, 
 argued against Protestants taking into their hands the edu- 
 cation of Catholic children. Mr. McDonnell exposed the 
 absurdity of such a system, which violates all the laws of 
 nature and of God, and makes the child disobey the com- 
 mand of heaven — " Honour thy father and thy mother." — 
 Mr. M'Donnell contended against such a system, and he 
 pointed out the bad effects which the adoption of it would 
 produce in the country. On the third day of the meeting 
 for discussing these principles at Ballinasloe, the advocates 
 of the Bible appear with the police at their side, Mr. McDon- 
 nell and his party are violently assailed and driven out of 
 the meeting. Mr. McDonnell had gone to a public meet- 
 ing, to attend which all persons had been invited ; he was 
 there allowed to speak ; his right to do so was recognised ; 
 he was provided with paper, and ink, and a table to take 
 notes, in order to enable him to reply to the speaker. When 
 he moved the previous question, his right to do so was fully 
 recognised. Two days were spent in discussing that ques- 
 tion, and after Mr. M'Donnell had replied on the second 
 day, and thus wound up the discussion, Pope and Gordon 
 called for a further adjournment, as they stated that Mr. 
 McDonnell had introduced new matter iu his speech, to 
 which they should be allowed an opportunity to reply. To 
 this Mr. McDonnell consented, upon the express proviso that 
 he still possessed the right to the ultimate reply. The meet- 
 ing on the second day was adjourned upon this express sti- 
 pulation. Whatever violence or acrimony was displayed 
 on the two first days, it was confined to the opponents of 
 Mr. McDonnell. My excellent friend, though he grounded 
 his arguments upon that liberty of conscience to which all 
 are equally entitled, opposed the Society on the grounds, 
 that it was calculated to tear the child from the parent — to 
 introduce distraction and disunion into the families of the 
 poor— to spread not education, but immorality and crime, 
 by dissolving the ties of religion and filial obedience. On 
 the third day of the meeting a new scene presented itself. — 
 The solemn stipulation which had been made to Mr. McDon- 
 nell on the previous day was then shamefully violated — the 
 promise, for which the Chairman stood pledged, was broken, 
 and to add to the turpitude of the transaction, violence 
 was resorted to. The Catholic Gentlemen who had attend- 
 ed the discussion, and who had brought their wives, and 
 daughters, and sisters, to listen to it, were assailed by ruf- 
 fians in frize coats, who had brought arms concealed under 
 their coats ; a strong force of police entered the room — with- 
 
439 
 
 out the least provocation an attack was commenced on the 
 unoffending Catholics. It is stated in the affidavit of the 
 prosecutor, that no blood was spilt* The fact is, that two 
 individuals were wounded, and many with difficulty escap- 
 ed from the promiscuous slaughter which was manifestly 
 intended. It has been asked why Mr. McDonnell did not 
 appeal to the Lord Lieutenant on the subject of this out- 
 rage? The truth is, that the meeting of the l6th of Octo- 
 ber was convened for the very purpose of sending forward 
 an address to his Excellency. Mr. M'Donnell did not, on 
 that occasion, address himself to an " infuriated mob." I 
 do not know to whom this expression could have been ap- 
 plied. If it be intended as poetry, plain prose would have 
 been preferable. If it be spoken as a mark of contempt, 
 it is a wretched one, and has no foundation in fact. The 
 people of the town of Ballinasloe attended at that meeting. 
 They might not all, perhaps, wear as good clothes, or boast 
 of as " high rank " as some persons, but it is a calumny to 
 call them an u infuriated mob." At that meeting, a re- 
 spectful address to the Lord Lieutenant w r as proposed and 
 carried. Mr. McDonnell, on that occasion, addressed the 
 meeting in a speech, from which extracts have been taken 
 whereon to found the present prosecution. I shall read those 
 extracts for your Lordships as they stand. (Here Mr. 
 O'Connell read the extracts, which we have given already 
 in the report of Mr. Bennett's speech.) Mr. O'Connell then 
 proceeded. The Venerable Archdeacon himself admits, in 
 his Affidavit, that he had the Riot Act in his pocket from 
 the commencement of the fair of Ballinasloe, taking it for 
 granted, of course, that there would be a riot. He kept the 
 Act in his pocket over the Sunday, and up to the Tuesday, 
 hi which day the meeting was held, and all the w hile, of 
 course, he was unconscious of having it in his pocket. A 
 nan, at the last Assizes of Cork, was accused of stealing 
 I4lbs. of lead. He said, in his defence, that it was put 
 nto his pocket ; and on being asked, why he did not find out 
 vho did it? He replied, that he walked away without ever 
 
 mowing it ! It was so with the Venerable Archdeacon 
 
 3e passed over his Sunday devotions, and arrived to Tues- 
 lay, without once recollecting that he had the Riot Act in 
 lis pocket. Mr. O'Connell then proceeded to read, seria- 
 im, the passages selected from the alleged libel — and he re- 
 peated, that if to any of them a distinct contradiction was 
 iven, he was ready to give up his case. But they were 
 ot denied in that manner. Mr. O'Connell proceeded to 
 tate, that a gross misrepresentation of the proceedings at 
 
440 
 
 the discussion, was published in the Mail previous to the 
 16th of October. In that publication Mr. M'Donnell 
 was misrepresented in the grossest manner, and he had 
 satisfactorily traced the publication to the House of Doctor 
 Trench. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE BURTON enquired if it was so stated in 
 Mr. McDonnell's affidavit ? 
 
 Mr. O CONNELL.— Yes, my Lord— Mr. McDonnell 
 states, that he has found, to his satisfaction, that this pub- 
 lication was transmitted from the house of Doctor Trench. 
 Mr. O'Connell read the remaining paragraphs of the alleged 
 libel — he then proceeded : — Mr. McDonnell swears, in his 
 affidavit, that Robert Trench, the son of the Archdeacon, 
 was heard to express a wish, that there should be a riot. — 
 Has this been denied ? Has it been contradicted ? Here 
 is a positive and specific charge made, and the individual 
 most interested in it has not dared to come forward to 
 deny it. It is manifest, that all the charges in this alleged 
 libel could be severally met and contradicted, if they were 
 untrue. 
 
 The CHIEF JUSTICE.— Your arguments, Mr. O'Con- 
 nell, I believe, may be classified under two heads — you wish 
 to shew, in the first place, that Dr. Trench so misconduct- 
 ed himself as to be altogether unworthy of the interference 
 of this Court, and you next want to shew that he miscon- 
 ducted himself towards Mr. McDonnell ? 
 
 Mr. O'CONNELL— Yes, my Lord—I put both these 
 together as grounds to justify this Court in refusing to grant 
 this information. I shall now proceed to apply the legal 
 principles which I have laid down, to the facts of this case. 
 There must, in the first place, be a distinct, direct, and par- 
 ticular denial of all the charges in the alleged libel. I 
 affirm that no such species of denial is any where to be 
 found in the affidavit sworn by the prosecutor. That affida- 
 vit has been drawn up with great ingenuity, and it betrays 
 a manifest effort to escape from a direct contradiction of the 
 charges. After it sets out the paragraphs of the alleged li- 
 bel, it next proceeds to give a running commentary on the 
 several paragraphs of the libel. Dr. Trench, in fact, paro- 
 dies the libel, and this in a case where the declaration should 
 certainly be " without note or comment." It commences by 
 setting out the alleged libellous paragraphs, and then the 
 Rev. Deponent proceeds to swear as follows : — " Saith he 
 verily believes it was intended by the publication of the said 
 several paragraphs, in the said newspapers, to impute to this 
 deponent a wilful and corrupt dereliction of his duty, both 
 
441 
 
 as a Magistrate and as a Clergyman," &c. Here Mr. 
 O'Connell read a very long extract from the affidavit of Arch- 
 deacon Trench, in which the word "corrupt" is over and 
 over again repeated. — Now (continued the Learned Gen- 
 tleman) this is all built very artfully upon a false supposi- 
 tion — no corrupt conduct was attributed to him either as a 
 magistrate or an individual. There was no suggestion any 
 where that he took money for what he did ; but the word 
 corrupt is introduced in his parody of the alleged libel, in 
 order that he may afterwards deny it. Accordingly, we 
 find him parodying the libel, by repeating, as if the libel so 
 had it, u that this deponent corruptly and wilfully aban- 
 doned his duty as a magistrate." Again we find it shortly 
 afterwards introduced in the parody thus — " that this depo- 
 nent, being a clergyman, corruptly exerted his influence in 
 procuring, and did actually procure, persons to be ordained 
 clergymen of the Established Church of Ireland, in order to 
 have such persons married to illegitimate daughters of this 
 deponent," &c. &c. That is the parody of the, alleged libel, 
 and to that parody is annexed a sweeping and general 
 denial of all the charges thus parodied in these words — 
 " saith, that all and each of the said several charges and 
 imputations so as aforesaid made, or intended to be made, 
 against the deponent, by the said articles contained in the 
 said newspaper, and the publication thereof, are totally, and 
 in every respect false and unfounded," &c. The several 
 charges are not specifically and distinctly denied. But 
 corruption is attributed in the parody, in order that the pro- 
 secutor may have an opportunity of denying it. I assert that 
 the denial in this affidavit comes within the rule applicable to 
 those cases. The gentlemen on the other side have not ad- 
 dressed themselves to this question at all. They have talked 
 tx abundanti on other and various matters. But I call upon 
 the judicial mind of the Court to compare the alleged libel 
 with the species of parody which has been attempted to be 
 put upon it. I put this question to the Court — Is an in- 
 dividual who seeks a criminal information in this Courts to 
 be allowed to parody the libel before he denies the charges 
 which it contains ? There is no such case upon record. 
 Before this Court will interfere, the individual applying 
 must take up the charges seriatim, and deny them possi- 
 tively and distinctly. Is there a positive denial with re- 
 spect to the flogging of the woman ? Mr. North, in what 
 I cannot help considering a mixture of tragedy and farce, 
 said that this discipline was necessary for our soldiers, in 
 order to obtain brilliant victories. Is the flogging of a 
 
442 
 
 female necessary to obtain a victory ? This is the first time I 
 heard it pronounced that flogging was the cause of all our 
 victories. A man — a soldier — a gentleman — a clergy man, 
 flogs a naked woman, and this, we are told, is necessary to 
 the obtaining of victories ! ! I suppose it is to be naturally 
 inferred from this, that if Archdeacon Trench had not flogged 
 this unfortunate woman, the glorious battle of Waterloo 
 would not have had the termination which it had ! It all 
 depended upon a Clergyman's flogging a woman. He does 
 not deny that he superintended the flogging of this female, 
 but he says, " that according to the best of deponent's re- 
 collection and belief, the said woman had been detected in 
 stealing several articles belonging to the soldiers of the re- 
 giment, and the commanding officer (who was universally 
 acknowledged to be, and who really was a most humane 
 man) felt himself called upon to have her tried by a Court 
 Martial," &c. He proceeds to state, that this unfortunate 
 female, for stealing a candlestick, was sentenced to be 
 flogged. What a libel upon the officers who could consti- 
 tute such a Court Martial ? He swears that he was Adjutant 
 then — his brother is Colonel up to the present day. The 
 staff of the regiment were adores jabulce. If, then, a Court 
 Martial was held, why does he not produce the records of 
 it ? He swears according to the best of his belief, that the 
 woman was sentenced by a Court Martial. Does he forget 
 the facts of so remarkable a case, and one that did not 
 happen thirty years ago? The whole affair seems to have 
 made but little impression on the mind of the Venerable 
 Archdeacon. While the sentence was in course of infliction 
 upon this wretched female, this man would not permit her 
 husband (we have the fact sworn to, my Lords,) to retire 
 from the ranks. He thus enjoyed the double pleasure of 
 torturing the female, and of harrowing the feelings of her 
 wretched husband. Does he ask to deny this ? Does this 
 Archdeacon — this holy distributor of the Bible without note 
 or comment — ask to deny these charges ? If they were 
 false, why did he not bring his action, and expose their 
 falsehood ? We would defy him to it — we would produce ■ 
 such evidence, that even a jury of Ballinasloe policemen 
 would not give him a farthing damages. We will produce 
 two living witnesses, testifying to the fact ; one of them was 
 thirty years a serjeant in this very regiment. Their affida- 
 vits will have their due weight in a Court of Justice, and f 
 they will serve to guide your Lordships as to your decision j; 
 in regard to this application. 
 
443 
 
 Mr. WEST begged to state, that Archdeacon Trench 
 swore positively in his affidavit, that a Court Martial had 
 sentenced this person to be flogged. 
 
 Mr. O'CONNELL — How does the paragraph commence ? 
 " And this deponent saith, that according to the best of his 
 (deponent's) recollection and belief." — This is the founda- 
 tion of the entire subsequent paragraph. Why does he not 
 produce the regimental books. We are ready to go before 
 a jury with our evidence as to the fact. This man comes to 
 this Court for protection, instead of seeking redress by an 
 action at law. I trust this Court will not afford to him that 
 protection which he manifestly does not deserve, I have 
 shewn his answer to this charge — let us now come to 
 another. He is accused of procuring individuals to be or- 
 dained, in order to marry them to his illegitimate daughters. 
 That charge is not denied by him distinctly and in terms. 
 It implies two things : first, that he has positively illegiti- 
 mate daughters ; and, secondly, that he procures the ordina- 
 tion of individuals, in order to have them married to said 
 daughters. In his affidavit he denies, in general terms, 
 that he did procure the ordination of individuals for the pur- 
 pose of having them married " to the illegitimate daughter 
 or daughters, of this deponent ; " but he does not at all deny 
 the existence of illegitimate daughters. If the prosecutor 
 had admitted that he had illegitimate daughters before he 
 was ordained, or before he became a married man, then I 
 would say that that was a sufficient denial of the charge. 
 The rule of Court is, that the denial must be entire ; but 
 there are cases in which the circumstances would ren- 
 der a qualified denial sufficient. But here we have 
 offences which are not committed in the days of youth, 
 when they would admit of some palliation, but which 
 are committed by a husband, a father, a clergyman. Has 
 he dared to deny the charge ? We could bring evidence to 
 prove that one of his illegitimate daughters is now living as 
 a prostitute in the streets of Ballinasloe. Is that the man to 
 whom the education of the poor should be entrusted ? When 
 i dignitary of the Established Church comes into the Court 
 of King's Bench in Ireland to provoke such a discussion, he 
 nust abide the consequences. Why did he not bring his 
 iction if he considered the charges false ? He has, on the 
 xmtrary, come into this Court, where all the charges may 
 t>e preferred against him, and which will be carried by the 
 Press as far as the English language reaches. Will this Court 
 nterfere for this man ? And let it be recollected, that this 
 man does not deny that he has a number of children — this 
 
444 
 
 is the man who has been so busied in circulating the Scrip- 
 tures, and in harrassing the poor Catholics, on the score of 
 religion. This, forsooth, is the distributor of true reli- 
 gion and morality ! Mr. North, in his speech, had appealed 
 to Hume the Historian, as an authority. What a triumph 
 that infidel would feel if he had such a case as this to record. 
 Has the appellation of " skin him alive " been denied in the 
 prosecutor's affidavit ? And here I cannot help adverting 
 to the uncontroverted affidavit of Mr. M'Nevin, the late 
 Sub-Sheriff of the County Galway. There we behold this 
 Venerable Archdeacon — this distributor of the Scriptures— 
 this flogger of women, being in turn a flogger of men. We 
 have the fact upon the oath of the Sub-Sheriff of the 
 County of Galway. The affidavit has been already read to 
 your Lordships. It appears that this great Biblical degraded 
 his sacred calling in the Church, and his station as a gentle- 
 man, and offered to become the vile executioner. Is it the 
 love of torturing his fellow- creatures that actuates this man ? 
 If it be cruelty, he has but little right to complain that he 
 has been libelled. He offers to Mr. M'Nevin, in the absence 
 of the executioner, to become the executioner, and to flog 
 the wool-stealers through Ballinasloe. He was, however, 
 refused that pleasure. I come now to shew that this Court 
 has no right to interfere, because the prosecutor has come 
 into Court with unclean hands. This Court will not inter- 
 fere to disturb the current of justice. Here is a man who 
 has led an immoral life — who has flogged women, and who 
 wished to flog men — who has had several illegitimate 
 daughters — this man requires your assistance. This Court 
 will at once ask him if he denies particularly and distinctly 
 the several charges adduced against him. They will exa- 
 mine the libel of which he complains, and see if he denies all 
 the charges it contains. Has there been any denial of the 
 charge that et the hearts of fathers have been broken, mothers 
 have been sent to their graves, and children torn from their 
 parents — the ties of filial and parental love have been 
 dissolved ?" Is there a particular denial of any other of the 
 charges brought against him ? He denies that he tore down 
 corruptly, and as a Magistrate, the peaceable habitations 
 of the poor. That he tore houses down we have three 
 affidavits to prove — but he has artfully insinuated what 
 was never alleged, that he did not do it corruptly. (Here 
 Mr. O'Connell read the affidavits of Margaret Lynch and 
 Elenor Molloy, who give an account of the manner in which 
 their habitations were pulled down.) We (continued Mr. 
 O'Connell) have the affidavit of the Roman Catholic Clergy- 
 
445 
 
 man corroborating this statement. If the prosecutor wishes 
 to deny any or all of those charges, we will most willingly 
 give him the opportunity of so doing. I challenge him to 
 come forward and deny them. I thank God thvX I belong 
 to a superstition, as it has been called, that cannot boast 
 of such a dignitary as this. This holy flogger of women 
 and men, denies that he tore down houses, &c. corruptly 
 as a magistrate — Why we never once attributed corruption 
 as his motive. 
 
