At a Meeting of the PROTESTANT CONSERVATIVE SOCIETY of IRELAND, held at their Rooms, Graftonstreet, Dublin, on Tuesday, the 9th September, 1834.

The Right Hon. the Earl of RODEN in the Chair.

BEFORE Submiting the statement which it is my duty to lay before you, I am desirous to correct a slight inaccuracy in the terms in which my notice of it has been reported. They represent me as having attributed the union which is now cementing among Protestants, to the indignation naturally awakened by unprincipled and impolitic concession. I took, at least I desired to take, straighter limits for our justification, and meant to say, that it was not indignation which influenced us, but a sense of danger, the manifestations of which had become unequivocal, and which we felt to be daily augmenting and drawing near.

It would be unnecessary to notice a slight inaccuracy of this nature which, indeed, the general character of our proceedings must correct, but that, appearing to redeem my pledge, it seems fitting that I should remind you what that pledge really was. It contemplated what our enemies will say was a more difficult, and what all will acknowledge to be a more important duty than that of proving that a just anger has aroused us. I undertook to show that the principle of self-preservation is the principle of our union-and that there is a manifest necessity, if we would protect life, and interests far dearer than life, of preparing ourselves, by all legitimate means, strongly to defend them.

Since I gave notice of such an intention, circumstances have induced me to alter, in some respects, the form of carrying it into execution. Events succeed each other so rapidly, and disclosures

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of so astounding a character are made as matters of ordinary occurrence, that ample indulgence may be expected for such alterations. My design on the present occasion is, however, precisely the same as on the day when I last addressed you, namely, to vindicate the propriety of Protestant union.

Our adversaries ask, what grievance have we to complain of,in what do we suffer wrong? As if the graves which cover the honored remains of many martyred ministers of our religion, had covered also the memory of their pious and charitable lives, and of the inhuman murders by which they suffered death, they ask us, what are our grievances. As if the frequent aspect of many of their afflicted survivors, driven from homes where their free charities can no longer protect them-where the law does nothad dulled the feelings with which we contemplate the destitute condition of pious men driven forth from the competence which had rewarded meritorious exertion, and condemned, in their mature or declining years, to seek, among comparative strangers, some humble employment which may give them sustenance for their families; they ask us, what are your grievances. They ask us what are our grievances, when the confidant of the ministry boasts, that he must have government countenance in his war, active and passive, against the property of our church; when men who have supplicated to be placed as tenants on the lands of a Protestant proprietary, who have been told the conditions of occupancy, (that a certain sum is to be paid as rent to the lay proprietor a sum also, under a different name, to another claimant,) when these men, having obtained their desire, accepted the conditions, and poured out the overflowing gratitude of hearts that seemed as though they never could adequately express their feelings,-turn round with defiance on their benefactors, and proclaim that they will not observe the conditions of their agreement; that they will, if it must be, break the law-will destroy life-but will not hold to the conditions of their tenantcy-will not surrender the lands upon which the despised obligation was laid-because their conscience demands that they prove false to their engagements. Conscience!-who has sounded the depths of this mysterious conscience, or noted

the under-currents by which it escapes from God's law and man's reason? And who is so weak as to believe, that when this conscience can bring power to back its principles, the claim of the lay Protestant will not be treated with precisely the same disregard as now manifests the character of the Romish Church in its justice towards ecclesiastical creditors?

But I pass over these and such matters of complaint as are symptoms of the great evil, rather than independent grievances, and answer; our complaint is this there is in Ireland an extensive and well organised conspiracy to extirpate Protestantism; and the conduct pursued, by a party powerful in the state, towards Protestants and towards the enemies of British connexion, is calculated to strengthen it; and we complain that the disfavor by which Protestants are discountenanced if not dejected—the capricious demeanour of government towards their adversaries, now curbing, now caressing, is eminently calculated to inflame an evil purpose, and encourage and facilitate the most destructive and criminal projects: yes-even though they involved an attempt at massacre.

