1830.] Slate of Ireland. 147 



Such an arrangement cannot, therefore, be any longer defended, either 

 on the ground of principle, or on that of expediency ; especially now 

 that the stigma has been taken off our religion, and it has been pronounced 

 as SAFE a political creed as any other ! It follows that we assuredly have 

 a right to demand that of which our worthy ancestors have been robbed, 

 and -the restoration of which the welfare of society requires. How can 

 Protestants, with any sort of consistency, refuse us the benefit of their 

 own express admissions ?'* 



What is to prevent this feeling from daily growing in intensity ? And 

 how are its probable consequences to be obviated ? Pastorini directly en- 

 courages it. In the last edition of his " History of the Christian Churchy" 

 page 21 1, he says, " Who is ignorant of the cruel, persecuting laws, 

 that were in those times enacted in most of the protestant states against 

 the Catholic religion ? Among the rest, who is not acquainted with the 

 severe laws of England and Ireland ? They are such, as to be owned by 

 such of their own people who have a sense of humanity, to be barba- 

 rous, to be a scandal to the Christian religion, and a disgrace to civilized 

 nations. In consequence of these statutes, how many persons have been 

 stript of their estates? How many individuals have been imprisoned, 

 banished, even put to death ? How many families have been reduced to 

 beggary and ruin ?" 



Again : page 223 " When people are driven to despair by excessive 

 hardship and oppression, and even threatened with utter extirpation, 

 what wonder if an insurrection follows ? Such was the case with the 

 Irish Catholics." 



Now the Roman Catholics of Ireland, whose " favourite prophet" their 

 renowned Bishop Doyle, assures us Pastorini is, almost to a man coincide 

 with the foregoing description of the merits of the Irish confiscations. 

 With very few exceptions, they also place the most implicit confidence 

 in Pastorini's predictions of the perfect overthrow of those whom their 

 " favourite prophet" depicts as their oppressors. The Whigs manifestly 

 acquiesce in Pastorini's assertions with regard to the causes of the con- 

 fiscations. It remains to be proved whether (t the march of events" will 

 not teach them the logical deductions from such admissions ! 



As to the Protestants of Ireland, they, indeed, were once a very formi- 

 dable obstacle in the way of such revolutionary projects. They were a 

 powerful guarantee to the existing order of property. But the men 

 whose valour and loyalty were the sword and buckler of British con- 

 nexion, are now emigrating by thousands, and taking with them no 

 inconsiderable portion of the small capital which the provincial parts of 

 Ireland possessed. They are disposing of their interests in the farms 

 which they had rendered productive by their superior skill and industry, 

 turning into hard cash whatever property they can still call their own, 

 and " winging their way" across the Atlantic. They do not admire the 

 present aspect of affairs. They are disgusted at what has occurred, and 

 alarmed at what they see in progress. They have abandoned all confi- 

 dence in those men who steered the labouring vessel of the state into a 

 sea of troubles. They think that their inflexible loyalty has been ill- 

 requited ; and that a premium has been held out to turbulence and dis- 

 affection. They have taken firm hold of the opinion, that " even-handed 

 justice" has not been impartially administered to them that their lives 

 and properties have been rendered insecure by the leniency which has 

 frequently been shewn to the most sanguinary of the Roman Catholic 



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