 Mr. WEST read a paragraph from the affidavit of the 
 prosecutor, in which he swears — " Nor did this deponent 
 ever tear down the houses of any person for any purpose of 
 wrong, injury, or oppression/' 
 
 Mr. O'CONNELL — Certainly not — it was all done for the 
 saintly purposes of holiness and godliness. This man inter- 
 prets the text of Scripture — " Blessed are they that weep," 
 and he appears to be determined to bestow that blessing in 
 profusion on the poor. God forbid that any thing he should 
 do with regard to the pulling down of houses was not done 
 for a purely scriptural purpose. With regard to the oppres- 
 sion practised towards the tenantry of Lord Clancarty, 1 
 shall read to your Lordships the following notice in the 
 prosecutor's hand-writing. (Here Mr. O'Connell read a 
 notice which had been posted up in Lord Clancarty 's rent- 
 office, directed to the tenants of his estate, intimating that 
 they might expect no favour if they refused to send their 
 Children to the schools which his Lordship had established. 
 This document bore the signature of C. Le Poer Trench.) 
 The tenants are to expect no favour. What is the meaning 
 of that ? Does it not broadly intimate that they will not be 
 suffered to remain on the estate unless they comply with the 
 mandate ? Has any man a right to exercise such a cruel and 
 despotic sway over a wretched peasantry ? I submit, my 
 Lords, that this Court will not interfere on this occasion — 
 1st, because there are no particular denials of the several 
 charges ; 2dly, because the conduct of the prosecutor is such 
 as not to entitle him to your interference. I now come to 
 observe upon the transaction in which this application origi- 
 nated. (Mr. O'Connell here took a rapid and luminous re- 
 view of the proceedings on the two first days' discussion at 
 Ballinasloe. He animadverted at considerable length upon 
 the conduct of the prosecutor on the third day of the dis- 
 cussion, when he introduced the police, and read the Riot 
 Act.) Mr. O'Connell said, that after reading the Riot Act, 
 he was bound in law to wait a full half hour before he 
 resorted to force to disperse the meeting. If the meeting 
 
446 
 
 could be brought under the Whiteboy Act, the force might 
 be employed the moment the Riot Act was read. He dwelt 
 again upon the introduction into the meeting of the men 
 from Glenlahan, with frize coats and arms. After recapi- 
 tulating the events of the third day, he asked their Lord- 
 ships, whether Mr. McDonnell had not a right to complain 
 of the ruffian violence which had been manifested towards 
 him and the other Catholics who had been driven from the 
 meeting. Mr. O'Connell then proceeded : — Were the sword 
 and the bayonet no means of provoking Mr. McDonnell ?— 
 Yet, in his speech, from which paragraphs have been se- 
 lected for the prosecution, he tells the people to look alone 
 to legal redress. Will he be condemned because he spoke 
 in terms of severity of the Rev. prosecutor, who circulates 
 the Scriptures at the point of the bayonet ? Does that Rev. 
 person stand here in a situation entitling him to your Lord- 
 ships' favour ? I submit that he does not. I submit that 
 he does not deserve the interposition of this high judicial 
 Court. If he be refused this criminal information, the or- 
 dinary tribunals are open to him. It has been said, that we 
 should shake off the yoke of authority in religion. I wish 
 to know, whether we would be recommended from the same 
 quarter to shake off the yoke of authority in honest politics 
 too ? I, for my part, am ready to bow to whatever may be 
 the decision of this Court of King's Bench. I submit, my 
 Lords, that this individual has been ill-advised in seeking 
 for this criminal information. I submit that he is totally un- 
 deserving of it. Whatever may be the decision of your 
 Lordships, I may, without presumption, add, that it shall 
 be received by me, on the part of my client, with perfect 
 submission. 
 
 (The Court granted the criminal information, and Mr. 
 M'Donnell was, subsequently, found guilty.) 
 
MR. SHEIKS 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 ON THE 
 
 ADJOURNMENT OF THE ASSOCIATION, 
 
 IN CONSEQUENCE OF 
 
 MR. CANNING'S PROMOTION TO POWER. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL said — The time has arrived when proof 
 should be given to England, that what the full stretch of 
 legislative power could not effect — what an Act of Parlia- 
 ment, framed upon principles the most despotic, and con- 
 structed with all the perverse skill and malevolent nicety of 
 legal art, could not achieve — a single measure of concilia- 
 tion, or, I should rather say, the mere intimation of a more 
 just and kindly feeling in the future Government of this 
 country, can at once and instantaneously accomplish. In 
 order to crush the Roman Catholic Association, and carry a 
 Bill through the House of Commons for the purpose, every mi- 
 nisterial resource was employed — the Executive influence wai 
 exercised to its utmost extent — every retainer of Government, 
 every tool of the Treasury, every expectant of office, was 
 summoned by special requisition to the aid of the minister. 
 The passions of the English people, their spirit of domina- 
 tion, their national pride, and their religious rarfcour, were 
 studiously and strenuously excited, and England was per- 
 suaded, by the most vehement appeals to her ancient and 
 inveterate animosities, to approve of an Act of Parliament, 
 which afforded a fatal precedent, and struck the right of 
 petition to the heart. Yet this obnoxious Bill, which has 
 justly received a name that suggests, if I may so say, the 
 piracy of freedom, proved utterly unavailing, and the spirit 
 of the Irish people appeared to derive new force and vi- 
 gour from the measures of coersion which were adopted 
 2Q2 
 
448 
 
 to put it down. But justice and kindness can do what 
 severity and rigour were incapable of effecting, and the 
 time has come, if not for the complete dissolution,, for at 
 least the temporary suspension of this assembly. In my 
 opinion, we ought to give earnest to the Government, of 
 our disposition to assist their beneficent intentions towards 
 this country, and of our solicitude to accommodate ourselves 
 in every particular to their views, when we have once been 
 convinced (as we are convinced) that a sincere disposition 
 exists in the leading Members of the Administration to carry 
 that measure upon which the happiness of Ireland mainly 
 depends. I have not risen for the purpose of making a spe- 
 cific motion, because, from the peculiar circumstances in 
 which I stand, I do not wish that a measure of adjournment 
 should originate with myself. But I shall not be deterred 
 by any consideration from stating what I believe to be not 
 only the most generous, and the most grateful, but also the 
 wisest course which, under existing circumstances, we can 
 adopt. I always thought that it behoved us, in the adverse 
 fortunes of our country, to bear ourselves with a lofty and 
 somewhat indignant demeanour. When I saw the spirit of 
 perfidy presiding over the councils of the country— -when I 
 saw baseness and falsehood in the guise of candour and im- 
 partiality — when I found the faction by which Ireland 
 has been so long insulted and oppressed, invested with de- 
 spotic power, and the liberal portion of the Administration 
 utterly stripped and destitute of substantial influence, I 
 could not but feel resentment at the monstrous imposture 
 that were attempted to be practised upon us, and I spoke 
 under the influence of those feelings of natural exaspera- 
 tion which it was impossible not to entertain, and to 
 which it was difficult not to give vent. But now that 
 hypocrisy, and fraud, have been banished from the Cabi- 
 net — now, that a man with a mind as large, and liberal, 
 and enlightened, as was ever placed at the head of the Go- 
 vernment of these countries, has obtained that ascendancy 
 which has been hailed by the acclamations of the Empire, 
 and which is likely to be productive of incalculable good to 
 Ireland — now that there is something like honesty and fair- 
 dealing to be expected m the measures of the Cabinet, it 
 befits us to lay aside the tone and language of acrimony, and 
 to accommodate our proceedings to the interests of those who 
 have our benefit honestly at heart. The resolutions adopted 
 at the Aggregate Meeting, not to press our petition againstthe 
 desire of our advocates, appeared to me to be most judicious 
 and expedient, and I was confirmed in that opinion, not 
 
449 
 
 only by the subsequent observations made by Mr. Brougham, 
 whose attachment to our cause is not to be questioned, but 
 still more by my Lord Eldon's wish that Catholic Emanci- 
 pation should be immediately discussed. This generous as- 
 piration of the learned and weeping Lord, excited the mer- 
 riment of the House. Indeed, it was ridiculous that a man 
 who had, while in office, deprecated all consideration of the 
 subject, should, the moment he was removed from place, urge 
 on and endeavour to precipitate the matter into a premature 
 discussion. Mr. Dawson, too, (the fraternal representative of 
 Mr, Peel,) has, in a paroxysm of disappointed ambition, call- 
 ed for the immediate consideration of the measure. Alas ! 
 poor gentleman ! his mind has been ruffled by his unex- 
 ampled political adversity, and looks like the water in 
 the old moat of Londonderry, roused from the stagnant 
 tranquillity in which it lay covered with Orange ooze, into a 
 storm. — Mr. Peel is too cautious a man to indulge in bursts 
 of rancour, and is anxious to preserve a character for peculiar 
 moderation; but his brother-in-law, who was his under Secre- 
 tary, and who of course imbibed his real feelings and opinions, 
 affords an insight into the real character and motives of Mr. 
 Peel. Our antagonists are most desirous for discussion— 
 their solicitude to press the measure is the strongest argument 
 that could be advanced for its suspension ; and as we have 
 wisely taken the determination not to embarrass our advo- 
 cates by urging our petition, we shall only act with consis- 
 tency, and follow up that judicious course of conduct by 
 adjourning the meetings of the Association. Perhaps I 
 shall be told that we ought not to indulge in sanguine ex- 
 pectations, and that we should have derived a better 
 lesson from experience, and the repeated frustration of 
 our hopes — I answer, that we have now better grounds of 
 confidence than we ever had since our question was first 
 agitated in Parliament, and that it never stood in such a 
 condition before. The circumstances of the question have 
 changed in three material points. In the first place, our 
 most vehement opponents are out of office, the fury which 
 they have displayed is evidence that they do not expect 
 speedily to be restored to the luxuries of place. I can- 
 not here refrain from making an observation relative to a 
 recent statement made by Mr. Peel. That gentleman, who 
 put in such extraordinary claims, to manliness and honour, 
 used to protest, when in office, that no distinction was ever 
 made by him, in the distribution, of patronage, between Ca- 
 tholic and Protestant. When the Catholics complained that, 
 notwithstanding the pretended neutrality of the Cabinet, 
 2 Q 3 
 
450 
 
 every plaoe of emolument was given away to Orangemen* 
 Mr* Peel used to declare, with the most solemn assevera- 
 tions, that he paid no regard whatever to difference of reli- 
 gion, or to considerations of party in the selection of indi- 
 viduals for office. Mr. Goulburn (his appropriate utensil) 
 used to make the same declaration. What does Mr. Peel 
 now state ? He says that he adhered to the former Ad- 
 ministration because it had a Protestant Premier, and be- 
 cause tha patronage of Government, under his auspices, was 
 exerted to support Protestant principles, and flowed in Pro- 
 testant channels. So much for the ostentatious and elaborate 
 frankness of the very manly and lofty-minded Secretary to 
 the Home department The second material circumstance 
 of change is, that a man is at the head of affairs who is de- 
 voted to our cause, and whose devotion to it is the ground 
 upon which he has been deserted by his former colleagues. 
 In the elevation of Mr. Canning to the highest station in the 
 British Empire 1 rejoice, not only on account of my own 
 country, but because he is the great champion of liberal 
 opinions, and exhibits from the summit of power to which he 
 has been raised, and from which he is beheld by all man- 
 kind, an object well worthy of their admiration. He is the 
 author of South American freedom, and as long as liberty 
 exists in the New World, (and it will be as eternal as 
 the mountains from which its standard is unfurled) so 
 long the celebrity of Mr. Canning will be transmitted 
 from age to age in an illustrious perpetuation. In 
 the triumph of this philosophical Statesman, the cause, 
 not only of liberty, but of intellect, has obtained a 
 victory. The great struggle which has recently taken 
 place, was a contest between mind and power, the grand 
 cabal which lies defeated and shattered at the feet of 
 this celebrated man, may be said to have been van- 
 quished by the ascendancy of genius over all the might which 
 the confederated oligarchy, by which the empire has been so 
 long governed, could bring up against him. There cannot 
 be a better evidence of the freedom of our institutions, 
 and of the preponderance of the popular principle in our 
 Constitution, than that the eloquence of this extraordinary 
 person prevailed not only over the power and influence of so 
 large a portion of the aristocracy, but that the greatest Cap- 
 tain of his time, with all his military renown, fell at once 
 before it. It is an additional circumstance of honour to 
 Mr. Canning that, as he himself recently stated, he 
 is a poor man. With no other patrimony than his 
 talents, he had almost every imaginable obstacle to con- 
 
451 
 
 tend with; yet, by the self-elevating power of intellect, 
 he has raised himself, unaided by wealth, or aristocratic 
 connections, or any of the ordinary means of political 
 ascent, to the highest point of glory to which it is 
 possible for a subject of these countries to attain. The 
 third circumstance of change to which I have adverted, 
 as affording reason to change the policy on which we 
 have hitherto wisely acted, but in which it would be injudici- 
 ous to persevere, is the union between Mr. Canning and 
 the Whigs. The opposition benches are deserted, or if they are 
 not in utter solitude, it is only because such men as the Daw 
 son, and Sir T. Lethbridge, that western luminary, are set, a» 
 a kind of beacon, to warn philosophy and liberality away. I 
 am justified in saying, that a most important change, 
 pregnant with high hopes, has taken place, and that 
 any experience derived from past disappointment docs 
 not furnish an exact rule for our future conduct. I re- 
 turn, therefore, to my original advice, which is, that we 
 suspend the meetings of the Association, with a view to 
 smooth the way for the existing government. Independently 
 of the other advantages which flow from this proceeding, we 
 shall shew the people of England, and the King of England, 
 (whose heart will, I am sure, at last prevail over any erro- 
 neous scruples suggested by my Lord Eldon's casuistry, 
 when he was keeper of the Royal conscience,) that the true 
 way to tranquillise Ireland is to treat her with kindness, and 
 to win her affections and her gratitude. For my own pant, 
 violent and intemperate as I am deemed, there is nothing 
 which I more sincerely and devoutly wish, than to see my 
 country at peace, to behold a reconciliation between all par- 
 ties in this country, and England and Ireland inseparably 
 bound by mutual interests and a community of rights and 
 privileges, together. I have always been convinced, and I 
 never shall, I am sure, relinquish that strong persuasion, 
 that the real happiness of Ireland can never be achieved ex- 
 cept by an identity with England, and a complete con- 
 solidation with her empire, which never can be effected 
 while differences of religion are made the standard of politi- 
 cal distinction. I consider the diffusion of English habits, 
 principles, and opinions, as the greatest blessing that can 
 befal my country. Let one act of justice be done to Ire- 
 land — let seven millions of her people be put on an equa- 
 lity with the rest of her inhabitants — let injurious^ and 
 exasperating distinctic^s be abolished, and there is not a 
 man amongst us who will not participate in the sentiment of 
 ardent and enthusiastic loyalty, which, even in anticipation 
 
452 
 
 of a better system, is already growing up. The hope of 
 witnessing the great measure of conciliation, peacefully and 
 satisfactorily, carried through every branch of the Legisla- 
 ture, has, if I may speak so much for myself, already re- 
 moved every sentiment of political asperity from my mind ; 
 and so far from indulging in any wish that the repose of 
 England should be disturbed, that her greatness should be 
 diminished, or her grandeur should be impaired, I trust 
 that she will long continue to be the asylum and refuge of 
 the genuine principles of liberty, and that the power which 
 watches over the virtue and happiness of mankind, will, for 
 the sake of both, render her empire equally glorious and 
 everlasting. 
 
MR. SHEIL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 IN 
 
 SECONDING A VOTE OF THANKS 
 
 TO 
 
 MK. CONWAY. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL said — I second the resolution of thanks to 
 Mr. Conway. That gentleman, by the unremitting exercise 
 of his distinguished abilities in the national service, has ac- 
 quired a title to public gratitude, and large as the en- 
 comium is which Mr. O'Connell has pronounced upon him, 
 it does not exceed his deserts. Mr. Conway is a Protestant ; 
 but although he does not kneel at the same altars, nor use 
 the same formula of orison as ourselves, he derives, from the 
 community of country, a participation in our sufferings, and 
 gives expression to his sense of the heavy wrongs under 
 which we labour, in language, perhaps, bolder and more 
 strenuous than we should ourselves employ. The reason is 
 this — the Roman Catholic body is not wholly free from 
 some of those bad moral results which political degradation 
 is calculated to produce. We have been accustomed to con- 
 sider ourselves an inferior class, and, until very recently, our 
 tone and bearing were characterised by feelings which 
 bespoke an humiliation, bordering upon servility. Our 
 Protestant auxiliaries, who have not contracted the same 
 habits, use language far more peremptory and indignant 
 than we are wont to employ, and I need do no more than 
 refer to the writings of Mr. Conway, in order to illustrate 
 the justice of this remark. The merits of that Gentleman 
 
454 
 
 are eminent indeed, and have acquired for him a high repu- 
 tation, not only in Ireland, but in the sister country. He 
 has won the applause of those whose panegyric is most 
 valuable, as they are themselves the just objects of enco- 
 mium ; I may venture to state, that I myself, indivi- 
 dually, know that Mr, Moore, who is, perhaps, the first 
 writer of his time, looks upon Mr. Conway as a man of ex- 
 traordinary abilities, and as a most useful servant of his 
 country. The merits of Mr. Conway are obvious. His 
 style is at once bold, vigorous, and clear ; his expression 
 is always pure, and not unfrequently highly imaginative 
 and original. He is remarkable for the force and simpli- 
 city of his reasoning, as well as for power of diction and 
 resources of phrase; and if the spirit of sarcasm occasionally 
 breaks out in his compositions, and gall flows from his pen, 
 it is against the enemies of his country that his invective, 
 which never exceeds the fair limits of political discussion, is 
 directed. But the chief merit of Mr. Conway, and it is a 
 rare one in Ireland, consists in the minuteness with which 
 he investigates elucidatory facts, and arranges the evideuce 
 by which his assertions are established. Mr. Macdonnell 
 has well observed, that we indulge too much in abstract 
 expatiations on our sufferings, and do not dwell sufficiently 
 upon the specific instances of oppression, which would 
 afford proof of the reasonableness of our complaints. Mr. 
 Conway has not fallen into this mistake. His compositions 
 are distinguished by the accuracy with which he goes 
 through the details of oppression, and follows the spirit 
 of tyranny through all its forms.— Mr. Conway, in his 
 letters to Lord Lansdowne, has displayed this, his pecu- 
 liar talent in an eminent degree. — In those letters he has 
 embraced the whole system of misgovernment which has 
 produced the evils of this country. Although he has 
 touched every subject with great felicity, there are two 
 topics which he has lately treated with peculiar power 
 and effect. He has denounced the Subletting Act, and 
 co-operated with Mr, O'Connell in exhibiting the ruin- 
 ous consequences of that most unmerciful measure. If 
 there had been means of subsistence provided for the myriads 
 of wretches who are to be the victims of this Act of Parlia- 
 ment, we should not complain of its effect. But every man 
 of ordinary humanity must shudder at the idea of turning 
 the mass of the population out of their miserable hovels, 
 when there is no place of refuge afforded them, and they 
 are left to perish upon the public road. If there were ships 
 in every port ready to carry off the people to New Holland, 
 