Do I think so ill of my countrymen as to apprehend so foul a design? I do not think evil of them. Few men better know-none more prompt to acknowledge and to praise their generous qualities, their high deserts; but I know the human heart, that it is wicked and deceitful; and I know that never was there a system of more fatal power to nurture what is worst, and to destroy what is good within us, than that discipline of combination and outrage in which multitudes in this unhappy country have been trained.

I know, too, that it is not by the majority of a people the foulest crimes are planned and perpetrated. Many a time, as experience teaches, a few without conscience or pity, strong in their estrangement from human sympathies, and combining closely together, have, through the appearance of power, exercised real power, and compelled submissive instruments to execute their black purposes. I know that in times of public commotion and unsettlement such are the combinations which prevail, and if affairs proceed in their present direction and continue obedient

to the impulses by which they are now governed, the time is not very distant, when many who lead in the movement party here, the glosers who speak smooth things-the hurlers of verbal defiance, whose seeming frankness serves as an antidote to suspicion-will pass away, by constraint or at command; like Milton's spirits, unmasking the devilish enginery they are no longer required to cover; and will leave the stage vacant for a revelation of malignity, such as shall obliterate from memory the less revolting atrocities of the French revolution. This is my deliberate conviction. If I did not think the grievances and the dangers of the Protestants extreme, I would not suffer the habits of my retired and peaceful life to be disturbed by the interruption of politics.

I am, however, well aware, that, except to myself, my convictions must be matter of small concern. The grounds of Protestant alarm should be more fully stated. I shall endeavour to do So. In the endeavour, I must necessarily advert to matter with which you are all acquainted, and must state arguments and draw conclusions which you may have often exhibited to yourselves, but which it is not unimportant or unnecessary to have repeated. Without further preface, then, I undertake to prove three propositions from which our grievances and our alarm may be understood.

1st. There is a party in Ireland comprising a very large portion of the population, desirous to extirpate Protestantism, and to effect a separation of this country from England. (A)

2d. The moral and physical force of the combined Protestants, especially in Ulster, constitutes the great obstacle by which this party is discouraged. (B)

3d. The conduct of the British Government, in its acts and omissions, is calculated to weaken, and if not counteracted, ultimately to destroy this power, to which, humanly speaking, Ulster is indebted for its tranquillity, and the other provinces of Ireland, for that (however imperfect) degree of security and protection, which the union with Great Britain is enabled to extend to them. (C)

These are the main propositions which I undertake to establish,

and, on the proof of which, I rest our justification for entering into any defensive society which law permits, and which shall be regulated by Christian principle.

The existence in Ireland of “ hostility to the law and to British connexion," is now little disputed. It ought not to be difficult for rational men to discern the character of such hostility, and to calculate the dangers to which it must necessarily give rise. In Ireland, the two religious professions are as two nations. There may be, and most assuredly there are, in very many instances, individual attachments; there are many instances in which the character is not to be judged by the denomination ;—but, speaking generally, it may be said that the Protestants of Ireland love British connexion, and are obedient willingly to the laws; that Roman Catholics, as such, have their feelings towards England affected by remembrances and sentiments calculated to impress them with a character of hostility.

This truth will be better understood at the present day than it could have been some years since. Then it was contended that Roman Catholics in Ireland could be attached by concessions, which seemed just and reasonable; that is to say, just and reasonable according to the estimate made by those who granted them; and it was even said that the conduct and principles of Roman Catholics in England justified the most favorable expectations which could be entertained of members of their communion in this country. It was forgotten that the situation of the parties, thus identified, by no means justified such anticipations. In England, the influence of the religion was combated by national feeling. Members of the church of Rome could not lose the consciousness that they were Englishmenn also; and it was not irrational to hope that the same spirit which had in former days resisted Papal encroachment, and maintained the national interest and honor, would again be found efficient in directing safely the exercise of any privilege with which English Roman Catholics might be favored. In Ireland the religious and the national feeling so mingle, that they cannot be separated. Both tend to produce alienation from England. Much might be said on this subject,