414 ProtestajU Colonies of Ireland. [Oct. 



the power which the due cultivation of the means of Ireland might give 

 to the resources of England, is all but incalculable. It was lately 

 ascertained that the steam-boat from the west coast might make the 

 American coast in ten days ; and, by a canal across Ireland, manufac- 

 tures exTibarked at Liverpool might be delivered in America on an ave- 

 rage of a fortnight's passage ; thus obviating the accidents of the voyage 

 down Channel, the contrary winds, and almost rendering the transmis- 

 sion a matter of as much accuracy and safety as the transmission of a 

 letter by the mail-coach. Yet Ii-eland has remained to this hour the 

 poorest and least cultured country in the civilized world. Abounding 

 in mines of every metal and mineral, the people are beggars ; abound- 

 ing in coal, they perish of want of fuel ; abounding in lime-stone, Avhich 

 the agriculturist knows to be but another name for the material of the 

 richest fertility, the peasant starves in the midst of his fields, and might 

 well envy the happier sheep and buUock that they feed. To what is 

 this monsti-ous abuse of the bounties of Providence owing? The man 

 who has ever travelled through the " States of the Pope" cannot be at 

 a loss for the answer. But in Ireland the abuse of the bounty is still 

 more glaring from the excess of that bounty. The gross superstition 

 which has at once enfeebled and embittered the peasant mind — the , 

 invidious scorn of the laws of a Protestant empire — the reckless habits 

 engendered by a religion which gives absolution to every crime, and 

 holds out the Protestant master as at once an usurper and a heretic — 

 the perpetual fanaticism engendered by the Popish priesthood, a race of 

 incurably vulgar, ignorant, and corrupting teachers — have made Ireland 

 for ages alike a burthen on the English legislature, and an exemplar of 

 the spirit of Rome. 



With this conviction irresistibly impressed on our minds, we rejoice 

 at the announcement of an intention on the part of the true friends of 

 the country to meet its evil fully, to check the corruption of the foun- 

 tain, and, by the great measure of establishing and sustaining Pro- 

 testantism in Ireland, overthrow the rebellion that is the body and life, 

 the most unwearied impulse, and the most triumphant achievement of 

 Popery. For tliis purpose, the Protestants of the empire are called upon 

 to assist in forming Protestant Colonies in the waste lands of Ireland. 

 We leave it to the proposers of this illustrious measure of patriotism and 

 benevolence, to express their object in their own words : — 



It is proposed — That a fund shall be raised by subscription for the piu-chase 

 of uncultivated lands, on which to locate a certain niuiiber of families of 

 helpless and indigent Protestants ; this, the committee are of opinion, will 

 increase the moral and physical resources of Ireland, diminish pauperism, 

 prevent the introduction of poor laws, put an end to emigration, and give 

 the Orange Institution f. preponderating intluence in every county in Ireland. 

 A contribution of six shillings annually from every Orangeman, will produce 

 an income of 60,000/., which, agreeable to the plan laid down by the society in 

 Holland, woidd enable the institution to provide for one thousand Protestant 

 families every year, and which sum would be gradually repaying (to the in- 

 stitution) with interest for sixteen years, at the expiration of which time the 

 entire sum advanced would be again the property of the society, together 

 with the ground thus reclaimed, the buildings, &c., thereon. 



The success which has attended the colonization of the poor in Holland, 

 convinces us that the adoption of the same system will, in Ireland, be attended 

 with the same results. 

 . ' In Holland upwards of thirty thousand wretched paupers, colonized on its 