455 
 
 we should, perhaps, acquiesce in this measure. But no 
 such vent for the houseless and famishing peasantry is pro- 
 vided. The result, therefore, must be, that they will die 
 in thousands upon thousands in the highway, and in the 
 streets. Even now the slaughterous consequences of this 
 A-ct are felt. The scythe of legislative massacre is mowing 
 the people down, and the only consolation is, that there is 
 i Judge in heaven, before whom the framers of this measure 
 will have to answer for this consecration of murder in the 
 sanctuaries of legislation. The other topic to which I refer, 
 in speaking of the services done by Mr. Conway, is the Es- 
 tablished Church. We have too long observed a prudential 
 silence in relation to that enormous mass of abuses — that huge 
 
 accumulation of evil — that what shall I call it? that 
 
 nuisance in politics, and monstrosity in religion — the anti- 
 Christian and anti-apostolic opulence of the Established 
 Church. God forbid that I should attempt to insinuate that 
 aublic worship, no matter in what form, should not be 
 maintained in a manner befitting the nobleness of its object, 
 rhe Church of Scotland affords a model. Its Pastors are 
 -aised above indigence by the State — they are independent 
 in circumstance, and conspicuous for their learning and 
 heir piety, The five hundred thousand Protestants of 
 [reland, should have a respectable establishment predo- 
 ninant in law and in dignity ; but it is insulting to rea- 
 son, and it is a burlesque upon the Christian religion, 
 hat the ministers of that religion, in any shape, should 
 oil in all the splendour of their gorgeous sinecurism, 
 n the name of Him, who was born in a manger, and 
 lied upon a cross. — what an object a Bishop of the 
 Ssablishment presents upon his death bed ! He grasps 
 vith his trembling hands, shaken with the treraour of 
 Lgony, a renewal fine of ten thousand pounds, and 
 hen he goes to pass his account before the God of po- 
 verty in Heaven. The death of a Bishop ! I wonder 
 low the late Bishop of Winchester looked, when his 
 nitred spectre stood before the face of the living God — 
 >efore whom, we are told by himself, that it is dreadful 
 o appear. He died worth two hundred thousand pounds ! ! 
 Sible-readers Pope, Gordon, and the rest of you, is there 
 varrant in the Scriptures for this ? But I deviate from my 
 ubject. Mr. Conway has deserved well, by exhibiting this 
 ystem in its proper light. So has Mr. Staunton, who has 
 ately proved to demonstration, in his Letters to Mr. Lamb, 
 hat the church is worth more than two millions a year ! I 
 
456 
 
 trust that Mr. Hume will turn Mr. Staunton's admirable 
 exposition to good account. I am sure he will. He has 
 thanked him for the information which he has supplied, and 
 stated that, by a perseverance in the course which Mr. 
 Staunton has adopted, success must ultimately be achieved. 
 To him and to Mr. Conway, for their candid co-operation 
 in this great undertaking, we are greatly indebted — We 
 owe large obligations to the liberal Press. Almost every 
 journal of respectability and influence in the empire are on 
 our side, The adverse faction, indeed, in this country have 
 newspapers which are in extensive circulation amongst them, 
 and which are the appropriate channels by which the pas- 
 sions of the party find vent. There could not be a more 
 befitting medium of evacuation for the bad and malignant 
 feelings of the body of which those journals are the organ. 
 It is not my habit to complain of the Press. I think that 
 every individual who, of his own accord, rushes into pub- 
 licity, is a just object of comment, and, as he has made his 
 election in betaking himself in politics, he must be prepared 
 to submit to the strong reprehension of his antagonists, 
 which he thus voluntarily incurs. But there are, after all, 
 some limits to the exercise of that prerogative of vitupera- 
 tion, and at all events the expedient recently adopted with 
 respect to Mr. Maguire, cannot admit of a palliation. W hat 
 can be more unjustifiable, than after a public trial has taken 
 place, to circulate hand-bills, enclosed in the folds of News- 
 papers, against a gentleman, whose only crime was; that he 
 stood forward as the champion of his religion, which he de- 
 fended with the ability of a most accomplished disputant, 
 and the mildness which should distinguish a Christian Priest. 
 Against that individual a conspiracy of the foulest kind was 
 formed. It was defeated. But the faction have not given 
 over their pursuit of him. They did not dare to print in 
 their authorised Journals, (which are some three or four,) 
 any statement to his disparagement but they enclose in the 
 folds of news papers, libel conveying the most deadly insi- 
 nuations against his character. Is this fair ? — Is this con- 
 sistent with the legitimate latitude of free discussion ? Can 
 the Protestants of Ireland approve of this ? Is not this as 
 ignoble as it is criminal ? After having failed in their 
 efforts to slay his character, in an open and undisguised 
 attack, they shoot, from their dark and perfidious place of 
 ambush, a poisoned shaft against him ? Is not this the 
 veriest treachery of malevolence ? Is not this way-laying 
 ei reputation ; and may it not be said of the turbulent and 
 
457 
 
 remorseless faction, who do these things, that they would 
 have been assassins if they had not been authors, and that 
 they would have stabbed, if they had not written ? Why 
 should the Orangemen of Ireland put such means as these 
 into operation, and have recourse to such unworthy strata- 
 gems against a poor, an humble, and unoffending Priest ? 
 Do they want to force us into retaliation ? Have we no 
 parsons to set off against them? Do they forget? Have 
 they so deeply drank of oblivion ? Have they swallowed 
 such large drafts of Lethe ? Can they fail to remember the 
 stigma that is branded upon the mitred forehead of their 
 own hierarchy? Protestants of Ireland, cease, in mercy 
 to your Priesthood, to provoke us. We are your equals in 
 invective, and we have a vantage ground in the materials of 
 vituperation. You know But I will not breathe so de- 
 testable a sound. Human nature shrinks from its utterance. 
 It would taint and pollute the moral atmosphere. Be then 
 the name of the episcopal villain like his crime — " inter 
 Christians non nominandum." 
 
 2 R 
 
MR. SHEIL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 ON THE 
 
 EVIDENCE OF MR. MALTHUS, 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 EMIGRA TION COMMITTEE. 
 
 ! 
 
 ■ • ■ * i \ . .1..,* ';-ht-*k*^.\itiK / I 
 
 Mr, SHEIL said — Mr. O'Connell has made large citations 
 from the Letters of Lord Strafford. There is a passage in 
 them, writ in a worse that Machiavelian spirit, which he 
 ought not to have omitted. He who was a republican as 
 Sir Thomas Wentworth, and a slave as Lord Strafford, 
 states, that a complete despotism ought to be, and could 
 easily be established in Ireland. Rightly has Mr. O'Con- 
 nell exclaimed, that if he had been guilty of no other crime 
 than the composition of such State epistles, he deserved to 
 die. It is said, that in pleading his cause before the Judges, 
 who doomed him to the scaffold — when he spoke of his wife 
 and of his children, and raising his hand, addressed him- 
 self to a saint in Heaven, reluctant tears fell down the rude 
 Calvinistic visages by which he was surrounded. But had 
 an Irish Catholic been there, and broken in upon his adju- 
 ration, by recalling to him all the blood which he had spilt, 
 and all the plunder which he had committed amongst us : — 
 had he done no more than cite the passages which we have 
 heard this day read from his correspondence, every tear 
 would have been at once dried up, and all sympathy in the 
 fate of the Viceregal tyrant would have been extinguished. 
 Why have I thus, in the outset of what I mean to speak, 
 referred to the government of Strafford ? Because the prin- 
 ciples on which he governed this unfortunate country are 
 still in active operation, and are embodied in the acts of the 
 legislature. It is, indeed, the fashion to talk with a tone of 
 compassion in the House of Commons about the miseries of 
 
459 
 
 Ireland. Our senators give utterance to a vast deal of poli- 
 tical sensibility, in expatiating upon our calamities. But 
 what have they done for the country ? Look to their acts, 
 instead of their phrases — try them by their specific mea- 
 sures, and not by their speculations. I come at once to the 
 sub-letting Act. * The fault 1 find with the Act is this — not 
 that in principle it is erroneous, if there were some means of 
 sustenance provided for the myriads of wretches whom it will 
 commit to the mercy of the winter wind ; not that in another 
 state of things, such a measure would be reprehensible, but 
 that this Act of Parliament must have the effect of turning 
 out thousands upon thousands to die in wastes, ditches, and 
 cellars ; and that the Legislature have not, before such an 
 act was passed, guarded against those obvious and necessary 
 results. If, as the Emigration Committee suggest should be 
 done, eleven millions of money were previously raised, in 
 order to transport the redundant population which the Sub- 
 letting Act will throw upon the country, we could not com- 
 plain-^but the order of proceeding is inverted. They first 
 turn out the people, and when they shall have been starved 
 and chilled to death, then will come an Act of Parliament 
 to defray their expences to the New World. The Emigration 
 Report is but a report ; but the depopulating Act is an Act of 
 Parliament, containing all the principles of extermination. 
 And where are the eleven millions to be found ? I ask Mr. 
 Wilmot Horton, the grand deportator, the transporter- 
 general to the Emigration Committee — where are the eleven 
 millions to be found? Every body laughs at this absurd 
 speculation ; but, alas ! while we find in the Emigration 
 Report matter for merriment, the work of devastation is 
 going on, and myriads are dying before our faces. What is 
 to become of the men, the women, and the groups of little 
 children who are left without a roof, nay, without a ditch by 
 this atrocious Act of Parliament ? Where are the people to 
 go ? " to the Colonies," cries the Secretary for the Colonies. 
 Where are the means to convey them thither ? — This is a 
 plain question — how is it to be answered ? 1 denounce the 
 Sub-letting Act, and the equivocating spirit which pervades 
 the report of the Emigration Committee, I hold it in my 
 hand — and I also hold the evidence on which it is founded, 
 and- upon that evidence, I pronounce the report to be full of 
 that bad spirit of compromise by which the measures of men, 
 made up of different parties, and strangely congregated toge- 
 ther, are sure to be distinguished. The report sets out a 
 part of the evidence of Mr. Malthus, but it keeps back the 
 most important and honest portion of it. Mr. Malthus has 
 2R? 
 
460 
 
 spoken of the state of this country, in a manner which reflects 
 the greatest credit upon him, and says, that the evils of Ireland 
 do not arise from the excess of the population, but from the 
 tyranny of the Government, and the oppression which the 
 higher orders practice towards the people. I shall produce 
 proof of what I am adducing — in page 310, the following 
 question is put to him, " what are the circumstances which 
 contribute to introduce such habits in a country ? The an- 
 swer is this — " The degraded condition of the people, 
 oppression and ignorance." We shall presently see what it 
 is that degrades the people. In the same page the following 
 question occurs, "■ you have mentioned that oppression con- 
 tributes to produce those habits to which you have alluded : 
 in what way do you imagine in Ireland there is oppression ? M 
 That is the question — there could not be a more direct and 
 forcible interrogatory — how is it answered ? Nobly. — Hear 
 Mr. Malthus :— " I think that the government of Ireland has, 
 upon the whole, been very unfavourable to habits of that 
 kind — (meaning good habits) — it has tended to degrade the 
 general mass of the people " In the name of candour, of 
 truth, and of common decency, why is this passage in 
 Malthus' s evidence suppressed in the Report ? Is it not 
 utterly unworthy to allege, that population is the cause 
 of every calamity, and to keep back the fact, that it 
 is the oppression of Government which renders that po- 
 pulation a mass of general evil in the State ? But Malthus 
 does not stop here. In page 326, the following question 
 is put : — " Does it (namely, the condition of the people) 
 depend at all on the government under which they 
 live?" Answer: — "Very much on the Government — on 
 the strict and equal administration of justice — on the perfect 
 security of property — on civil, religious, and politi- 
 cal liberty." Why was this distinct statement, which 
 is an epitome and abstract of all the calamities of this country, 
 kept back in the Emigration Report ? Mr. Malthus's state- 
 ment comes to this : — in Ireland there is no civil, religious, 
 or political liberty — at least it does not exist as it does in 
 England, and therefore the people are in the v/r etched and 
 abject state in which they are placed, Mark the next an- 
 swer — " one of the greatest faults in Ireland is, that the la- 
 bouring classes there are not treated with proper respect by 
 their superiors — they are treated as if they were a degraded 
 people." Wilmot Horton, you who affect to be the friend of 
 Ireland, and advocate of Catholic Emancipation, why did 
 you keep this back ? Why did you not put it in the head 
 and front of your report ? This is the fashion in which Ire- 
 
461 
 
 land is uniformly treated. There being a dissent in the 
 Committee on the Catholic Question, the evidence of Mr. 
 Malthus is thus distorted, and nothing is inserted in the re- 
 port, except some imperfect member of his evidence, which 
 it suited the convenience, and political commodity of the Com- 
 mittee to preserve. Therefore, I hold them up to public in- 
 dignation, and I proclaim their confederates, who introduced 
 the Sub-letting Bill, as the exterminators of the Irish people. 
 What a spectacle will this country speedily present ? The 
 streets of Paris during the revolution exhibited a dreadful 
 scene. It was terrible to behold hundreds of wretches daily 
 vomited from the public gaols, and sent with a heedless hurry 
 to execution. But whether blood be shed avowedly and os- 
 tentatiously, and runs in the common sewers, and turns the 
 channels in the streets to purple, or whether the work of 
 death be more slow, and silent, and decent, in the moral 
 result, is in point of delinquency the same. The instigators 
 of the Sub-letting Act are the Robespierres and Marats of 
 Ireland. It is true they do not use the knife and the axe — 
 but are not famine and pestilence as potent ministers of de- 
 vastation ? — Their allies in the work of desolation are fever 
 and disease, and they also summon the winter to their aid. 
 The people will be thrown out of their hovels — they and 
 their families will have no bed to receive, no roof to shelter, 
 no food to feed them — they must die — we shall go along the 
 narrow lanes and allies of this city, and behold the peasantry 
 who will have been driven out of the great estates contiguous 
 to this city, crow T ded in swarms of famine and disease, into 
 the receptacles of destitution. The Mendicity Association 
 must at length bar its doors upon the hungry multitudes who 
 will throng there for relief. The charity of the better class 
 will, for a little while, afford some alleviation to wretchedness; 
 but at length benevolence itself will be exhausted, and we 
 shall behold our fellow- Christians, (aye, Bible-readers, our 
 fellow-Christians !) die in thousands about us: — They will 
 ask in vain for " a draught of w ater, and a little bread " — 
 charity herself must close her ears, and leave them to perish, 
 They will be carried in cart-loads to the grave, and then the 
 " beau ideal" of political economy will be realised. But, 
 there is a God in heaven, and as surely as there is, the men 
 who will have been the cause of all the horrors which are 
 approaching us, will have to render before that God, a terri- 
 ble account. 
 
 3 R 3 
 
MR. SHEIL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 AT THE 
 
 CAVAN SESSIONS, 
 
 MONDAY, JAN. 15, 1828. 
 MARY RE ILLY; 
 
 VERSUS 
 
 THE REVEREND THOMAS BRADY. 
 
 A ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST. 
 
 Mr. ARMSTRONG, for the Plaintiff, read the Process 
 as follows: — 
 
 Mary Kenny, otherwise 
 Reilly, servant, 
 Plaintiff. 
 The Rev. Thos, Brady, 
 Parish Priest of Kil- 
 
 The Defendant is hereby re- 
 quired personally to appear before 
 the said Assistant Barrister, at 
 Cavan, on the 14th day of Janu- 
 ary next, to answer the Plaintiff's 
 more, 1 Bill, in an action for the sum of 
 
 Defendant, i<£9. 4s. 7 id. sterling, being the 
 
 balance of a greater sum, which 
 the Plantiff seeks to recover from the Defendant, for the 
 diet, clothing, maintenance, and support of his (defendant's) 
 two illegitimate children, Mary and John, for three years, 
 ending the 1st of May last, one of which said children, 
 namely, Mary, Plaintiff had to Defendant prior to her al- 
 leged marriage with a person of the name of Patt Kenny, 
 who separated himself from the Plantiff and left the coun- 
 try ; and the other child, John, Plaintiff also had by the 
 Defendant, after she ceased to cohabit with the said Patt 
 
463 
 
 Kenny ; and which said children Defendant frequently ad- 
 mitted to be his, and adopted them as such, and promised 
 md undertook to pay Plaintiff for their support and main- 
 ;enance. 
 
 The Barrister asked if there were any objections to the 
 form of the process. He observed that the plaintiff w T as a 
 married woman, and as such could not sue alone. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL said, he was directed to waive all points of 
 form. His client's character had been attacked, and he 
 :ame there to vindicate it. 
 
 The first witness examined was James Reilly, by Mr. 
 ARMSTRONG — Knows the plaintiff, and is her brother ; 
 has known the defendant, the Rev. Mr. Brady, for sixteen 
 or seventeen years. Do you remember that your sister had 
 an illegitimate child some years since ? I do ; it is about 
 fifteen years since ; she was confined in our house. Did 
 you see the Rev. Mr. Brady upon that occasion? I did ; 
 be came to the house the second night after my sister was 
 brought to bed. What time in the night did he come ? It 
 was about duskish in the evening, in the month of May ; 
 he rapped at the door and then went off ; I opened it and 
 followed him and asked him why he rapped at the door if 
 ie would not come in ; he said he was afraid there were 
 strangers in the house ; I said there was no one but our- 
 selves ; he then desired me to blow out the candle ; he went 
 nto the bed-room where the plaintiff was lying and shook 
 lands with her ; he then desired me to light the candle 
 igain ; we were standing in the room about the bed ; he 
 ;ave her a thirty- shillings note, and said to her, there is 
 l\- 10s. for you to provide yourself with nourishment, 
 \it keep the secret, and he gave my mother a twenty-five 
 hillings note for the trouble she would have, and not to 
 ?t Mary want for any thing ; he then said I openly ack- 
 owledge this child to be mine, and 111 take care of him. 
 eep my secret, and God will make store for you in Hea- 
 en ; and he said to my mother, who w r ill take care of the 
 lild ? She said, she did not know any one she could trust 
 Barer than the County Meath ; the defendant told her to go 
 iere the next morning, and to say that he would pay ten 
 ^unds a year for the nursing ; my mother went Hie next 
 ly, and the woman agreed to take the child. Was it by 
 r. Brady's desire that your mother went so far for a nurse ? 
 es. He said if a neighbour got it, it would be found out. 
 ad vou any further communication with Maguire about the 
 ild? 
 
464 
 
 Mr. SHEIL — The coincidence is very natural — the altars 
 of Leitrim are not very far from the altars of Cavan. It is 
 part of the same conspiracy. 
 
 Examination continued. — Had you any further communi- 
 cation with the defendant about the child? Yes; about a 
 quarter of a year after I met him on the road, and he said 
 to me, " There is a guinea for your sister ; give it to her, 
 for I fear her coming about the place." Then when the 
 child was three quarters of a year at nurse, the defendant 
 sent plaintiff for the child, and told her to bring it up to 
 Dublin by the coach, where he would meet her; she refused 
 to do so, and brought the child home ; then he went on 
 paying her very well for some time, until about four years 
 after, she met one Pat. Kenny, a pensioner, who, hearing 
 she had £10 a year, married her ; after that she lived with 
 her husband some time, till Brady began to pay her very 
 badly, and then Kenny left her. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL said, that the Chairman would observe, that 
 the principal part of the witness's testimony was not evi- 
 dence ; but he would not interfere, as he wished for a full 
 investigation. 
 
 Did Mr. Brady say any thing to you about the christening » 
 the child ? He did ; he said that he would send to a friend I 
 of his, a priest, in the County Meath, who would christen i 
 her for him. 
 
