528 
Ireland has, for forme centuries, pre- 
fented the fingular fpe€tacle of a conftant, 
and often fanguinary, conflict between the 
government, and the manners of the inha- 
bitants, 2s formed, in a great meafure, 
upon their religion, The penal laws of 
the ftate were always ftruggling apainft 
the penal laws of religious faith ; the tem- 
poral periecution againft the eternal dam- 
nation, and is it wonderful that the mifer- 
ble inmates of 420,000 hovels, out of 
700,000, the number of houfes in Ireland, 
that this mafs of fuffering humanity, thus 
brayed in the mortar, under the peftle of 
the ftate, and under the peftle of the church, 
thould poflefs manners at once ferocious 
end fawning; that all the feeds of ‘enti- 
ment and focial virtue, thus bruifed and 
beaten d-wn, fhou'ld turn into a vicious 
bitternefs and acrimony ; that warm affec- 
tion fhould turn into a fecret locking out 
for a day of vengeance; that a natural 
candour and fincerity, and credulity thould 
be changed into a fort of national tafte 
for confpiracy, and into diflimulition, and 
difingenuovfnefs of charaé&ter. O! how 
foon is it poffible to change what is calied 
national character, by a proper mode 
of managing the very fame materials. 
So far from our virtues being only vices 
difguifed, 1 think both our perfonal and 
national vices were originally virtves per- 
verted and mifapplicd 5 and, as a different 
arrangement of the very fame component 
patts turns a bit of charcoal into a dia- 
mond, fo a change in the organization of 
the focial body would convert a dark, 
fullen and vindiétive national character 
into ative benevolence and fparkling ani- 
mation. 
In this terrible inteftine war of go- 
vernment againit habit; of the penalties 
of the ttate againit the threatenings of the 
church: the bands of that ftate would 
long ago have been ‘broken, even by the 
inftingt of afinine nature, had not the ter- 
rors of religious fuperf:tion con(pired with 
the eff-&s of the civil code, in deprefing 
and humiliating the natives into a ftate of 
brutal fervility ; and thus in a civilized 
era of the-world, the influence of priefis 
had corroborated thofe defeéts in law and 
order, under the confeguences of which 
they themfelves had groaned with the reft 
of their countrymen. The fpirit_ of -the 
manner, and appeared to have had a fenfe of 
religion ftrongly on his mind.” 
“¢ Bot Kelly (the murderer) would not drink 
any himfelf, faying, he drank no liguor in 
Lent!” Trial of Carrol at Tathgar, 14th of 
March, 1798. 
® 
State of Manners in Dublin, 
[Nov. 1, 
Catholic faith is certainly againf innova- 
tion. It is a fpirit of furrender and 
yielding up of the inteilect to the fuppo‘ed 
‘ femper eadem’ ‘of one invariable belief, 
external to the mind; and this primary 
affociation mult certainly havea dominant 
influence over the general difpofition and 
caft of character ; but in particular with 
re{pect to civil and political liberty. In 
the American quettion, the Catholics were 
almoft univerfally either ignorant of the 
fubjeét, or engaged in the caufe of the 
mother country; and it is -but of Jate 
years, and from peculiar circumftances of 
the times, that a political {chifm has taken 
place among their clergy (the parochial 
clafs, from the prelatical) which, without 
leffening as yet the attachment of the lower 
Jaity to their religion, has accelerated the 
diffufion of a democratic [pirit through- 
out the whole mafs. “This fpirit was 
,imbibed by thofe whofe hatred to the 
Englifh government (now acknowledged 
by cabinet authority to have been a moft 
harih and injudicious one) prevented their 
receiving it through the ftrainers of-the 
Britifh conftitution. The fpirit was drank, 
as it were, hot from the {ftill, and its ef- 
fects upon the brain were extraordinary 
among the Catholic community, fo re- 
markable as it had been for a political 
apathy. This ftrange and fudden ten- 
dency to repuvlican principles fo oppofite 
to the tendency of their religious perfua- 
fion, and to the tenor of their conduaét, 
which feemed always to manifeft a fettled 
though fullen fubjugation, happened to 
coincide, in degree of temperament, with 
the political fervour of the Prefbyterians 
in the North, whofe anxiety for a reform 
in parliament, and vexation at the_re- 
pea'ed difappointments now began, froma 
belief in the impraQicability of gainicg 
their object in the ways of the confitution, 
to diverge into fpeculations about the 
rights of perfons, moft inconfiftent with 
the principle of fuch a conftiution founded 
as it certainly is, not on reprefentation of 
perfons, but of property; and which, 
therefore, muft of neceflity exclude the 
great mals of the people. In reality the 
friends of conftitutional referm were ren- 
dered defperate by the obftinacy or inflexi- 
bility of the ruling power, and this de- 
{pair of any faiutary innovation turned into 
difaffection, and at length into foreign in- 
trigue. At firft accufed fallely of {edition 
and confpiracy, they were provoked into 
both; and, driven by a new penal code, 
from an open expreffion of their fentiments, 
they became fecret affociators ; at firft by 
the tie of a tet, and at Jaft by the sew 
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