1827.J Letter on Affairs in general. 



tented populace, at home, and were labouring under all the other disadvan- 

 tages of a newly settled government. Besides, emancipation, if granted 

 without the good will of the people of England, would, from being the 

 triumph of one party over another, fail to be a valuable acquisition even to 

 the inhabitants of Ireland ; and how the good will of the people of England 

 is to be conciliated, by telling them that, if they do not grant emancipa- 

 tion of their own accord, " they shall see their sons slaughtered on their 

 thresholds, and hear their daughters scream for assistance on the graves of 

 their sires," the miserable spouter, who employs the threat, can alone explain 

 to them. 



The Catholics, of late, have frequently complained and not without 

 justice of the vituperative language, in which their opponents spoak, not 

 only of their tenets, but also of their practices. Hard words never yet 

 were arguments and the chance is, that he who has a great abundance of 

 the first, has a marvellous lack of the latter article. Let it not, however, 

 be supposed, that the hard words are all on one side ; for instance, read 

 the following extract from a letter, which the Catholic Bishop Doyle has 

 addressed, during the last month, to the Protestant Archbishop Magee, and 

 then wonder, if you can, at the increasing hostility to the Catholics, which 

 is fast pervading every part of the empire : " It may be safely affirmed 

 that the Duke of Alva was not half so lost to the feelings of nature and 

 decency, as Cranmer and Henry ; or that the cruel assassins of St. Bar- 

 tholemi were not more wicked, more heartless, more cruel, than the bloody 

 satellites of Elizabeth or Cromwell, in England or Ireland that Mary 

 was incomparably less a persecutor than her sister ; that the proceed- 

 ings of Knox and the covenanters in Scotland, of the Parliament, Pro- 

 lector and Viceroys in this country* surpass BEYOND MEASURE all that was 

 ever done, not by Catholics, but by Nero, Tiberius, Domitian, throughout 

 the Roman Empire, or by Pharaoh himself in Egypt. No, all the fends 

 of Milton, if let loose upon the earth, could not exceed in cruelty, im- 

 piety, and injustice, the persecutions of the Irish people ! ! /" What 

 good, in the name of heaven, can come of this bloated magnificence of 

 invective this pompous exaggeration of alleged injustice? Is it not, I 

 would ask, "blowing a trumpet and proclaiming a fire-cross to an here- 

 ditary and perpetual civil war ?" 



If I turn from the consideration of the Catholic Question to the conside- 

 ration of other measures, recently discussed in parliament, I must say that 

 I am surprized at the extraordinary manner in which the real business of 

 the session has hitherto been neglected. With the exception of the Corn 

 Bill, which it has sent, amid the growlings of the agricultural and manu- 

 facturing interests, to be exterminated by the Lords, the House of Com- 

 mons has done absolutely nothing. The state of our finances, which 

 appear sufficiently deplorable, is still unexplained ; the causes of the con- 

 tinuation of our commercial embarrassments, which have now exceeded all 

 former limits, are still unexplored ; the complaints of our colonists, against 

 their governors, especially those from the Cape of Good Hope, against 

 Lord C. Somerset, are still unexamined ; and what is, perhaps, more 

 material than all, the Court of Chancery, a nuisance which affects the 

 xvhole population of the empire, rich as well as poor, still remains unabated, 

 and flourishes in all the full glories of mystification, chicanery, and delay. 

 Admirable subjects these for the consideration of a new administration, 

 and a new parliament ; but far above the comprehension of a rustic like 

 myself, wha thanks God that he is neither a politician, nor yet a political 



M.M, Neui Series. VOL. III. No. 17. 3 U 