 Cross-examined by Mr. SHEIL.—- You state these circum- 
 stances as glibly as you do your new Catechism ? What 
 is my Catechism ? Did you ever learn a Catholic Cate- 
 chism ? No. Nor a Protestant Catechism — since you went 
 to Fiirnham ? If I did not that is my own loss. Are you 
 not a Protestant now ? No ; I am not. Do not you go to 1 
 Church then ? I do when it is convenient to me. How long 
 is it since you first went to Church? Since August last. — 
 And before that did you always go to Chapel ? I did. How 
 long was it before that you were to Chapel ? Three or 
 four years. Had you ever one, two, or three guns in your 
 possession when you were a Papist, and which you had not 
 registered? Yes — now that you are a Protestant, you have a 
 right to carry arms. 
 
 The Barrister observed, that he did not say he was a Pro- 
 testant ; but that he went to Church. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL. — We conceive that going habitually to 
 Church instead of the Chapel, makes him a reputed Protes- 
 tant. To the witness — Had you ever a gun in your 
 possession when you were a Papist ? I might have got a 
 gun from a gentleman to take care of his grounds.— 
 
465 
 
 Answer my question, Sir. Had not you unregistered arms 
 n your possession before you conformed ?I believe 1 had 
 i gun, and it was not registered. Is there a cave under 
 rour house? What do you mean by a cave? Answer my 
 [uestion, Sir; you know very well what I mean, and you 
 hall answer me. There never was a cave about my house. 
 Do you know Mr. Luke Magrath ? I do. Upon your 
 *ath, did not Mr, Magrath, a magistrate of this county, 
 earch your premises for a stolen horse, and did he not find 
 t in a cave under your house ? By virtue of my oath he 
 lever did. Mr. Sheil asked if Mr. Magrath was in Court ? 
 t was stated, that he was in the witnesses' room. Were you 
 iver accused of horse stealing ? 1 never was. Nor of 
 3ig stealing ? Never. Nor of hay stealing ? Were you 
 ver in gaol? I never was in all my life. Did you ever 
 pply to any person to go bail for you for stealing hay ? I 
 lever had any occasion to do so. Did any one ever go bail 
 or you for any criminal charge ? Never. Have you not 
 odged informations against three Roman Catholic Priests, 
 or a riot and assaulting you ? I did. How many sisters 
 lave you living in the house with you ? Two. Where is 
 losy? In America, married to a soldier. Have you a 
 ister called Kitty ? I have. How long has Mary lived 
 nth you ? For nine years. Do you know the window in 
 he Chapel of Kilmore ? I do. Did you ever put your 
 aead inside the window while Mr. Hugh Reilly was saying 
 tfass, and in presence of the congregation, call him a 
 vhore-master ? I never did. Did you not say he was a 
 wofligate ? I never did. Do you know John CafTrey, of 
 ^ullenmore ? I do. Have you a pair of loaded pistols in 
 four pocket ? I have. 
 
 Abbey Reilly examined. — Is the mother of plaintiff. Wit- 
 ness swore to the same effect as James Reilly. 
 
 Cross-examined. — Her daughter Rose went to America 
 ;wenty years ago. Denies that her daughters were pros- 
 itutes. 
 
 Bessy Reilly examined, — Saw Father Brady give a thirty- 
 ;y-shilling note to plaintiff, the day after she was brought 
 o bed ; got one pound from plaintiff a quarter of a year 
 ifter. 
 
 Cross-examined. — Is now twenty years of age ; — was, 
 herefore, only six years of age when she saw what she has 
 •worn to. 
 
 Susan Reilly examined. — Is cousin-germain of plaintiff, 
 -ler mother nursed the child of Father Brady ; she was 
 old it was the Priest's child ; che got money from the 
 
466 
 
 Priest to support the ehild — the Priest desired her not to 
 tell. 
 
 Cross-examined. — Does not remember what sort of house 
 the Priest lived in ; does not remember whether the house 
 had six stories or one story-— or as many stories as witness 
 told. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL said — In rising to defend a Roman Catho- 
 lic Clergyman against the charge which has been preferred 
 against him, I feel as if I were commissioned to defend his 
 life. He has every thing which man ought to hold dear at stake. 
 In the very outset of the case I denounce this proceeding 
 as a base conspiracy against his character, and that of the 
 Priesthood of Ireland. I am not surprised at the misnomer 
 committed by the gentleman who conducts this defamation. 
 He called my client Mr, Maguire. It was natural that he should 
 do so. The object is the same as that, which was pursued 
 in the action against Mr. Maguire, and the means by which 
 that object is sought to be attained are equally ignoble. 
 This proceeding could not fail to bring to his recollection 
 the Magarrahan conspiracy. His mind was occupied by the 
 foul associations which connect both cases together, and 
 conscious that against the altars of Cavan the same odium 
 was to be thrown, as was flung against the altars of Leitrim, 
 and, that the mire, with which the Priesthood of both coun- 
 ties were to be defiled, was drawn and collected from the 
 same sink of faction, he not unnaturally substituted the 
 name of Maguire for the gentleman against whom he has 
 been employed. I do not accuse Mr. Armstrong of being 
 a party in this execrable conspiracy. He has done no more 
 than his professional duty, in being the medium through 
 which the charge is brought before the public. He could 
 not help it. I acquit him. But I denounce as detestable 
 the confederates, who, for the promotion of their own 
 sordid purposes, have engaged in this infamous undertaking. 
 It is almost enough to read the Civil Bill, in order to appre- 
 ciate the motives from which this proceeding originated, 
 It is at the suit of a married woman, who sues as a feme sole. 
 You, Mr. Chairman, at once perceived how grossly absurd, 
 as well as wicked, such an action must be, and you asked 
 me whether I chose to dismiss the process upon the legal 
 objection. I disdained to do so. I scorn to avail myself of 
 a point of form, I will not let my client fly into the dark 
 holes and corners of the law, and leave his reputation behind. 
 I stand upon the merits. It is not the paltry sum often 
 pounds that is at stake. It is his character as a Christain 
 Priest, which is in the balance. I confront the charge, 
 
467 
 
 id bid defiance to the Prosecutors. Look at the process, 
 he plaintiff claims nine pounds, and some shillings for the 
 ipport during three years, ending on the first of May 
 st, of two bastards, one of whom the process states to 
 ive been born before the plaintiff's marriage, and the 
 cond to have been born afterwards. Here is then a dou- 
 e charge. Here is a superfaetion of sacerdotal adul- 
 ry, upon sacerdotal fornication. Thus stands the process. 
 T hat appeared in evidence ? Did you hear one word 
 >out a second child ? Was there a syllable uttered about 
 Le second bastard, who is laid by the process, as in a gold- 
 i cradle, at the Priest's door ? Does not this demonstrate 
 te baseness of the objects which it is intended by this pro- 
 leding to attain ? The framers of this infernal plot were 
 )le to produce a knot of perjurers and strumpets to swear 
 i a child born fourteen years ago, upon the Priest of the 
 arish ; but this did not content them. Simple forni- 
 ition was not enough ; and although unable to get up one 
 ord of evidence as to the second child, they threw it in, 
 i order to season the slander, to give a zest to calumny, 
 id stimulate the diseased appetite for defamation. I come 
 i the evidence. The first witness produced, is a vil- 
 n of the name of Reilly. He is the worthy brother of the 
 rumpet plaintiff. Perjury and prostitution are well allied. 
 r hat does this wretch invoke the name of God to prove ? 
 he Bible is put, in this Bible-reading county, into his 
 mds — and what use does he make of this implement of at- 
 station ? He swears that fourteen years ago, his sister 
 as brought to bed, and in the dusk of the evening, in the 
 rilight hour of love, the Priest of the Parish gave a tap to 
 e door, and that when he opened it, the Holy Father ran 
 ray, and came back, and of his own accord, informed him 
 at he had impregnated his sister in his consecrated dalli- 
 ce, and then under the influence of his paterna^emotions, 
 oceeded to the bed-side of this Eloisa in the straw. The 
 ther and mother were called down to witness the senti- 
 ental meeting of the lovers, who were now united by the 
 mmunity of existence which the Priest had contributed to 
 ipart to the bastard offspring of a public harlot. The 
 tness remembers the very gesture which the Priest em- 
 oyed, and says, that he took her by the hand and gave her 
 30s. note: so much for the scene of child-bed. The next 
 swears is, that a quarter of a year after he met the Priest, 
 10 gave him a guinea for the child, upon the public road, 
 rw, observe what Susan Reilly, his cousin states— that she 
 so met the priest a quarter of a year after, — she cannot 
 
468 
 
 state in what sort of an house, nor how many stories it had, , 
 nor describe where it was situate. She informs the priest t 
 that she knew his amours, and he gave her two and six-pence 
 for secrecy, and twenty shillings for the child. Next comes s 
 Bessy Reilly, the sister of the plaintiff. She swears thatt 
 she saw the priest take the plaintiff by the hand fourteen 1 
 years ago, and that he gave her thirty shillings. I asked herr 
 how old she is ? She says that she is, now, twenty years ; 
 of age. She must, therefore, have been only six years of i 
 age, when she witnessed the transaction of which she has> 
 given such minute details, and I verily believe that therei 
 never yet was an example of such a precocious and permanent t 
 recollection. The next witness is the mother of this inte- 
 resting family. The grey-headed wretch, whose womb ap- 
 propriately teemed with perjury and prostitution, comes! 
 with her palsied hand to set a seal to the attestations of hen 
 offsprings — she swears that her daughter Rose went to( 
 America twenty years ago. It will be proved that she wass 
 transported seven years since. This, then, is the evidences 
 upon which this accusation is sustained, and I might stop,) 
 here, and insist that falsehood was stamped in high andi 
 palpable relief upon it. But, in order to satisfy the public ( 
 mind, and to give a deeper insight into this black conspi- 
 racy, I will go into evidence, and make a case, which will 
 set a brand upon the project, of which this plot consti- 
 tutes but a part. We live in an unhappy country.—- 
 In no other country, except in this, would such an en-i 
 terprise have been undertaken. In no country but this,* 
 miserable and wretched Ireland, would any set of men havei 
 embarked in such an adventure. The fatal feuds byj 
 which we are divided, afford the occasion of which! 
 speculators in the profits of religious acrimony take 
 advantage, in order to turn every circumstance which cani 
 add to our polemical detestations to account. Why, in 
 Heaven's name are we thus rent and torn asunder ? In 
 other countries, Catholics and Protestants live in perfect 
 amity together. In France, in Germany, in Belgium, reli- 
 gious differences are never heard of ; whilst in Ireland, we 
 are halloed upon each other, like two pac&s of rabid blood 
 hounds, let loose from the kennels of controversy to teari 
 each other to pieces in an unrelenting and ferocious lacera- 
 tion. But I have no right to convert this tribunal into a 
 field of political expatiation — I must pause. I could not, 
 however, refrain from breaking out into a momentary ex- 
 clamation, to give expression to my sense of the calamitous 
 condition to which the religious dissensions, which rage 
 
469 
 
 with peculiar violence in this county/ have reduced the 
 whole of Ireland. I return to the case immediately before 
 the Court. The defendant is the Roman Catholic Priest of 
 the parish of Kilmore. He has resided here for seventeen 
 years, and during that time his character has been without 
 a spot. It is as white as the surplice with which he as- 
 cends the altar to celebrate the ceremonies of his church. 
 But vague praise is of little value. It is easy to pro- 
 nounce indefinite panegyric. I will prove that he is a 
 man of pure morals and Christian worth. There sits be- 
 side you, on that bench, a magistrate of this county, a 
 man of high rank and large fortune. He told me, but a 
 few moments before I rose to address you, that my client 
 was a truly good and exemplary clergyman. I appeal 
 to him in open Court, He is, in criminal cases, your as- 
 sociate in office. His testimony is of higher value, because 
 he does not sympathise with me, or with my client, in po- 
 litics. In the late election my client took an active part. 
 Major Burrowes supported the successful candidates. But 
 his difference of opinion on political questions, on which, 
 honest men may conscientiously dissent, has not extin- 
 guished his kindly feelings. He is a soldier and a gentle- 
 man, and with the manliness which belongs to his profession, 
 and the dignity of sentiment which should distinguish his 
 rank, he is ready to stand up, and from the place which he 
 occupies beside you, to say that he knows Mr. Brady well, 
 and looks on him as an exemplary clergyman, of immaculate 
 morals, and as a truly good man. If I had nothing else to 
 rely upon, this attestation would be sufficient to outweigh 
 the charges against him. This is the chief value of character , 
 that where a specific accusation is made against an in- 
 dividual, even where he is destitute of positive proofs of 
 innocence, he may appeal to the world and say, " Look at 
 my whole life, and say, if I can be guilty of such a crime as , 
 that which is laid to my charge." I do, therefore, in the 
 first instance, set up the life of the defendant against this 
 infamous accusation. His character is a panoply on which 
 the shafts of slander fall blunted. If the character of the 
 defendant is worthy of consideration, so is that of the plain- 
 tiff. Who is she ? She and her whole family are harlots by 
 profession. They all roll and wallow in the same common 
 sty of miscellaneous prostitution. I will produce evidence to 
 establish, that from the moment she became capable of being 
 an agent in the ministry of impure gratification, she has lived 
 upon her shame. Her bread is the product of lust. She has 
 greatly promoted the " economy of love" in this county. This 
 2 S 
 
4?0 
 
 Lais,, of Kilmore, lays down the jewel of her honor, in ait 
 accommodating spirit, and vends her cheap embraces for ten- 
 pence and a naggin of whiskey. " Non omnibus licet adire 
 Corinthum," was , a saying among the poorer libertines of 
 antiquity, but it is not a canon in the debauchery of Cavan. 
 I will not only prove that the plaintiff is a convenient and 
 tenpenny courtesan, but I will establish beyond all con- 
 troversy, (in this county of controversy) that the child was 
 always stated by the mother to be the offspring of a Colonel 
 Nesbit, and that he, piously believing that he had a property 
 in the child, paid the mother ten pounds a year for its sup- 
 port. I will produce the person who paid the money. The 
 Surgeon who attended the child, will appear on that table, 
 and swear, that six months after its birth he was informed 
 by the plaintiff that Colonel Nesbit had begotten it. I will 
 shew that a domestic debate took place in James Reilly's 
 house, respecting the baptismal name by which the child 
 was to be distinguished. That the question discussed was, 
 whether it should be called Mary Nesbit, or Mary Booth, 
 as it appeared that a Mr. Bell Booth had a title as tenant in 
 common, or rather as joint-tenant, (for they held, as the 
 lawyers say, per my ei per tout ) in the young lady, but that 
 the plaintiff declared, that the Colonel was entitled as sole 
 tenant, and had been special occupant before his rival in her 
 virgin love. Furthermore, I will prove, that the plaintiff 
 declared under her hand, that the charge against the Priest 
 was false, and that she was instigated to make it by promises 
 of land from Lord Farnham. Let it not be imagined that 
 I mean to accuse Lord Farnham of having made any such 
 promise. I entirely acquit him of the most remote share, 
 whether direct or indirect, in this conspiracy, I am a strong 
 partisan — perhaps a virulent and factious one, but I never 
 will prefer such an accusation against a person who, how- 
 ever deluded by fanatical speculations, would be, I am 
 sure, wholly incapable of soiling his hands by dipping 
 them in so foul and impure a transaction. But there are 
 others who disgrace his name, by holding his Lordship 
 forth as the patron of convert strumpets and new- light per- 
 jurers, and who, in order to vilify the Catholic Priest- 
 hood, have recourse to such means as this trial has illus- 
 trated. That the plaintiff is influenced by the hope of ob- 
 taining the premiums of apostacy, 1 do not entertain a 
 doubt, James Reilly, is swayed by the same base expec- 
 tation. The factious state in which the late election and 
 the new reformation have left this county, affords full scope 
 for his genius. He has instituted three prosecutions against 
 
471 
 
 three priests for an assault. This convert to the Pro-, 
 testant religion will be proved to have gone to a Roman 
 Catholic Chapel during divine service — to have thrust his 
 head into the window, and to have called the minister of 
 God a libertine. Perhaps there are individuals who will 
 not be shocked at this, for unfortunately it is believed 
 by many, that all means are justifiable in order to degrade 
 the Catholic Priesthood. The attempt is idle. Who are 
 the Catholic Priesthood? They are a great incorporation 
 of the ministers of God, who teach the principles of the 
 most extensive and ancient Church of the Christian world. 
 Were there no good, and learned, and holy men before 
 the Reformation ? Have there been no good, no learned, no 
 holy men, since that period among the Priesthood of the 
 Roman Catholic Church ? I do not want to institute any 
 odious comparison between the two religions, and I think 
 that to degrade the Protestant Priesthood would be doing 
 no useful office to morality. It cannot be of service to tell 
 the professors of Christianity in any form, that the man 
 who raises his hand from the pulpit to call on his Creator 
 — who distributes the consecrated cup, and puts the bread 
 of sacramental life into circulation at the altar, is unwor- 
 thy of his office. The dignity of that office is impaired by 
 the degradation of its ministers. How absurd it would be 
 to deny lofty merit to numbers of the divines of the Es~ 
 tablished Religion ? How absurd it would be to say, that 
 the Hookers, the Taylors, the Butlers, the Tillotsons, 
 and a crowd of other eminent professors cf Christianity 
 were not persons of virtue as well as genius ; and how 
 absurd it is, on the other hand, to impeach for extravagance 
 in belief, the whole body of the Catholic Priesthood, 
 among whom such master spirits, and glorious lights have 
 appeared. To whom is the world mainly indebted for the 
 diffusion of the knowledge of our redeemer ? Is it to the 
 missionaries of Protestantism ? Who planted the cross in 
 that region of martyrdom, the islands cf Japan ? Who 
 unfurled the standard of Christ in the wilds of Paraguay ? 
 Who announced the Gospel in Goa? Compare what the 
 missionaries of the reformed religion have done in the Fast, 
 with what has been accomplished by the Priests who went 
 forth, not with their wives and children to " teach the 
 Gospel unto ail nations," but with the cross in one hand, 
 and with water and bread in the other. The Catholic 
 Clergy, which includes the natives of all Christian 
 countries, may well deride the impotent efforts which are 
 made to bring their Church into contumely. Nor is it ne- 
 % S 2 ' 
 
472 
 
 eessary that I should travel back to any remote period. — 
 From the scaffolds of the French revolution, the Priesthood 
 of Rome presents to the world the renovated spectacle of 
 martyrdom, bearing attestation, with the heroism of pri- 
 mitive Christianity, to everlasting truth. Why do I speak 
 thus ? Why do I go into these expatiations, in discussing 
 a subject so apparently narrow as the matter before the 
 Court? It is because important considerations are linked 
 with it. It is because great topics lie behind the facts of 
 this simple case, and are justifiably brought out. This is 
 one of a series of attempts to vilify the Clergy of the Church 
 of Rome. I have spoken of the foreign Clergy of that 
 Church, because all the Priesthood of that vast community 
 of Christians belong to the same holy fraternity. But if I 
 have not spoken of them, in their immediate relation to 
 Ireland, it is not because I feared the discussion of the 
 merits of that body of poor and humble men, who, in this 
 country, teach the religion of humility to the humble, and 
 of poverty to the poor. Let calumny do its worst, it will 
 not detach the people from their Clergy. They are too 
 closely bound by mutual suffering and sustainment ever to 
 be rent asunder. Their piety, their simplicity, their meek- 
 ness, and their very dependence upon their flocks, have 
 endeared them beyond the power of our modern reformers 
 to tear them . from each other. And if the effect were suc- 
 cessful, what would be gained ? Where is the benefit to 
 be attained by shaking the creed of the people? You 
 laugh at them because they believe in Transubstantiation. 
 If you persuade them to reject it, are you sure that they will 
 stop where you think it proper? Is there any ne plus ultra 
 of incredulity, where they will stand and pause ? Is not 
 faith a dangerous matter to tamper with ? Touch a single 
 my stery and the whole fabric of religion may crumble in- 
 to dust. He who thinks it absurd that he should eat his 
 God, will think it just as difficult that the author of the 
 Sun, who peopled infinity with stars, should be conceived in 
 the bosom of a woman, and in coming into the world, 
 should have gone through the process of parturition, and 
 have passed through all the humiliating exigencies of life, 
 of which it has been said, " All the accomodations that 
 thou hast, are kin to baseness" Protestant Reformers 5 
 have a care, lest you should go beyond your intents, and 
 precipitate us into infidelity. The shining heights of faith 
 are contiguous to the dark and deep gulphs of increduli- 
 ty. A Roman Catholic passes into a Deist by a single step. 
 Pq yQU want a nation of philosophers ? Will you not be. 
 
