the manifestations, only, of a disorderly spirit were preventedthe evil remained, and became formidably visible, when "the hordes of petty rebels," as Mr. Croker writes, " that for twenty years, under twenty barbarous names and pretences, had harassed the land, sank," in 1798, "into one great union against all civil and ecclesiastical institutions." This rebellion was put down, but it left materials for further disorder behind, and left also experience by which those materials might be wrought to the most advantage. In the testimony of certain well known individuals, who had been prime organisers of the rebellion, and who obtained remission of punishment, we find some important information. Lord Castlereagh questioned Dr. M'Nevin as to the probable effect of the insurrection which had just been put down, and received an answer, of which this is part :-" It will teach the people that caution which some of their friends less successfully endeavoured to inculcate." Mr. M'Nevin was asked also, to what number he thought the United Irishmen amounted all over the kingdom? he returned for answer, "Those who have taken the test do not, I am convinced, fall short of 500,000, without reckoning women and old men. The number regularly organized is not less than 300,000; and I have no doubt all these will be ready to fight for the liberties of Ireland whenever they get a fair opportunity."* Admitting that this number was very considerably lessened by the falling off of all who discerned, in the massacre of Protestants by the rebels in Wexford, what was to be expected if rebellion became successful—still a very great number must have remained pledged to prosecute the objects for which rebellion had been undertaken.

Far be it from me to affirm that all the individuals, even of the Roman Catholic persuasion, who had been engaged in the conspiracy in 1798, and who escaped its penalties, continued hostile to the British Government; but the state of Ireland, it must be confessed, since the commencement of the present century, indicates the presence of a treasonable spirit, taking advantage of every opportunity to advance evil purposes, and to con

* Pieces of Irish History, by T. A. Emmett, Esq. and Dr. M'Nevin.

vert agrarian outrage into rebellion. It is not necessary to dwell at any length on the history of this period. It was, throughout, a period of disorder. A rebellion in 1803-" a rebellion," as it has been described, "short in its duration, contemptible in its actions, but serious in its unsounded depth and unknown extent." Disturbances commencing in Connaught in 1806, extending eastward into Leinster in 1809, spreading over Munster in 181011, and continuing since, with brief intervals of enforced and suspicious armistice, to agitate the three provinces, and to familiarise the hearts of our peasantry to crimes of unexampled atrocity— disturbances, of which the effect has been to render the power of the insurgent far more dreaded than that of the law.

The tumults in these provinces were, it is said, at first, purely agrarian; and the political character they afterwards assumed is said to have been imparted to them by the Ribbon system, a continuance of the Defender Association of the last century, which innoculated, with a political and religious animosity, every disorder by which the country was infested. Testimony to this effect was borne by various individuals—among others, by the police inspectors examined before the Parliamentary Committee in 1824-25. (F)

The objects of the conspiracy entered into by Ribbonmen are, as it was proved before these committees, to establish the Roman Catholic church, to extirpate Protestantism, and to separate Ireland from Great Britain.-The propagators of the system availed themselves of every local disorder for the purpose of introducing their own principles; so that it was invariably found that when disturbances were of long continuance, they lost their desultory character, and became methodized into a political oganization. The system of organization resembled that of the United Irishmen. No individual was to swear more than thirty-six persons, who were to be considered a body within themselves, and were to have a committee-man, a treasurer, and a secretary belonging to them. The committee-man was to communicate with the committee-man of another lodge, but the subordinate individuals knew nothing beyond the circle of their own body. The committee-men of the various lodges assembled occasionally, and

met the delegates sent from Dublin, to whom they were perfect strangers, and of whom the same men never came down more than once. In short, it was the system of the United Irishmen, animated by the foul and ferocious spirit of Defenderism, and adapted to the altered circumstances of the present day.

Surely it would be unreasonable to suppose that the Ribbon confederacy, watching for every opportunity to introduce its principles, did not endeavour also to create the favorable occasions, and not to believe that the crimes and disturbances by which our age has been disgraced arose, not purely out of the wants and passions of the perpetrators, but, were the offences of men whose minds were acted upon by individuals endeavouring to overthrow the government, and who considered predial outrage as preparing the way for political organization. Indeed, on one occasion an indirect but a most remarkable testimony was borne to the reasonableness of this suspicion. It was when, on Sir Arthur Wellesley's bringing in the Insurrection Act in 1807, Mr. Grattan declared that there was a French party in Ireland, and that he was willing to share in the responsibility of ministers in taking measures to meet the evil.

