RELIGION. 5* 



catholics to a poor ignorant rabble ; you have made them ig- 

 norant, and then it is cried your ignorance is a reafon for 

 keeping you fo ; you fliall live and die, and remain in igno- 

 rance, for you ate loo wretched to be enlightened. Take it as 

 argument, or humanity, it is of a moft precious kind. In all 

 other parts of Europe the catholic religion has grown mild 

 and even tolerant ; a fofter humanity is teen difFuled in thole 

 countries, once the moft bigoted ; Spain and Portugal are no 

 longer what they were. Had property taken its natural courfe 

 in Ireland, the religion of the catholics there would have im- 

 proved with that of their neighbours. Ignorance is the child 

 of poverty, and you cannot expert the modern improvements, 

 which have refuhed from diffeminated induftry and wealth, 

 fhould fpread among a feft, whofe property you have detach- 

 ed, and whofe induftry you have cruflved : to ftigmatize them 

 with ignorance and bigotry, therefore, is to reproach them 

 with the evils which your own conduft has entailed; it is to 

 bury them in darknefs, and villity them becaufe they are not 

 enlightened. 



But they claim your eftates ; they do fo, as fteadily at this 

 moment as they did fourfcore years ago ; your fyftein therefore 

 has utterly failed even in this refpecl. Has the rod of oppref- 

 fion obliterated the memory or tradition of better days ? Has 

 feverity conciliated the forgivenefs of paft, perhaps neceflary 

 injuries ? Would protection, favour, and encouragement add 

 frefh ftings to their refentments ? None can affert it. Ample 

 experience ought to have convinced you, that the harflinefs of 

 the law has not annihilated a fingle claim ; if claims could 

 have reftored their eftates, they would have regained them be- 

 fore now : but here, as I fliewed before, the laws have 

 weakened inftead of ftrengthening the proteftant intereft ; had 

 a milder fyftem encouraged their induftry and property, they 

 would have had fomething to lofe, and would, with an enemy in, 

 the land, have thought twice before they joined him j in fuch 

 a cafe whatever they had got would be endangered, and the 

 hope of being reiriftated in antient pefleflions, being diftant 

 and hazardous, preient advantage mi^ht have induced them 

 not only to be quiet, but to have defended the government, 

 under whofe humanity they found protection and happinefs. 

 Compare fuch a fituation with the preient, and then determine 

 whether the fyftem you have perfifted in, has added a jot to 

 the fecurity of vour porTeflions. 



But let me aflc, if thefe catholic claims, on the landed pro- 

 perty, were not full as tlrong an argument in the reign of King 

 William as they are at prefent ? The moment of conflict wa.i 

 then but j uft decided ; it ever rancour and danger could arile 

 from them, that certainly was the leafon of appreheniion : 

 but it is curious to obferve, that that wife n-.onarch, would 

 permit few afts to pafs to opprefs the catholics. It was pot 

 until the reign of Anne, that the great fyftem of opprel!hri 

 D z was 