473 
 
 contented until you shall have made us all, seven millions of 
 James Reilly's? For he is a Protestant. He goes to 
 Church ! A precious specimen he is, too, of the New Refor- 
 mation. The holy spirit must be admitted to be somewhat 
 capricious in Cavan, for it is among the dens of ruffianism, 
 and the stews of brothelry, that it has been graciously 
 pleased to appear. Did you see, hear, and mark this vil- 
 lain ? I come back to returning to him. He told the 
 Court that he ascended the table, with a pair of pistols 
 in his pocket ! Englishmen who shall read what I now 
 say, note it well — in the loyal and constitutional County of 
 Cavan, a witness ascends the table to kiss the gospel of 
 God, with the instruments of murder, and the apparatus 
 of assassination, ready to be immediately applied. What use 
 will he make of them beyond the Court ? That question 
 may be speedily answered in the groans of his next victim. 
 Magistrates of the County of Cavan, is this system of things 
 to be endured ! But I go back to James Reilly's evidence, 
 1 shall produce witnesses in abundance, and of a respect- 
 able class, to prove that he is unworthy of belief upon his 
 oath. It is not because he is a renegade. If a man, by a 
 process of fair reasoning, concludes that the Catholic creed 
 is a bad one, he does but his duty in encountering public 
 minion, which is always unfavourable to apostacy, and in be- 
 coming a member of the true and more profitable religion. 
 [ can very well understand that a conscientious individual 
 may relinquish the Catholic religion, from pure and honour- 
 ible motives. But, generally speaking, the name of rene- 
 gade is an odious one. It is every where pursued by scorn 
 md detestation. What is the meanest of all animals in Al- 
 ters ? The dog that howls at night in the public streets, 
 md tears up the ground for food among the sepulchres of 
 he Jews, beside the city? No! But the " circumcised 
 log 9 *' the renegade that adopts the religion of the prophet 
 or gain, who winds his mercenary turban about his white 
 rid Christian forehead, and bears in it a more degrading 
 mblem than the cross for which it was exchanged. But, I 
 lon't denounce this wretched witness as Unworthy of be- 
 ef, because he is one of the ornaments of the New Refor- 
 mation. 
 
 The CHAIR.M AN here interrupted Mr. Sheil, and said 
 hat Reilly did not say that he was a Protestant. 
 
 Mr. SHEIL — What! he is repudiated. You are ashamed 
 f him. Well you may. I hope that all honourable Pro- 
 rstants will follow the example, and spurn at the scum 
 id refuse which has been attracted by the New Reforma- 
 ts S 3 
 
474 
 
 tion. 1 hope you will restore us all the strumpets and per- 
 jurers you have debauched from us, and you will have but 
 few converts left. But Reilly said, that since August he 
 went to Church. 
 
 The CHAIRMAN— Two or three times. 
 
 Mr SHEIL— That is quite enough lor the purposes of 
 Protestantism. Going to Church is equivalent to recant*, 
 tion But at all events it must'be owned, that by so doing 
 he has made a progress in the road to salvation and is at 
 least in the avenue of heaven. But I have done with 
 him. 1 am conscious that I have deviated not a little 
 from the line which I ought, perhaps, in strictness, to 
 have pursued, and have been carried away into the dis- 
 cussion of collateral matter. I stated in the outset of 
 what 1 have addressed to you, that I felt as if I were 
 pleading for the life" of my client; but as I advanced into 
 the case, the consciousness of its importance, and my 
 sense of the results of your verdict, have grown upon me. 
 When I look at the peculiar circumstances which belong to 
 it— when I reflect on the sacred relation in which my client 
 stands towards societv-when I recollect the office which 
 he holds, and the sanctity of the duties which are attached 
 to it, I feel, that in stating myself, to be invested by him 
 with as high a trust as if his life were placed in my hands ; 
 instead of exaggerating, I have in reality fallen below the 
 estimate which I should have made of the magnitude of the 
 stake which he has in the event of this trial, and I do 
 not hesitate to say, with reference to the effects with 
 which a verdict aeainst him would be attended, that 
 that which he should hold- to be a thousand times more 
 dear than life, and almost as dear as virtue, is involved 
 in this most momentous action, if his reputation were 
 placed in one scale, and his life were in the other, the 
 balance should not waver for an instant. And it were better 
 a thousand times for him to die, than carry a brand upon 
 his life, which ought to render the grave a place ol retuge 
 I do not pause a moment in declaring, that rather than that 
 my client should be sent forth with the everlasting degrada- 
 tion, which his conviction of the charges against him would 
 heap upon his character,' it were better for him to die. 1 will 
 tell you wherefore it is that I attach such importance to the 
 chastity of a Roman Catholic Priest. It is, because in vio- 
 lating that chastity, he not only breaks the vow which he 
 lias taken to his God, but because the peculiar trust reposed 
 in him in the exercise of the functions of his office, makes a 
 profligate Priest, a more peculiar villain. To impute impu- 
 
475 
 
 rity to the man, to whom the mysteries of the soul are con- 
 fided — to whom the virgin unveils her most secret thoughts, 
 and uncovers the throbbings of her heart, is to charge him 
 with incalculable sin. I shudder at the contemplation of a 
 sacerdotal libertine converting the humiliating rite of his 
 religion into the means of pampering his detestable imagi- 
 nations, and of gratifying the appetite of his loul and 
 loathsome fancy — the Tiberius of the confessional, gloating 
 upon the timorous revealments of impassioned innocence, 
 and availing himself of the opportunities which are afford- 
 ed by his holy ministry to apply a match to the passions 
 of an unsuspecting girl — to pour poison into a pure heart, 
 and breathe corruption upon an unblemished spirit. What 
 a spectacle does a profligate Priest present ! and look at him 
 not only in the exercise of the duties in the office of absolu- 
 tion, but follow him from the confessional to the altar — be- 
 hold him uttering, with lips tainted with prostituted kisses, 
 the words which, in both religions, are believed to have a 
 sacramental efficacy, and which his own church teaches him 
 to believe to have the power of bringing down his God be- 
 fore him ! Look at him with arms profaned with a harlot 
 dalliance, raising the consecrated chalice, filled with the 
 blood of his Redeemer, to heaven ! " Villain (I would cry 
 out) throw down the holy cup — fling the stole away — strip 
 thee of the vestments, which thou hast prophaned — rush 
 from the altar which thou hast polluted : " 
 
 " Never pray more — abandon all remorse ; 
 
 On horrors' head horrors accumulate. 
 
 Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amazed ; 
 
 For nothing canst thou to damnation add 
 
 Greater than that." 
 
 Why do I speak thus ? Why do I burst into this vehement 
 exclamation ? Why do I draw this picture of a depraved 
 ecclesiastic of the Church of Rome ? It is in order that I 
 ma}' conclude it with the question : — Do you believe, and 
 will you declare upon your oath, that my client — that the 
 humble man who sits beside me, and who has so long en- 
 joyed an unblemished character in this county, and who is 
 respected by Protestants as much as he is beloved by his 
 own flock — Do you, I say, believe, and will you, upon your 
 solemn oath, asseverate, that the poor man, whose cause I 
 am pleading, is, indeed, the detestable wretch, of which I 
 have not feared to present you the delineation ? Better, I 
 repeat it, that he should fall instantaneously dead before 
 
476 
 
 you, than that he should be so accounted. And upon what 
 grounds is he to be stripped of his reputation ? Upon the 
 allegations of a public strumpet. What is a strumpet ? 
 Think a little upon the character and attributes of the 
 woman, in whose name this prosecution (for I can call it no- 
 thing else) is sought to be sustained. I have asked you 
 what a strumpet is ? Why did I ask you that question ? In 
 order to make you think a little before you came to deter- 
 mination, which, if adverse to my client, would be infinitely 
 worse than a sentence of death. I have endeavoured to 
 convey to you some conception of the frightful condition 
 in which the defendant is placed. I have tried to make 
 you feel how much he has to lose, and what an award you 
 have to pronounce upon his destiny. It is a strumpet (I 
 repeat the odious word, in order, by the execration of the 
 emphasis, that I may make you appreciate the faith-worthi- 
 ness of the plaintiff) — It is a strumpet. And what is a 
 strumpet ? A base and mercenary utensil of depravity, 
 who vends her foul, diseased, and artificial love, and, for 
 money, turns her person into a common sink of sensuality- 
 becoming the very sewer into which the public passions may 
 be conveniently disembogue. Such is the plaintiff in this 
 case ; and it is upon her allegation that you are to take 
 away, not the life of my client, but all that makes life va- 
 luable and dear — all that gives it enjoyment, dignity and 
 lustre, and without which, a man may be said not so much 
 to live as to be buried alive. Will the claims of a wretch 
 like this, a heap of ambulatory putrescence, physical and 
 moral, receive a moment's consideration ? Shall a wretch, 
 such as this, effect the ruin of a good man ? Will you be a 
 confederate in the slaying of his character and the assassi- 
 nation of his honour. Take him hence — drag him out of the 
 court — Orangemen, if you want a priest, take him and 
 plunge your bayonets in his heart, but don't rob him of 
 his character — let him have, at least, an honourable epi- 
 taph — kill him, but do not degrade him : — leave him his 
 character — his life is at your service. 
 
477 
 
 EVIDENCE FOR THE DEFENCE. 
 
 First Witness — Thomas M'Namara. — Is a surgeon ; four- 
 teen years ago inoculated plaintiff's daughter ; got from the 
 plaintiff a pound note as a fee, with Colonel Nesbit's name 
 on it ; was told, by plaintiff, that the child was colonel Nes- 
 bit's. 
 
 Second Witness — John Farrelly — Was carrier to Colonel 
 Nesbit ; paid money to plaintiff for Colonel Nesbit, as main- 
 tenance for his child ; the plaintiff is a prostitute ; would 
 not believe James Reilly on his oath ; knows the plaintiff to^ 
 be a prostitute, because, one night, the plaintiff and witness 
 were coming on a car, and she asked him why he was not 
 as coneing as others ; witness stopped the car and had his 
 will of her. 
 
 Third Witness — Pat. Reilly — Was aservant of Mr. Booth; 
 saw plaintiff and Mr. Booth in an indecent situation ; was 
 applied to by plaintiff to be sponsor for the child ; it was 
 discussed, by the family, whether the child should be 
 called Mary Nesbit or Mary Booth, because the family 
 thought that the Colonel and Mr. Booth had an equal 
 share in her ; but the plaintiff said the Colonel had the 
 better right. 
 
 Fourth Witness — Pat. Leddy — The plaintiff told him she 
 had ten pounds a year, for the support of the child, from 
 Colonel Nesbit ; plaintiff attended fairs and markets as a 
 prostitute ; plaintiff's price was ten pence and a glass of 
 whiskey ; James Reilly was arrested for stealing hay ; James 
 Reilly is not worthy of belief on his oath. 
 
 Mr. Shiel was about to produce further evidence, when 
 the Barrister stopped him, and said, that his mind was 
 made up, as he considered the whole business to be a con- 
 spiracy against the Rev. Mr. Brady. 
 
 Mr. Shiel said, that in order to satisfy the public mind, 
 he should call on Major Burrowes. 
 
 Major Burrowes stated, that he had known Mr. Brady 
 several years, and had the highest opinion of his moral 
 character. 
 
 The Chairman dismissed the process amidst loud acclama- 
 tions, 
 
MR. SHELL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 ON THE 
 
 ATROCITIES COMMITTED 
 
 IN THE 
 
 COUNTY OF TIPPER ART. 
 
 AT the last assizes of Clonmel, an assassin stood at the bar 
 of the criminal court, against whom an awful charge was pre- 
 ferred. He was accused of having, in the open day, calmly 
 and deliberately, taken away the life of a man, who had 
 violated the laws of that sanguinary confederacy by which, 
 it would appear, that, for the future, the internal govern- 
 ment of Ireland is to be administered. Independently of 
 the danger of detection, there is a kind of instinct, by which 
 men are restrained from the commission of atrocities in the 
 light of day, as if the sun were the eye of God, and mur- 
 der did not dare to encounter its contemplation. But in 
 order to render the fate of the unfortunate Mr. Chadwick 
 more exemplary and impressive, murder did not, in this 
 instance, select the time when " o'er the one half world, 
 nature lies dead/' but went forth in the broad and universal 
 day light, and exhibited the terrible spirit by which the 
 country is pervaded, in a sanguinary ostentation. There 
 was, however, found a man bold and virtuous enough to 
 denounce the villain by whom a sort of defiance was given 
 to justice. He was seized, convicted on most indispu- 
 table evidence, and ordered for execution. It is said 
 (I know not with what truth, but the event has in- 
 vested the alleged prophecy with likelihood) that as 
 he advanced to the scaffold, he denounced all those 
 who had taken a part in his punishment, and not 
 Contented with the spirit of vague divination, speci- 
 
479 
 
 fled the period at which their doom was to be fulfilled, and 
 circumscribed the time within which they were to meet him 
 in the other world, within narrow limits. Before the first of 
 May, he announced that, they should all die. This was consi- 
 dered a menace, and there might be hearts to conceive, but 
 which there could not be hands to execute. It was supposed 
 that the terror which attended the assassin's execution, would 
 have some useful, if not good impression, and that fear would 
 effect what neither morality nor religion could accomplish. 
 Vain and idle hope ! Terrible and detestible as the murder 
 of Mr. Chadwick was, another deed has been perpetrated 
 within a few days, which resulted from the former atrocity, 
 and which infinitely surpasses it. Good God, in what a 
 country do we live, and to what a condition the peasantry 
 of Ireland have been brought I That the confederates 
 of the murderers should have been desirous to avenge his 
 conviction upon the individual who was bold and consci- 
 entious enough to proclaim his guilt, would not be very 
 surprising. But a new system of vengeance appears now 
 to be established, and the ferocious and fearless peasan- 
 try, instituting a new code of retribution, have extended 
 its penalties beyond the individual who dares to disobey 
 their terrible enactments, and not being able to get at the 
 blood of the informer, look for it in his brother's heart. — 
 Mara, the witness against Grace, had escaped them ; but 
 taking a substitute in his kindred, they kill him, as it were 
 by proxy, and sacrifice his brother who had never offended 
 them, in order that a victim might not be wanting at the 
 altar of their infernal immolations. On the very spot where 
 Chadwick was slain, they fall upon Mara's ^brother. He 
 flies before them — they pursue him, and adding a refine- 
 ment of inhumanity to the abstract enormity of their guilt, 
 not contented with merely taking away his life ! they 
 slowly and savagely beat out his brains, and bespatter 
 themselves with his blood. What shall we say of this? 
 What shall we, who live in a Christian land, say of these 
 novel and unparalleled enormities ? In walking through the 
 public streets, men stop each other, and enquiring from 
 their friends whether they have heard the terrible intelligence 
 from the South, and finding all definite language incapable 
 of giving expression to their emotions, give way to vague 
 exclamations of astonishment, and ejaculations of horror — ■ 
 and well, indeed, may they do so ! for in all the records of 
 atrocity by which this country is degraded, a parallel case 
 can scarcely be found to this. But it is of little purpose, 
 after all, to indulge in mere expressions of detestation for 
 
480 
 
 these enormities. After having indulged ourselves in the 
 exercise of that species of virtue, which arises from the ab- 
 horrence of guilt, it is right that we should enquire into the 
 causes of that deep and extensive demoralization from which 
 these incidents arise. These facts are the phenomena from 
 which the state of the public mind is to be collected. It 
 will be said in England, that the lower orders in this coun- 
 try are singularly sanguinary, and are barbarous and tur- 
 bulent beyond any other nation in Europe. But let not the 
 English reader stop here — and let not the Irish Protestant 
 stop here — I will allow them full scope for their invectives 
 against the Irish people — I will join with them in the en- 
 thusiasm of their moral indignation ; but when they shall 
 have relieved themselves by their denunciations of Ireland, 
 and entered into a more reflecting mood, I would put them 
 this question, " Whence do these atrocities, which all the 
 terrors of the law rather instigate than repress, arise? 
 There must be, after all, some cause for these appalling and 
 constantly recurring atrocities. What is that cause ? Is it 
 to be sought for in the climate of Ireland ? Does it spring 
 from the soil we tread ? Do the winds that come to us 
 across the Atlantic, waft the habits of the savage Indian 
 along with them? or does the fault lie with our Celtic race, 
 whose vices the infusion of Saxon blood has not as yet been 
 able to correct ? I ask these questions, not in order to give 
 them an answer, but by their very presentment to shew the 
 absurdity of any such speculation. Where, then, does the 
 cause lie ? What is the source of that deep stream of ini- 
 quity, which periodically inundates the country, and pro- 
 duces such a rank fertility of crime ? It must be sought 
 for in moral causes ; and what are they ? The answer ap- 
 pears to me to be sufficiently obvious. The evil v lies with 
 the Government of the country, and is to be found no 
 where else. The misrule of Ireland, for centuries, which 
 is still continued, has generated that disposition of the peo- 
 ple, from which all these calamities are derived. It is often 
 asked, " in what country are such crimes committed as in 
 Ireland ?" — I would ask 6< what country has been ruled upon 
 such a system, as that by which Ireland has been vitiated 
 and debased? From the original conquest by the English, 
 the same abominable system has been persevered in. The 
 Irish were treated as aliens, or rather as below the level of 
 human nature ; and it was a good plea upon an indictment 
 for murder, for which technical precedents are not wanting, 
 that the deceased was a " mere Irishman/' Spenser and. 
 Sir John Davis attributed the evils of Ireland to the na- 
 