As yet I have not spoken of Roman Catholic ecclesiastics, but the subject is of too much moment to be omitted. It is to be remembered, then, that the bishops in the church of Rome (as appears from the Stuart papers, and from the testimony borne by the late Right Rev. Dr. Doyle) were appointed by the Pretender to the throne of England, until towards the close of the last century; that Mr. O'Connell, in his evidence before the committee in 1825, declared, that "in the time of his father and uncle, the priests educated on the Continent were Jacobites-that they were enemies to a certain extent; while they submitted to the laws, their own opinions ran against the succession of the present family on the throne; and they were, perhaps, dangerous before the French revolution in that respect;"-that Mr. O'Connell also said of the existing clergy of his communion, educated at Maynooth, that "they are more identified with the people-and therefore in the phrase that is usually called loyalty, they do not come within the description of it so much as the priests educated

in France," whom he described, remember, as enemies to the house of Hanover. Dr. Doyle has confirmed the statement:*. "The minister of England cannot look to the exertions of the Catholic priesthood. They have been ill treated; and they may yield for a moment to the influence of nature, though it be opposed to grace. This clergy, with few exceptions, are from the poorer ranks of the people; they inherit their feelings; they are not, as formerly, brought up under despotic governments"-(thus is the freedom of England converted into a reason and a facility for opposing her)" and they have imbibed the doctrines of Locke and Paley more deeply than those of Bellarmine, or even of Bossuet, on the divine right of kings."

From such testimonies, we learn this important truth. As long as what Mr. O'Connell terms a spirit of ultra-royalty could render the Roman Catholic clergy inimical to the British Sovereign, they were taught to believe in the divine right of kings, and they received promotion from the exiled but still pretending house of Stuart; as soon as the claims of that house ceased to be urged, the doctrines of royalty were exploded, and a system of education, which alienated the Roman Catholic clergy from the British minister, and identified them in feeling with "the Irish people," was that in which they were prepared for their sacerdotal duties.

If the morals of the Roman Catholic population in Ireland accord with what should be expected from such instructors—if there be abundant proof afforded that their obedience to the law is merely matter of prudential calculation—if it be accounted righteous to abet and screen the murderer-a crime and a stigma which attaints the blood, to assist law in bringing a murderer to justice; (and here I would ask, how can it be explained that he who thus aids the law-" the informer," as he is styled, and the well remembered and deeply execrated name of the traitor, who in old days" sold the pass," shall be held in equal detestation, unless there be, through the entire Roman Catholic people, a practical persuasion, that now, as in the days of Cromwell, the

*Letter to Mr. Robertson.

state of Ireland is a state of war, and that England has no rights, except those of a foreign and hostile country ?) if men, dying on the scaffold, account themselves, and are so accounted, martyrs in a good cause-and if they imagine that they die free from sin, although they bear with them knowledge by which, if communicated, fearful evil might be averted-if, after having religious consolations, and the ministration of the priest, they may be heard lamenting at their last hour, that one murder less than they had designed can be ascribed to them, and declaring that "it is not their fault" if the Bible intercepted the deadly weapon, and frustrated, the attempt to kill,—(G) is it irrational to conclude, that, as the principles and conduct of such men can be explained only on the supposition that they conceive themselves to owe no allegiance to the State, they have, at least, never been led to a sense of political duty, by ecclesiastics, who were Jacobites, as long as the Stuarts advanced a claim to the British throne; and who, when such claims ceased to be urged, were trained in opposite principles, and "inherited the feelings" which the Irish people had been taught to cherish.

To conclude this part of my subject, and recapitulate the heads of the topics to which I have adverted ;-I have shown

I

1. That from 1759, when the invasion of this country was meditated, and when the system of disturbance was commenced, to the present day, Ireland has continued in a state of disorder. omitted, because the disturbances were of less magnitude, adverting to the year 1757, when the Roman Catholic Committee commenced its sittings in Dublin, and the Levellers (the Whiteboys of two years after) entered upon their operations in Cork.

2. I have shown that wherever agrarian disturbance prevailed, political organization soon followed.

3. I have shown that when the rebellion of 1798 was broken up a large multitude remained here, bound by oath to effect the purposes for which they had been organized ;—and I have shown that the activity and experience of such conspirators may be discerned in the troubles and in the organization of more recent periods.

4. I have shown that a spirit of religious bigotry has acquired the ascendancy in the insurrectionary systems of modern times.