1829.3 Ireland, the Orangemen, and the Papists. 133 



would never have been done by him, but with the object of taking off 

 the edge of popish opposition ? He may publish his patriotism or his 

 Protestantism in a thousand placards after this, if he likes ; but we 

 shall tell him, that he throws away his professions ; that, in linking him- 

 self with popish advocacy, he has finally taken his side ; that he never 

 shall be suffered to be of ours ; and that we gladly leave him and his 

 proud and paltry race to the consolations of popery. 



We impatiently turn from the conduct of this person, whose individual 

 insignificance scarcely makes him worth our censvn-e, to the document 

 which his trafficking has produced, — Mr. Shiel's letter. Omitting the 

 writer's defence of himself for condescending to accept of a fee from the 

 Beresfords, which requires no defence whatever, his paper is valuable 

 as a statement of the actual system of exaggeration, organized pretence, 

 and fictitious fury, with which tlie popish claims were sent forward 

 to startle the feeble, and supply high-sounding falsehood to the fraudulent 

 in the legislature. " It was requisite to marshal all the passions of the 

 people in that vast array of combined and well-regulated discipline, 

 through which the achievements which have recently taken place have 

 been accomplished. The grand Agrarian revolution was then to be 

 effected. It was necessary to give proof to England, not only of the 

 profound interest which was taken by the peasantry, as well as by every 

 other class of the community, in the restitution of the national rights, 

 but to present evidence of the organization and the tcnion, as well as the 

 strength and Jierceness of the popular emotions." 



So says — now that there is no necessity for keeping the secret — Mr. 

 Shiel. Formerly the topic was, the depression and oppression which 

 were supposed to grind the souls and bodies of the seven millions, the sense 

 of insecure rights, the refusal of law, the discovery that they were aliens in 

 their own country, and the other regular common-places of popish agony 

 and oratory. Those were the things that then were declared to put tongues 

 into stones, and rouse the broken-down peasant to mutiny. But noAV it 

 comes out that the whole of the popular irritation was the work of the 

 haranguers ; that the peasantry were still to make the discovery of their 

 own MTongs ; and that, but for the speech-makers, not a syllable of the 

 outcry for Catholic claims would have been heard: for the very sufficient 

 reason, that the " grievances" were no grievances ; and that, however 

 they might flourish on paper, they never followed the peasant to his 

 pocket, his person, or his ground. This we well knew from the begin- 

 ning of the clamour ; this Ave fully told ; and this the chief abettors of 

 the popish bill knew as well as we. Let the country judge of their 

 sincerity and honour on the evidence of one of themselves. 



The letter proceeds to state, that the writer was aware " that nothing; 

 but a sense of the necessity of satisfying the demands of seven millions, 

 could induce the government to incur the difficulties which must 

 attend the great national arangement." In simpler language, that for the 

 purj)ose of either exciting the British government to break in upon the 

 constitution, or of giving them an excuse for so doing, all means must be 

 employed in Ireland to stir up national tumult. The writer tells us 

 that it was necessary to make the government feel the preservation of the 

 empire to be called in question. Now, let our readers look to Mr. Shiel's 

 plain acknowledgment of the means by which this pretended hazard was 

 created. " It was an obvious policy, upon the part of the Roman Catholic 

 body, not only to render the condition of the govei-nment imeasy, but 

 insupportable, and to force them, by such means, to shift their position. 

 The terrible distractions by which Ireland was torn asunder ; the mortal 

 feuds which separated parties, and the dreadful alacrity which we exhi' 