481 
 
 tional distinctions existing in the country. After the Re- 
 formation, a new line of separation was devised ; the En- 
 glish pale fell to the ground, but the Protestant pale was 
 raised in his stead, and religion supplied the place of na- 
 tionality. " A mere Irishman " had previously been the 
 phrase of opprobrium — another, and as efficient a one was 
 found in the equally contumelious designation of u a mere 
 Papist " — and of these mere Papists there are now seven 
 millions in Ireland. It may appear, at first view, extraor- 
 dinary that I should refer to the disqualifications of the Ca- 
 tholics, as the main cause of the evils under which we la- 
 bour, and of the demoralization of the lower orders of the 
 people. But I beg of any individual who may happen to 
 peruse what I am now saying, (and what I say is intended 
 not so much for the audience, which I am now addressing, 
 as for those who, labouring under erroneous impressions, 
 may be disabused of their mistake,) to reflect a little upon 
 the very peculiar relation in which the people and 
 the Government stand towards each other. The first 
 point I would press upon their consideration is this : 
 — namely, that there is an extraordinary anomaly in 
 Ireland, About five hundred thousand individuals, mono- 
 polize all the power, and wealth, and distinctions of the 
 Church and of the State, and the rest of the population (a 
 tremendous residue,) aye, Sir, I repeat it, a tremendous 
 residue — are vilified and degraded, and are consequently 
 converted into a separate and wholly distinct community. 
 The Irish Catholics are a caste, and a low one. The Pro- 
 testants are the Brahmins of Ireland, and the Catholics are 
 the Parias. Whatever dispute there may be as to the re- 
 sults of this system, the fact is incontrovertible, that there 
 is a marked and decided separation between the two classes. 
 That fact being conceded, what is the consequence ? That 
 an utter alienation in feeling exists between both these great 
 divisions of the people. In England, and in other coun- 
 tries, all orders of society flow and melt into each other. 
 There is no visible line of demarcation — at least, no insur- 
 mountable barrier between them, The habits and senti- 
 ments and principles of the higher orders are diffused among 
 the lower.- — There^are not any non-conductors to intercept a 
 communication of feeling, and a reciprocity of sentiment. 
 But in Ireland the case is wholly distinct. The Protestant 
 Gentleman has no sympathy with the Catholic serf. They 
 are legally averse. — The law stamps two colours upon their 
 minds, as distinct as the black and white that mark the 
 African slave and his West Indian master. They are utterly 
 2 T 
 
482 
 
 separate in interest, and in sentiment, and are taught by 
 the law itself to look upon each other with reciprocal dis- 
 trust. The law stands between them, and keeps them ut- 
 terly asunder. What ensues from this division between the 
 proprietors and the occupiers of the soil ? That both are 
 arrayed against each other, and while the Protestant gen- 
 tleman despises the Catholic serf, the Catholic serf abhors 
 the Protestant gentleman ; and what engenders this mutua- 
 lity of bad feeling ? What, but the penal code, which be- 
 gets that bad, but not unnatural, reaction. The hatred to 
 the class extends to every thing connected with it. In Ire- 
 land the law is administered exclusively by the privileged 
 body : and the people, if 1 may so say, naturally regard 
 justice herself as a Protestant, Therefore it is, that they 
 are little disposed to seek redress in a public tribunal, but 
 have recourse to what Lord Bacon has called " the wild jus- 
 tice " of revenge. Let it not be thought, that I am so de- 
 praved in feelings or so destitute of understanding, that 
 my heart is so petrified, or my mind sufficiently obscured — 
 that I am either so bad, or so absurd — such a madman, or 
 such a villian (and I should be both, to attempt such a 
 vindication) as to defend the abominable crimes, of which 
 we have recently had such an awful instance. No ! there is 
 not a man here, who does not concur with me in my ex- 
 pressions of unqualified abhorrence for the perpetrators of 
 those misdeeds. But at the same time, let this be recol- 
 lected, that while the peasantry are deserving of condemna- 
 tion, there should be an apportionment of censure, and 
 that the conduct of the Protestant aristocracy calls for re- 
 probation. He must be a bold man, indeed, who will 
 venture to assert that the Irish peasantry have nothing to 
 complain of. They are most basely and inhumanly treated, 
 and this base and inhuman treatment, I attribute mainly to 
 that abominable code which causes the gentry to look upon 
 the lower orders as beings not only distinct in law, but in 
 nature, and makes them forget they are composed of the same 
 flesh and blood, and must rot, at last, in the same graves 
 with themselves. Let it not be thought that 1 am ascribing 
 to the penal code, the exclusive origin of this calamitous 
 state of things. I think that the causes are numerous and 
 multifarious. But while various incidental circumstances 
 contribute to swell the tide by their contribution, still the 
 fountain-head of this dark, and deep, and continuous current 
 of calamity, is to be found in the remote, but not inscrutable 
 cause, which 1 have assigned as its source. Many will, in 
 all probability, turn these speculations into ridicule, and 
 
483 
 
 say, f< what folly it is to set up Catholic Emancipation as 
 the remedy for all the political disorders in Ireland/' They 
 will say that I am a mere Charlatan, who proclaim my own 
 nostrum as the panacea for every distemper. Be it so ; but 
 let me be permitted to inquire of those who thus denounce 
 the theory, what course of cure they would themselves pre- 
 scribe ? Many experiments have been tried, and none 
 have succeeded. It was said, that a vigorous adminis- 
 tration of the law, would accomplish the general tranquility. 
 It was said, that examples should be held out to the people, 
 and that they should be terrified into submission. What 
 have executions upon executions effected ? The sword 
 of justice is still wet with the blood of malefactors, and she 
 is called upon, again, to resume her dreadful task. Have 
 the furious and desperate peasantry been subdued or awed ? 
 The principle of punishment, which is the prevention of 
 guilt, has been frustrated, and those who shew no value 
 for the lives of others, exhibit an equal recklessness of their 
 own. The principles of the peasantry have been utterly- 
 vitiated — they conceive themselves to be justified in the 
 perpetration of atrocities — assassination has become a max- 
 im of morality, and murder is converted into a kind of 
 virtue amongst them. Of the general diffusion of this 
 feeling, an incident, which occurred after the slaying of 
 Mara's brother, affords an illustration. The body lay cold 
 and lifeless — the blood had become congealed and hard, 
 upon the wounds from which it had ceased to flow, and 
 the limbs had stiffened in the rigour of death. It became 
 necessary to remove the remains. The people, when called 
 upon to lift them up, and bear them from the house where 
 they lay, refused to touch them, as the remains were those of 
 a devoted man, and the gentlemen who stood by, were com- 
 pelled to perform this duty of humanity, and carry it away. 
 Upon men imbued with such sentiments, what effect will the 
 execution of the more immediate assassins produce ? Their 
 execution will lose one half its terrors, in losing all its 
 shame. Public opinion has become depraved, corruption 
 has been infused into the very sources of public sentiment, 
 and the fountains of morality have been poisoned. A re- 
 ward, indeed, has been offered for the dicovery of the male- 
 factors, and they will, I am sure, be detected. But will 
 the detection be of any permanent avail ? The Counsel for 
 the Crown, will probably deliver a very eloquent speech — . 
 the Judge will expatiate upon the enormity of the offence — 
 the Jury will convict — the black will be put on — the sen- 
 tence will be pronounced and executed : and a week after we 
 2 T 2 
 
484 
 
 shall hear of another murder,, which will cause Justice to go 
 through the same process, with just the same effect. It ap- 
 pears, to me, that while it is the duty of Go vernment, as it 
 obviously, is to adopt every means for the discovery of the 
 delinquents yet, that their punishment will not be attended 
 with any substantially useful results. Something better 
 than the hangman and the rope, must be tried. What then 
 is to be done ? That, after all, is the main question — 
 although Ireland lies at the last gasp, she should not be 
 given over, and, at all events, her attendants should prescribe 
 some sort of remedy, if it were merely matter of legislative 
 form, for her cure. What then shall be done for her ? 
 Much has been already tried — Lord Wellesley's Constabu- 
 lary Bill— Mr. Goulburn's Tithe Bill— Lord Plunkett's 
 Burial Bill — yet all these specifics have had no sort of salu- 
 tary effect ? What then shall be done ? I hear the Commis- 
 sioners of Emigration exclaim, read our Report, and you will 
 find the remedy for every grievance in the deportation of a 
 couple of million of the people. These disciples of Malthus 
 have struck upon the most philosophical of all expedients. 
 The only objection to it is, that it is not quite so easy to ship 
 off such a cargo of human life. It must, however, be ad- 
 mitted, in justice to them, that their system has not the de- 
 merit of a bad originality. Robespierre is supposed to have 
 considered the excessive population of France as its essential 
 evil, and accordingly, introduced what was called, e( le 
 systeme de la mart " as his grand political specific. This plan 
 had an advantage over that of our worthy friends, " the 
 Commissioners/' for it was built upon what may be called 
 " the economy of death/' and, according to his views of 
 Emigration, the redundant populatiou were to be trans- 
 ported to a country, from which "no traveller returns." 
 But, on such a subject, I ought to controul the spirit of scorn. 
 It is impossible to read the report of these "transporters of 
 a whole nation," without a feeling far stronger than one of 
 derision. Their recommendation comes to this — " Land- 
 lords of Ireland, act the on Sub-Letting Bill — turn out your 
 miserable tenantry, with their wives and children, from their 
 hovels, and before there are means provided for their de- 
 portation, let them starve, shiver, rot, and die upon the 
 public way. Look at the evidence of the Honourable Mr. 
 Stanley, who is now an Under Secretary of State. He in- 
 forms the Commissioners that he had an estate of 400 acres 
 in Limerick — that before, it fell out of lease, there were six 
 hundred individuals (I don't call them human beings, be- 
 cause they are not to be so accounted) living upon his proper-* 
 
485 
 
 ty, and when it came into his hands, that the population were 
 reduced to three hundred and twenty-nine. In God's name, 
 (who made the remaining two hundred and seventy-one, as 
 well as the Honorable Mr. Stanley,) what became of the 
 rest of them ? That question was not put to the Houorable 
 Mr. Stanley by the Commissioners, but I suppose, that when 
 he wakes in the midst of a stormy midnight, and turns up- 
 on his pillow of down, he sometimes puts to his own heart 
 the painful interrogatory and enquires : — 
 
 4f You naked wretches, whereso'er you are 
 
 " That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, 
 
 " How will your naked heads, and unfed sides, 
 
 if Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you 
 
 " From seasons such as these ? " 
 
 So much for the Commissioners of Emigration, whose 
 corrective for the evils of Ireland will prove as efficacious as 
 the other remedies that have been hitherto applied. It re- 
 mains, then, to inquire, what will remove, or tend to alle- 
 viate, the calamities of this country ? In answering that 
 Catholic Emancipation will do much, I may make a mis- 
 take ; but if it be one, Fitt and Fox, and Burke and Can- 
 ning, fell into it, and it was. at all events, a strange mis- 
 apprehension into which such men could be betrayed.—- 
 Against their authorities I am free to confess, that there are 
 great names to be weighed — such as Doctor Duigenan, Mr. 
 Dawson, Sir Thomas Lethbridge and Mr. Peel. Admitting 
 the value of these eminent authorities against Emancipa- 
 tion, I think it, however, not unfair to suggest, that as 
 every other measure has signally failed, it is, at all events, 
 worth while to tn/ (I say, Sir, to try) for in such a case 
 nothing should be left without experiment,) what the equa- 
 lization of the people may effect in tranquillising and sub- 
 duing their terrible and appalling passions. I repeat that I 
 do not mean to say, that Emancipation will accomplish every 
 thing. But it would do much by reconciling the gentry and 
 the people ; by producing a kindlier feeling between them ; 
 and by opening the way to that interchange of sentiment 
 which the subsisting barrier as fatally prevents. In this 
 view the Protestants of Ireland are so deeply interested in 
 the question as we are. I said, Sir, that the recent atrocity 
 committed in Tipperary (to which I revert) afforded an 
 awful illustration. I repeat it, the more enormous the 
 crime, the stronger admonition it affords. Protestants of 
 Ireland, (for to you I speak,) let not these horrible inci- 
 2 T 2 
 
480 
 
 dents be lost upon you. They shew you to what a pitch of 
 savageness you have brought the people— tremble lest the 
 population which you have maddened, be one day let loose. 
 1 do not address you in the language of menace but of ad- 
 monition. I do not mean to offend your pride by any idle 
 and boisterous threat. But I implore you to put it to your- 
 selves, whether, if a population so demoralised, so barbar- 
 ous, and so sanguinary, were to start up in a simultaneous 
 paroxysm of insurrection, the consequences would not be 
 most terrific ? It is now a common saying amongst you, 
 that no man can with safety live with his family in the dis- 
 turbed districts. If the evil even now be so great, what 
 will it be, if ever for the misfortune of this country, the 
 millions of wretched and savage men, whom you now keep 
 down, shall rush upon you ? I do not speak of " the ig- 
 norant present time " — I do not merely speak of events 
 which may happen before you go down into your graves. — 
 But you have children, and remember that their welfare, if 
 not your own, is concerned. The character of the terrible 
 contest which would ensue, but which, I trust in God, that 
 none of us will live to witness— may be collected from the 
 exemplifications of savageness, of which the recent atrocity 
 is an instance. In such a struggle, Ate would, indeed, 
 come hot from hell, and cry, f{ havoc/' and let slip not the 
 dogs, but the blood hounds of civil war upon you. I well 
 know that like every other servile insurrection, after some 
 time the power of England would crush the people in the 
 tremendous struggle. But in tbe interval, what would be- 
 come of you and of your families ? I protest to Heaven, 
 that I do not offer these considerations to you in order to 
 wound and exasperate your feelings, but with the view to 
 draw your attention a little beyond the present time, in which 
 you are in the full enjoyment of your bad and pernicious do- 
 mination, and to warn you of the necessity of guarding 
 against events, the possibility of which is terrific. You will 
 scarcely deny that the thing is possible, and is not the bare 
 contingency an appalling one ? It is not necessary to draw 
 on the imagination in order to appreciate the results which 
 would ensue from such events. The past gives us an ade- 
 quate intimation of all the ruin which would take place. Sir 
 William Petty says> that in his own time, out of a population 
 of 1,400,000, there perished in the civil war 600,000 — the 
 destruction of property in houses alone exceeded two mil- 
 lions of money, and the whole loss of wealth amounted to 
 thirty-seven millions. There are at present seven millions 
 of people in this country, and both the population and pro- 
 
487 
 
 perty of Ireland furnish a more ample harvest for destruc- 
 tion. Sir William Petty exclaims, in the conclusion of his 
 statement, u for this blood somebody should answer to God 
 and to the King." That Sir William Petty was the ancestor 
 of the present Marquis of Landsdowne. Should he not 
 employ all his efforts to arrest a recurrence of the calamities, 
 of which his forefather drew so dreadful a picture, and 
 should such events return, " for all the blood * that would 
 then be spilt, there would, perhaps, be nobody to answer to 
 the King, but surely some one must render a fearful account 
 before the Almighty and everlasting God. 
 
MR. SHEIL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 ON 
 
 PLATO AND DR. MAGEE. 
 
 Mr. SHIEL said, " There is a pagan gorgeousness in 
 the Church Establishment of Ireland, which is incompati- 
 ble with the genius of Christianity, and repugnant to the 
 first elements of our belief. Let me suppose, that some 
 Philosopher of antiquity, Plato, for example, were called 
 up from the dead. The fancy may often be employed as 
 a guide to truth, and a powerful argument be presented 
 in an imaginative shape. The lamp, with which reason, 
 lights its way, may be moulded in a strange and antic 
 form. Let me then suppose (and let no severe logician quar- 
 rel with the extravagance of the hypothesis,) that the spirit 
 of Plato were submitted to some necromantic process of re- 
 suscitation, and that after he had revisited "glimpses of the 
 Moon," — the task of effecting his posthumous conversion to 
 Christianity were committed to the pious divine, whose meek 
 and apostolic forehead has been recently invested with the 
 Archiepiscopal mitre of the metropolis. Let me be permit- 
 ted to imagine, that the ex -fellow of the University of 
 Dublin were to revert to those early occupations from which 
 his sacred prosperity is derived ; that he were intrusted with 
 the religious education of the re-animated Philosopher, 
 and that having again become tutor, he should have Plato 
 for his pupil. I pass by the preliminaries of introduc- 
 tion between these distinguished personages, and say 
 nothing of the astonishment of Plato, at the episcopal 
 
489 
 
 auntiness of air and the volatile agility of demeanour 
 >vhich characterise the learned Doctor. Let me imagine 
 he wonder of Plato to have subsided at the novelty of 
 his our modern world, in which the Doctor performs 
 »o important a part, and that after having been con- 
 ;ented upon the other subjects of his admiration, he ex- 
 claimed, "Where are the Gods of the old time? What 
 las become of Jupiter ? Does the thunder no longer roll 
 it his behest ? What has befallen the martial maid to whom 
 \thens had devoted her peculiar adoration, and built that 
 ofty shrine whose chastness of form was well associated 
 n its name with the virgin majesty of Minerva ? Where 
 s the sublime worship of the God of poetry and light? — 
 Has he been flung, like his own adventurous boy, from the 
 chariot of the Sun ?" To this interrogatory the Doctor re- 
 }lies, (( These graceful but unholy products of the idola- 
 rous imagination of your country have returned into the 
 lothingness from which they rose. These splendid va- 
 >ours of the fancy have vanished like the illuminated mists 
 )f the mountain in which the Gods of Greece held their 
 maginary abode. These dreams of a fabulous creed have 
 >assed away, and that of which you, or your master So- 
 crates, in one of your noblest dialogues have given a pro- 
 )hetic intimation, has been realized, in a pure and celestial 
 ystem of worship and of faith. There came from Heaven 
 ! being whose precepts carry an internal evidence of their 
 livinity, and who, to use your own words of remote predic- 
 ion, c hath taught us to pray.' His coming was not an- 
 lounced in thunder, nor was his mission illustrated with 
 lashes of lightning. His arrival on the earth was told in 
 he solitude of the night, and in a peaceful and lonely song to 
 ' Shepherds abiding in the mountains." He descended as 
 n emissary of that Godhead of which he was at once a 
 nessenger and an emanation, in the lowliest form with 
 vhich miserable humanity could be invested. His whole 
 ife was as simple as his birth was obscure. The poor, the 
 orrowful, and the unfortunate were his companions. His 
 nly pomp consisted in the grandeur of his revelations, and 
 ven their sublimity was tempered by the meekness of his 
 noral inculcations; mercy dwelt for ever on his lips, and dif- 
 tised its tender attributes over all his actions. Humility was 
 eified in his person. It was from the throne of shame and 
 Liffering that he proclaimed himself a Monarch, and his last 
 ct of moral sovereignty was the pathetic cry of forgive- 
 ess, at the remembrance of which, the infidel of Ge- 
 
490 
 
 neva could not refrain from lapsing into an involuntary cre- 
 dulity, and exclaiming, in the spirit of the soldier who at- 
 tended his agony, that if the death of Socrates was the death 
 of a sage, the death of Jesus was that of God. His disci- 
 ples participated in the divine character of their preceptor, 
 and the twelve inspired teachers of his eternal word propa- 
 gated his doctrines with the humility of him from whom 
 they had received them. The spirit of their religion was 
 typified by the meekness of a dove. They went forth with 
 naked feet, and with scarce enough of raiment to shield 
 them from the inclemency of the air. They spent their 
 lives in the fasting and the prayer which they prescribed ; 
 they taught mankind that there was a sanctity in suffering 
 and a blessedness in tears ; that life was a brief and misera- 
 ble transition to that heaven towards which their eyes were 
 for ever turned; and that the kingdom of Jesus was not of 
 this world. Such were the first propagators of that sub- 
 lime Religion in which I have undertaken to give you in- 
 structions. I am one of the anointed representatives of 
 those inspired, but meek and patient, men — and in me you 
 behold a successor of the Apostles," You ! Plato would ex- 
 claim ; and I leave you to conjecture the expression of sur- 
 prize that would needs invest the features of the Philosopher, 
 in the utterance of the monosyllabic ejaculation of astonish- 
 ment. The Doctor (let us suppose) proceeds to give the 
 gospel to Plato, who peruses the holy writings and after- 
 wards returns to his preceptor in humility. " 1 have read/' 
 he may be imagined to say, " I have read the wonderful 
 book which you have placed in my hands, and I confess 
 that all the volumes of philosophy vanish before it. It is 
 impressed with the seal of inspiration, and its pages are the 
 records of Heaven. In my own visions of perfection, I 
 never reached even in conjecture, to a point of moral sub- 
 limity which could be compared with the incalculable ele- 
 vation of this super-human system of goodness, of mercy, 
 and of love. But Doctor, forgive me for asking you, whe- 
 ther you participate in that high conviction which it is your 
 profession to impart ?" " I," cries the Doctor ! " what a 
 question to the Author of the Atonement I" " I hear, in- 
 deed," the philosopher might reply, " that you, yourself, 
 made an Atonement, but without a sacrifice/' You have 
 expiated certain deviations into liberality, into which you 
 wandered before your advancement to the glittering top 
 from which you superintend and overlook the religion of 
 Jesus. Doctor, I must be candid with you : of course f 
 
491 
 
 cannot controvert the truth of your asseveration, but, I own, 
 I never should have taken you to be a successor of the 
 humble Philosophers of Palestine. You remind me more 
 of some of the spruce and acrimonious disputants, called 
 Sophists, who used of old to infest the groves of the aca- 
 demy. You tell me that the mildness of your master was 
 expressed by the softness of the dove ; your own spirit 
 would find its emblem in the proud and predatory falcon. — 
 You are a preceptor of forgiveness, while your pen distils 
 virulence in every word — your lips that should breathe no- 
 thing but mercy, are smeared with the poison of polemics — 
 you. leave venom in your very kiss of peace: even your pas- 
 toral injunctions, that should be the effusions of tenderness 
 and pity, overflow with bitterness and gall. You have sent 
 an arrow in the shape of a barbed antithesis to rankle in 
 the heart of your country, and not content with an insult 
 to the living, you offer prophanation to the dead. You and 
 pour brother pontiffs talk of poverty; while the yearly in- 
 come which you derive from the public, would, at the rate 
 of Athenian exchange, amount to several talents. You 
 speak of humility, while you tread on the tip-toe of im- 
 portance, and haughtiness sits mitred on your brow. — 
 You prescribe the ascetic regimen of self-denial, while you 
 ]uaff the richest nectar, out of silver and gold. You are 
 apped in down, while you bid your followers make their 
 x>uch of the frozen earth, and you are over-canopied 
 *dth purple, while you tell them that a Christian should 
 lave no other roof but the cope of Heaven above his 
 lead. From the banquet of Dives, you hold up Lazarus 
 o imitation. Your palaces outvie the temples of the fal- 
 en Gods ; and you have substituted yourselves for the 
 dols you deride. As to yourself — you are individually, 
 hear, a learned and a moral man, but there are those 
 f your fraternity who plunge headlong into the gulf of 
 oluptuousness, and have carried their sensuality to a 
 lost foul and flagitious excess. A sordid avidity for gain 
 ages amongst your pampered priesthood. In the com- 
 licated machinery of your exactions they grind the fruits 
 f the peasants' industry to the husk. What then am I 
 ) think? Is there not a practical refutation in your 
 lculcations ? and must I not regard your injunctions of 
 overty, humility, and self-abnegation as a mockery of all 
 iason, and as an insult to all common sense }" " My 
 ?ar Plato," replies the Doctor, " since our last meeting 
 Hi must have been infected by the factious fanaticism of 
 
492 
 
 some Popish Priest/' I have observed, indeed, replies 
 the Philosopher, a body of men who claimed a succes- 
 sion from the primitive teachers of their religion, in whose 
 lives I found an exemplification of their opinions, and 
 an evidence of their high and ardent belief. Pious, 
 humble, and abstemious, zealous in the discharge of 
 their laborious duties, and distinguished by their pure 
 and immaculate morality, they present an image of those 
 disciples of their Master, whose example they prac- 
 tically uphold. You, Doctor, proclaim to the world, 
 that these men constitute a Church without a Religion, 
 and you tell others that they have a Religion without a 
 Church : but for my own part, I can perceive in the 
 monstrous superstructure which has been raised in your 
 establishment upon the simple foundation of Christia- 
 nity, neither a Religion nor a Church." " But Plato," 
 replies the Doctor, 44 you make no allowance for the 
 change of society and circumstances, and for the need 
 of a conformity between the condition of mankind, and 
 the form of their worship." " I read in the sacred book 
 which you have placed in my hands, that the spirit of 
 evil ascended with your master to the summit of a moun- 
 tain, and having bade him survey the world, offered 
 it to his dominion. Do you think that the spectacle 
 that was then disclosed to him, offered to his contem- 
 plation a scene of magnificence, inferior to the splen- 
 dour of your modern earth ? When Rome arose in her 
 majesty, upon the eyes of your unambitious master, did 
 the mistress of the world present an expanse of towers, 
 and domes, and temples less bright and golden than 
 the most famous of your cities ? It was at a period 
 when mankind was raised to the highest point of civi- 
 lization, and in the full noon of imperial glory, that 
 Christ appeared. Did he think it needful that his reli- 
 gion should be allied with the Caesars, or that his Apos- 
 tles should sit mitred in the Roman Senate ? and if the 
 state of mankind did not then require that Christianity 
 should be proud, and opulent and luxurious, why should 
 it now be invested with attributes so abhorrent from 
 its pure and simple nature. Take back the book which 
 you have given me, — imbue your life with its spirit, 
 dismiss your equipages, and discard your worldly pomp, 
 lay down your pontifical magnificence, and return the 
 larger portion of your enormous wealth to the poor from 
 whom it is wrung — be meek and gentle and forbearing, 
 
493 
 
 be compassionate to the living, and be respectful to the 
 dead ; and then, resuming your functions as a teacher of 
 the Christian Religion, you may enforce the lofty max- 
 ims which it contains, not only by the acuteness of 
 your reasoning, but by the more persuasive eloquence 
 of your example." 
 
 2 U 
 
MR. SHEIL'S 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED AT A PUBLIC MEETING 
 
 OF 
 
 PKOTESTANTS AND CATHOLICS, 
 
 HELD 
 AT CA&LOW, 
 
 IN THE YEAR 1825. 
 
 Mr. SHE1L. The liberation of the Catholic should result 
 from the liberality of the Protestant. The resolution, of 
 which I cordially approve, has been moved by a member of 
 the Established Church, of great consideration in your 
 county, and has been seconded by an opulent and influential 
 Member of the Society of Friends. If the body to which 
 he belongs be swayed by kindred sentiments, its name, 
 which is associated with kindliness, is an appropriate one,— 
 This Assembly affords evidence of the salutary spirit which 
 pervades the Protestant and Catholic community. I do not, 
 however, attach as much importance to the expression of 
 Catholic as of Protestant sentiment. As a concourse of 
 Roman Catholics, the meeting merely exhibits that solici- 
 tude for liberty, which pervedes the whole mass of the 
 Roman Catholic population. The emotion, which is mani- 
 fested upon this occasion, is but an ordinary pulsation of 
 that feeling which beats at the heart, and circulates like 
 a vital current, through the whole frame of the country. 
 The indication of favourable sentiment conveyed by the 
 attendance of so many Protestants of rank and fortune, fur- 
 nishes a valuable proof of the rapid change which is every 
 day taking place in the Protestants of rank and fortune, 
 and affords ground for thinking that the period is not 
 
495 
 
 remote — I should rather say, is near at hand — when alt 
 sectarian animosities shall be merged in the wide and 
 peaceful sentiment of nationality. To what a height had 
 faction arisen a few months ago ! — The country was desolated 
 by the spirit of religious party. The line of demarcation 
 between Catholic and Protestant became every day more 
 fatally distinct — the intercourse of society was embittered by 
 political feuds — Is he a Papist ? was the question by which 
 every man's title to respect was habitually tried. The con- 
 tending parties, if not chained by the law, would have 
 rushed upon each other with a rabid ferocity. There 
 was reason to expect they would have broken from that 
 restraint, and that their mutual detestation would have 
 vented itself in blood. The country was torn by passions^ 
 which it was scarcely exaggeration to call infernal, and which 
 almost justified the saying of the Spaniard recorded by Lord 
 Bacon, " that when the Devil, upon the mountain, showed 
 unto Christ the kingdoms of the earth and the glories 
 thereof, he verily believed the Devil left out Ireland, and 
 kept it for himself." Am I not justified in saying, that the 
 condition of the country was, under recent circumstances, 
 truly frightful ? Was it not frightful to behold the Christian 
 religion, the religion of peace, of benevolence, and love, 
 converted by the law into an instrument of malignant passion? 
 To behold the Cross on which our Redeemer died, cut down 
 into faggots, by which the fire of discord was to be scattered 
 through the land ? Was it not painful to every good man to 
 see a perversion, to purposes so flagitious, of that creed, witich 
 was not like the olden law announced in the thunders of Sinai, 
 but revealed to shepherds amidst the silence and brightness 
 of a summer night, in that angelic hymn, which not only 
 proclaims "glory to God on high, but peace on earth to men 
 of good will }" That this country should be rent by animo- 
 sities so furious, no matter from what cause, would be lament- 
 able beyond expression ; but that religion should have 
 been made the occasion of the fierce hostilities, rendered them 
 far more deplorable. Thank God, that these sectarian ani- 
 mosities have of late not only been mitigated, but to a great 
 degree subdued. A gradual reconciliation has taken place- 
 Protestants and Catholics have begun to regard each other with 
 a far less exasperated spirit, and a great national accomoda- 
 tion of the disastrous differences will, in all likelihood, 
 speedily take place. To do justice to the great body of the 
 Protestant community, I must in candour say, that they seem 
 disposed to compromise the great question, from the agi- 
 tation of which so much antipathy has been derived, upon 
 
 2 U 2 
 
496 
 
 terms to which the Roman Catholics, as far as they con- 
 scientiously can, will not, I am sure, be disinclined to ac- 
 cede. The great measure of national equalization ought 
 to be built upon the basis of a wise, a permanent, and a sa- 
 tisfactory adjustment I am convinced that the great body 
 of the Catholic population, or of those persons at all events 
 who have taken the most active share in the conduct 
 of their proceedings, entertain views too sound of the 
 relation between Great Britain and this Country, to in- 
 dulge in the preposterous expectation that Roman Catholic 
 Emancipation can result from any other feeling than 
 one of magnanimous justice upon the part of the En- 
 glish People. — Let me be permitted to speak for a 
 moment of myself — of my own sentiments with regard to 
 the greatness of that nation from which we are soliciting 
 redress, and the principles upon which, in my judgment, 
 the public measures of the Irish Roman Catholics ought to 
 be carried. The recent delegation to England, of which I 
 had the honour of forming a part, had the effect of present- 
 ing, in a just light, the comparative condition of the two 
 Countries, to the minds of those who were deputed upon a 
 species of national embassy to Great Britain- The moment 
 we entered England, I could perceive a dimunition of our 
 sense of political importance and that the amazing opulence 
 with which we were every where surrounded, impressed 
 upon us the conviction of our provincial inferiority, 
 and of the surpassing greatness of the people, whose con- 
 nexion is the only source from which the prosperity of Ire- 
 land can be reasonably expected to be derived. In the sud- 
 den transition from the scenes of misery and sorrow to which 
 we are habituated in Ireland, to the splendid spectacle of 
 English wealth and civilization, the humiliating contrast 
 between the two islands, presses itself upon every ordinary 
 observer. It is at all times remarkable. Compared to her 
 proud and pampered sister, clothed, as she is, in purple 
 and in gold; Ireland, with all her natural endowments, at 
 best, appears but a ragged and emaciated beauty. — Upon 
 the present occasion, the objects of our misery, and the pecu- 
 liar capacity in which we were placed, naturally drew our 
 meditations to the glory of the people, of whom we had come 
 to seek relief. I do not know whether an occasional visit 
 to England, and especially such a one as I am describing, 
 has not a very salutary effect. It operates as a sedative to 
 the ardour of the political passions. A man is apt to be 
 carried away by the popular feelings which he contributes 
 to create ; having heated the public mind into ardent emo- 
 
497 
 
 tion, he is himself under the influence of its intensity. An 
 absence from the immediate scene of political agitation, is 
 not without its utility in restoriug the mind of the most en- 
 thusiastic patriot to soberness of thought. The feeling 
 which attended our progress through England, was not a little 
 increased by an approach to its vast metropolis. We heard 
 from afar the rolling of the tide— the murmurs of that sea of 
 wealth to which we were advancing. We needed little 
 of the spirit of political romance to receive a deep and 
 stirring impulse from the contemplation of the chief City 
 of the British Empire. It is not the mere capital of 
 Great Britain ; it is the seat of that dominion, which holds 
 the sea as its vassal, and before which India bows her 
 dusky brow. In London we behold the central point of 
 civilization — u the mighty heart " of that political frame, 
 whose power is almost without a parallel in the ancient, 
 and is without a rival in the modern world. In that 
 endless City — in its countless population — in its prodi- 
 gious luxury — in its pomp and pride — in its commerce, 
 which has gathered all the pioducts of the east within its 7 
 compass, and united all that can minister to the wants, the 
 pleasures, and the caprices of mankind — in all the splendid 
 circumstance that dazzles the mind, and that delights the 
 senses and kindles the imagination, we beheld the evidence 
 and the results of that dominion which extends its influence 
 over the earth, which, like one of its circles, passes round 
 the globe — which realises the Spaniard's boast, (for the sun 
 does not set upon her dominions,) and which not only 
 governs the present fortunes, but affects to an incalculable 
 distance, the remote destinies of mankind. Why do I dwell 
 upon these circumstances, and endeavour to present to you 
 a picture of the greatness and glory of the British empire ? 
 In order that I may impress upon you that feeling which 
 pervades my own mind, and which is raised into the strength 
 and firmness of conviction, that the happiness of our countrv 
 depends upon its conjunction, I should rather say, its identity 
 with England. Wearenotmad enough to attempt by violence, 
 what must result from generosity. Liberty, given as 
 a boon, will carry with it an intimation of kindness 
 and good feeling — it will (C bless him that takes, and him 
 that gives/' and while it will awaken the high and pleasura- 
 ble consciousness of generosity in the heart of England, in 
 that of Ireland it will excite the emotions of impassiond gra- 
 titude, and produce a reciprocal sentiment of attachment and 
 confidence, How cheering it is to contemplate the profound 
 tranquility, the deep repose of the public mind in Ireland, 
 2 U 3 
 
498 
 
 which even the anticipation of relief has produced ! The 
 passions which were raised to such a height have subsided, 
 and a general calm has ensued. And if hope — if mere hope., 
 has done so much, what will not realization accomplish > 
 This great event, I trust in God, is upon the verge of accom- 
 plishment, the freedom of the country, will be achieved in 
 a manner most likely to produce benefit to both parties by 
 being satisfactory to each. The contests which prevailed, in 
 ancient Rome, between the particians and plebeians are not a 
 little analogous in their origin to our own. Let us imitate 
 the example of the latter, who, after having succeeded in the 
 abrogation of the laws which shut them out from the higher 
 offices of the State, did not raise a temple to Victory, but to 
 Concord. Let her henceforth become the goddess of our 
 political religion, and extinguish all sectarian animosities in 
 her philosophical and comprehensive worship. 
 
 (This Speech was delivered when Catholic Emancipa- 
 tion was expected.) 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 TO THE DISSENTERS ; 
 
 WRITTEN BY 
 
 MR O'CONNELL. 
 
 TO THE PROTESTANT DISSENTERS OF ENGLAND, 
 
 Fellow-Christians.— You are engaged in a constitu- 
 tional struggle to attain your rights. We have been long 
 employed in similar exertions. No man deserves freedom 
 who will not use his best endeavours to obtain that greatest 
 of human blessings. 
 
 You seek to repeal laws which punish you for not being 
 hypocrites — deprive you of rights, because you are sincere, 
 and refuse to renounce religious tenets which you belive from 
 conscientious conviction. 
 
 We contend for, precisely, similar objects. We, like you, 
 should be free from all restrictions, if we could consent to 
 profess opinions which we do not believe. Our sincerity, 
 like yours, would be rewarded with the concession of all 
 civil rights ; and if we were, base enough, to despise or under- 
 value the sacred obligation of an oath, we could set perse- 
 cution at defiance, and obtain, at once, total Emancipa- 
 tion. 
 
 Thus, mutually testifying to our sincerity by our priva- 
 tions ; engaged in a similar struggle for relief, why should 
 not congeniality of motive ensure a combination of exer- 
 tion ? — and why should not sympathy in suffering, produce 
 perfect union in action. 
 
 Protestant Dissenters, we offer you the hand of amity — 
 In the spirit of Christian charity, we call upon you for open, 
 and avowed, and manly co-operation. 
 
 We desire to bring into practical operation this great 
 principle of individual duty and social right — " that every 
 
500 
 
 HUMAN BEING SHOULD WORSHIP GoD ACCORDING TO THE 
 SINCERE DICTATES OF HIS CONSCIENTIOUS BELIEF." 
 
 Do you agree with us in that principle ? If you do not 
 agree in that principle, you seal your own condemnation, 
 and have no excuse for dissenting from the Church by Law 
 established. No man should disobey the law, unless under 
 the sanction of a higher duty, and obedience to a more 
 awful authority. 
 
 If you do agree with us in that sacred principle, why will 
 you not assist us to give it practical effect ? 
 
 It is, we assert, an universal principle, not confined to 
 one sect or persuasion, but extended to every existing and 
 every possible mode of Christian belief. 
 
 The Catholics of Ireland have ever grounded their Peti- 
 tions for Emancipation on this great principle of freedom of 
 conscience. Should we succeed for ourselves, you will have 
 (and we heartly rejoice at it) the full force of the argu- 
 ment, and the full benefit of the example. 
 
 Why, then, will you not join with us ? Why will you 
 not combine your exertions with ours ? We may fail if we 
 act separately. The " Vis unita foriior" of combination 
 may enable us to achieve that liberty, in the pursuit of 
 which we may each be defeated if disunited and separate. 
 
 As you love liberty — as you esteem justice — as you res- 
 pect the rights of conscience — we call upon you to combine 
 your efforts with ours, and with us to make one powerful 
 exertion, before which, the banners of intolerance may break 
 down, and thus Christianity shall be Vescued from thraldom, 
 and conscience shall be set free. 
 
 Why, then, we ask you, have you not already united your 
 force with ours, and already made a common effort in our 
 common cause ? We will, ourselves, answer the question, 
 and state the causes which have heretofore created, and, 
 perhaps, excused your separation from us, but which cannot, 
 hereafter, as we respectfully submit, be considered as any 
 palliation for continuing that separation, or again refusing 
 to join us to make conscience free. 
 
 The causes to which we allude, are easily to be found in 
 those prejudices and unfounded opinions respecting the Ca- 
 tholics which the misrepresentation and calumnies of your 
 enemies, as well as ours, have engendered and perpetuated 
 by incessant and interested repetion and circulation in all 
 shapes and forms. 
 
 The Catholics are assailed by falsehood in every shape 
 and every form — from the ponderous folio to the penny 
 ballad — from the loathsome verbiage of an Act of Parlia- 
 
501 
 
 ment to the flippant wit of a farce, every species of literary 
 artillery is directed against us. Our conduct is calumni- 
 ated—our tenets are misrepresented — our principles are 
 falsified. Belief which we reject, is imputed to us — opi- 
 nions which we abhor, are attributed to us — maxims which 
 we loath, are charged upon us. 
 
 Protestants— Englishmen, we demand justice. We are 
 entitled to your compassion, but we seek not to excite the 
 paltry passion of pity. We demand to be heard in our de- 
 fence, and we call for nothing but unbiassed and deliberate 
 judgment. 
 
 We are accused of entertaining opinions hostile to civil 
 liberty — we are accused of cherishing tenets inimical to 
 freedom of conscience. Do not believe those who tell you 
 so. They impose upon you — they calumniate us. There 
 do not breathe in the universal world, men more fondly, 
 more firmly, more enthusiastically attached to civil liberty 
 than the Catholics of Ireland. If we be guilty of any ido- 
 latry, it is purely political, and consists in the fervour of 
 that devotion with which we worship at the shrine of free- 
 dom. 
 
 The Catholics of Ireland are devoted, with equal warmth 
 and, if possible, more persevering zeal, to the cause of re- 
 ligious freedom. The Catholic Prelates eagerly join the 
 Catholic Laity, in the assertion of the principle of liberty of 
 conscience. The Catholic Peerage rival the Catholic Pea- 
 santry, in the sincerity, with which both proclaim that li- 
 berty of conscience is the inherent right of all mankind — a 
 right which can not be taken away without injustice and 
 oppression, nor surrendered without a crime. 
 
 We trust that the conduct of the Irish Catholics has en- 
 titled us to expect implicit credit for this statement of our 
 avowed and published sentiments. But your attention may 
 be diverted from the proofs we have already given of our 
 opinions — you may be led away by general and abstract 
 accusations, and you may be told, as you have been told, 
 that the tenets of the Catholics are, in themselves, and by 
 their nature, friendly to despotic power, and that our faith 
 is inimical to liberty of conscience. 
 
 We deny the truth of both of these allegations — we utter- 
 ly deny their truth. We are Catholics — Catholics in all the 
 sincerity of perfect and conscientious belief. We would 
 not disclaim, or disown, or misrepresent, any one tenet of 
 the Catholic religion for all the world's wealth, or all that 
 can exist of human power. Evincing our sincerity by the 
 constancy with which we endure privation, and bear with 
 
502 
 
 the more goading suffering, which contumely and insult in- 
 flict on us. Sincere and conscientious Catholics as we are, 
 we do solemnly, and in the presence of the Deity, deny the 
 charges made against our tenets and our faith, and we do 
 declare, to you, that the principles of our religion are most 
 favourable to the civil liberty, and to the practical exhibition 
 of freedom of conscience. 
 
 Protestant Englishmen ! we do not ask you to rely — al- 
 though you may well rely — on our assertion, without the 
 aid of proof. But we appeal to history and to the evidence 
 of facts to sustain our assertions. 
 
 Recollect that we assert two things — First, that the 
 Catholic Religion is friendly to civil liberty — Secondly, 
 that the Catholic religion is favourable to freedom of con- 
 science. 
 
 We do not mean to enter into theoric reasonings in the 
 first instance, in order to prove the truth of these assertions. 
 We confine ourselves to matter of history — we will adduce, 
 historic facts sufficient to convince every reasoning and dis- 
 passionate man. 
 
 We take up the proof of these assertions in the order 
 in which we have made them. We begin with the as- 
 sertion — "That the Catholic Religion is friendly to 
 Civil Liberty." We adduce history as our witness to 
 prove it. 
 
 And first — Englishmen, history reminds you that you 
 owe all that you have of liberty to your Catholic ancestors. 
 You owe to Catholic hands, the frame, form, and vital sub- 
 stance of that Constitution of which you are proud, and of 
 which you would have still more reason to boast, if its 
 practical details were more in unison with the free-born 
 spirit of those Catholic times, When Parliaments were an- 
 nual, Avhen the public revenue was under the actual, not 
 the nominal, controul of the real, and not the virtual repre- 
 sentatives of the people — of those Catholic times, when no 
 single Justice of the Peace could decide on the liberty of 
 an Englishman — nor could any Magistrate imprison an 
 Englishman without the verdict of twelve of his equals — 
 of those Catholic times when there was not one single bar- 
 rack in all England — and before the name of a standing 
 army had been known to English ears, or tolerated by 
 English usage. 
 
 Englishmen — you owe to your Catholic ancestors the 
 institution of your hereditary Monarchy which gives fixity 
 to private and individual property, by taking out of the 
 lottery of faction or intrigue, the greatest prize in human 
 
503 
 
 existence — and deprives lawless ambition of the greatest 
 stimulant to insurrectionary exertion. 
 
 Englishmen — you owe to your Catholic ancestors, the in- 
 stitution of that legislative and hereditary peerage, which, 
 whilst it is in its origin, and intention, calculated to form 
 the glorious and legitimate incitement to virtuous and 
 patriotic action, stands secure from the impulse of sudden 
 factious movements, or from the controul of hasty popular 
 excitement. 
 
 But, above all, and we do say before all Englishmen, you 
 owe to your Catholic ancestors the invention of practical 
 popular representation. You owe to Catholics the institution 
 of the House of Commons — emphatically the people's House 
 of Parliament — not indeed as it now stands disfigured by 
 rotten boroughs and individual nomination, nor rendered 
 almost permanent by legislative usurpation, but really re- 
 presenting the people, and elected annually or for almost 
 every particular occasion. 
 
 Englishmen — you owe to your Catholic ancestors the 
 great charter of your liberties, and the repealed confirma- 
 tory charters wrung by a Catholic people from successive 
 Sovereigns, actuated as the people were by the genuine 
 love of liberty which delights in controuling the excesses of 
 supreme power. 
 
 You equally owe to your Catholic ancestors a defined and 
 definite High Treason Law ; and the best protection of 
 your lives at this moment, against any attempt by ministe- 
 rial authority to destroy them, would be found in the statute 
 framed by a Catholic Parliament, in the reign of the Catholic 
 Edward the Third. 
 
 You likewise owe to your Catholic ancestors all that is 
 valuable in your judicial system — your Mayors, your 
 Sheriffs, your Judges. 
 
 There remains one part of your judicial system of which 
 the praise has been sounded more loudly and long than 
 any other, and most justly. <% The trial by Jury/' To 
 whom do you owe the trial by Jury ? To your Catholic 
 ancestors. It was Catholics who created the trial by Jury. 
 The protection of the oppressed — the check of tyranny — 
 the safeguard of the innocent — the shield of the persecuted 
 in bad times — the consolation and the pride of the vir- 
 tuous in times of peace and security, — " The trial by 
 Jury !" 
 
 Pause here with us, Englishmen and fellow-christians, 
 and then answer this question coolly and dispassionately. 
 Could the religion of the men be hostile to liberty who framed 
 
504 
 
 Magna Charta— -who limited and defined the Treason Law 
 — who invented legislative representation — who instituted 
 the trial by Jury ? 
 
 But it is not in England alone that history proves that 
 the Catholics were most favourable to freedom. Almost all 
 the popular republics of the modern world were modelled 
 by Catholics. Italy, before the Reformation, possessed ten 
 or twelve Catholic republics. The Catholic republic of 
 Venice endured fourteen hundred years, and of these near 
 nine hundred were years of democratic liberty, domestic 
 comfort, and foreign glory. 
 
 In more modern times still, the republics of Switzerland 
 were distinguished into aristocratic cantons, and democratic 
 — the aristocratic were Protestant, the democratic Catholic 
 cantons, > 
 
 More recently still Catholic South America has instituted, 
 or is engaged in framing more than twenty new republics 
 on the broad basis of popular rights and universal eman- 
 cipation. 
 
 We deem it unnecessary to enter into further details. — 
 Ignorance of history may excuse a man for doubting that 
 liberty is a Catholic virtue. But to him who will read the 
 page of history with an unprejudiced eye, the fact is manifest, 
 that it is to Catholics that liberty is principally, nay, 
 almost exclusively, indebted for her formation on the basis 
 of stability. 
 
 We now come to our second assertion — u That the Ca* 
 tkolic Religion is favourable to liberty of conscience 
 
 To prove this assertion, we also appeal to history. — His- 
 tory tells us, that after the Reformation persecution was a 
 crime committed indiscriminately by all sects. Catholics 
 persecuted because they were strong : Protestants, as they 
 grew into strength, immediately persecuted the Catholics — 
 and as they varied in their Protestant sects, they persecuted 
 each other. 
 
 Amidst this horrid scene of unchristian, criminal, and 
 abominable persecution, what denomination of Christians 
 was it that gave the first bright example of religious tole- 
 ration? This is an interesting inquiry — every man feels 
 its importance — and may well repeat with impatience the 
 important question : — What was the first Christian denomi- 
 nation that disarmed persecution of legal power, and gene- 
 rously conceded to all freedom of conscience ? 
 
 With what generous exultation do we answer that ques- 
 tion ? It was — it was the Catholics ! The Catholic State 
 of Maryland, whose Catholic legislature enacted the first 
 
505 
 
 law of religious liberty — of perfect freedom of conscience- 
 It was passed in the yeat 1649. By whose hand was that 
 statute drawn up ? — Listen to the fact, oh ! British prejudice 
 — by the hand of a Jesuit. 
 
 This noble Catholic example has been widely imitated. 
 To cite a few instances. In the year 1792, the Catholic 
 Parliament — the diet of Hungary, passed a gracious 
 emancipation law in favour of their Protestant brethren. 
 The Protestants were less than one-fifth of the population. 
 The Catholic diet gave them up one third of the Churches, 
 and totally exempted them from payment of tithes to the 
 Catholic, being the established Clergy. 
 
 Protestant Dissenters of England, has it ever entered 
 into your waking thoughts, or do you even dream of ob- 
 taining a similar concession from a fellow- Protestant Par- 
 liament ; and as you do not — pray pause before you infix 
 the stain of bigotry on Catholics, who have granted to Pro- 
 testants, that valuable immunity which one sect of Protes- 
 tants deem impossible to be asked for, or conceded to other 
 Protestants. 
 
 Again we cite the recent instance of Bavaria. There a 
 Catholic King, fervent and even rigid in the practical exer- 
 cise of his own religion, has repealed all the ancient perse- 
 cuting laws, and granted to his Protestant subjects with 
 whom he differs, a perfect equalization of civil rights with 
 his Catholic subjects with whom he agrees sincerely in re- 
 ligious belief, and has given civil liberty to both. 
 
 Again, in France a Catholic King, strict in all the ob- 
 servances, and sincere in the practice of his own religion, 
 admits in his councils and employs in the high official sta- 
 tions of his realm, his Protestant indiscriminately with 
 his Catholic, subjects — whilst the Protestant is perfectly 
 equal with the Catholic in the eye of the law ; and the 
 Protestant clergyman is paid by the state more liberally, by 
 one-fifth, than the Catholic priest, although the Catholic 
 is declared by law to be the established religion of that state. 
 
 From foreign Catholic states we turn to our own domestic 
 concerns, and here, Protestant Englishmen, we stand on 
 a proud pre-eminence. Protestant historians have grate- 
 fully recorded the precious fact — " that the Irish Ca- 
 tholics ARE THE ONLY SECT THAT EVER RESUMED POWER 
 WITHOUT EXERCISING VENGEANCE." 
 
 " Show me a brighter instance, if you can, in the page 
 of history ?" We repeat the question of a distinguished 
 Protestant writer. 
 2 X 
 
506 
 
 The Catholics of Ireland — blessed be God for it — have 
 shewn two such examples. 
 
 The last was in the reign of James the Second. The 
 Irish Parliament was, during that reign, composed of 
 more than five sixths Catholics. They never persecuted 
 one single Protestant; they never passed one persecuting 
 law ; they enacted several laws favorable to civil and reli- 
 gious liberty. 
 
 But we go back with great pleasure to a former period— 
 and here indeed our honest exultation is perfectly justifiable. 
 
 English Protestants, you have often heard of Queen 
 Mary. Bloody Mary is chimed into your ears from child- 
 hood to the grave. Bloody Mary is the theme of Fox's 
 lying legends, and of all your grave historians. We do 
 not mean to excuse her conduct, or even to palliate it. 
 We leave it to English Catholics, if they think fit, to re- 
 count the savage and treacherous machinations which were 
 arranged, and the open attacks which were made upon 
 the throne and her life, before she commenced the career 
 of her odious persecution. We leave it to the English Ca- 
 tholics to shew, if they think fit, how Mary retaliated on 
 the authors of cruelty their own horrible atrocities, and to 
 detail with what unrelenting vengeance, Elizabeth and 
 James made sanguinary compensation for the crimes of 
 Mary. 
 
 We neither excuse or palliate her crimes, but we turn 
 to her history, in order to place in stronger light and more 
 direct contrast, the conduct of the Catholics of Ireland dur- 
 ing her reign. 
 
 Protestant Englishmen, are you acquainted with that 
 conduct? Do you know how the Irish Catholics treated 
 the Protestants during the reign of Queen Mary ? 
 
 It is time you should know it. But before we state that 
 conduct, let us call to your recollection that the Catholics 
 of Ireland had been persecuted — bitterly persecuted during 
 the latter years of the reign of Henry the Eighth, and 
 during the entire reign of the Sixth Edward, In Ireland 
 the Catholics were stripped of their properties— their 
 Churches were plundered — their altars torn down*— their 
 worship prohibited — many of the laity and multitudes of 
 the Clergy were put to death, with circumstances of the 
 most barbarous cruelty. 
 
 Amidst these horrid scenes, Edward died, and Mary 
 ascended the throne. The Catholics were restored to power 
 — the Catholic worship was of course re-established. What 
 
507 
 
 was the conduct of the Irish Catholics ? Protestants, Dis- 
 senters of England, listen to the fact. The Irish Catho- 
 lics punished nobody. The Irish Catholics persecuted no- 
 body. The Irish Catholics buried in generous oblivion the 
 entire past, and the worst of the Protestant persecutors, 
 wholly unpunished, were allowed to sink into obscurity and 
 neglect, 
 
 Nay more — listen to this, we entreat. Many Euglish Pro- 
 testant families fled from persecution to Ireland. They were 
 all received and protected here, and allowed to enjoy their 
 opinions and worship without molestation. 
 
 English Protestants — we the Irish Catholics of this day 
 are the descendants of the generous Irish Catholics of the 
 reign of Queen Mary. We enjoy but little, indeed, of the 
 properties of our forefathers — fidelity to our ancient faith 
 has been since punished with many and many a confiscation, 
 and with not a few sacrifices of lives. We, therefore, enjoy 
 but little of their property, but we inherit all their gener- 
 ous, and kindly, and Christian spirit, and we want but the 
 opportunity to imitate, and, if possible, to surpass their 
 noble example. 
 
 That example we have an opportunity to imitate only on 
 a small scale. What we can do we are ready to perform, 
 and to evince our sincerity, we have petitioned Parliament 
 to grant you your rights. You will find a copy of that pe- 
 tition in the appendix to this Address. 
 
 Protestant brethren, there are other charges made against 
 our tenets, which we do not stoop to contradict. Those 
 who know us best, are well aware how false and unfounded 
 all such charges are. However, we subjoin in the appen- 
 dix accurate copies of the oaths taken indiscriminately by 
 the Catholic laity and Catholic Clergy, of every rank, in 
 Ireland. Read those oaths, and then recollect, that we are 
 excluded from our just rights, and are degraded and tram- 
 pled upon in our native land, by no other process than by 
 tendering to us oaths, which we cannot conscientiously take. 
 If we did not respect the sanctity of an oath, we should be 
 instantly emancipated. Recollect this whilst you read the 
 oaths which we do readily and universally swear. 
 
 Protestant Disseuters of England, we now take our leave. 
 We have petitioned on your behalf :— What return arc we 
 to expect ? Will you join us to assert the principle of re- 
 ligious freedom :— -Or will you selfishly demand for your- 
 selves that which you are unwilling to concede to others ? 
 
 We do not judge so ill of you. We offer you a bond of 
 Christian charity. Reject it, and you injure yourselves and 
 
508 
 
 tarnish your own cause. Accept it, and you add one bright 
 example more of Christian toleration, and of the coinbina- 
 tion in benevolence of Christians, differing with each other 
 in belief ; a combination which may terrify bigotry into 
 concession, and which will certainly cover the bigots with 
 shame and confusion. 
 
 Whatever may be your resolve, our course, Christian 
 brethren, is decided. We will ever assert the principle of 
 freedom of conscience for all mankind. We will ever che- 
 rish and seek for civil liberty, the greatest of human bless- 
 ings : — And may that God whom all Christians adore esta- 
 blish amongst the warring sects that peace^harmony, and 
 mutual charity, without which the voice of truth is raised 
 in vain, whilst error and vice are protected and continued 
 by the contest and conflict of unhallowed passion and useless 
 recrimination. 
 
 DANIEL O'CONNELL, 
 Chairman of the Committee. 
 
243910 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE