aive at, or fecretly encourage the farmers and peasants to plunder them, till their turbulence and difregard of all legal restraint, alarms them for the fafety of their perfons and property; which to my certain knowledge has often occurred in different parts of Ireland. Their zealous endeavours to maintain and fupport the established government in all emergencies have been very. confpicuous; and particularly during the late difaftrous feafon of infurrection and rebellion; yet how very badly they have been requited will appear in the acts and votes of the Irish parliament from the year 1735 to 1800, respecting the tithe of agiftment. Through the defalcation of the dues of the parochial elergy of Ireland, by a gradual and fyftematick course of encroachment, on the part of the laity, from the time of the Reformation, until the prefent day, 2436 parishes, formerly with cure of fouls, employing about 3000 clergy, are now dwindled to 1120 benefices, and 1001 churches; employing about 1300 clergy of all defcriptions, rectors, vicars, and curates. How enviably different is the state of the church of England! There, within the fame period, the number of parifhes has rifen from 3,181 to 10,567; containing at prefent 11,755 churches, employing about 18,000 clergy of all defcriptions. Thus have the clergy of Ireland been reduced confiderably more than one-half, from the inadequacy of their provifion, which at the prefent day is estimated at not more than 195,000l. a year, or lefs than a twenty-fifth part of the computed rental of Ireland, five millions fterling per annum; whereas in England, the officiating clergy have been augmented nearly four-fold, and the revenues of the church, according to the most accurate estimates, encreased from 43,5371. to 1,313,000l. affording. 2 taxable income of 1,125,000l. or about a fixteenth part of the computed rental of England, twenty millions per an num. The whole provifion for the minifters of the kirk of Scotland, in the year 1755, was about 68,500l. per annum, which being divided between 944 minifters, afforded to each on an average 721. per annum, a pittance too small to uphold the refpectability of the Scottish church. In England the average income of parish priests is about 1411.. each per annum; in Ireland the average is about 150l. per annum : but to make Ireland a proteítant country, the number number of her established clergy ought to be trebled; an event not to be looked for in the prefent age, and under the late interdict. The provision of the Scottish clergy is fo fmall, that the perfons who, for their rank in life, their learning, and their probity, fhould fill the priestly office, are now betaking themselves to fecular and more lucrative employments; and it is to be feared, that their places will be fupplied by an inferior class of perfons, who are unworthy of the paftoral charge. This would be very much to be lamented, as in no country in Europe the beneficient effects of religion are fo ftrongly experienced as in Scotland, in producing a purity of morals among the mafs of the people, which is to be imputed to the piety of the clergy, and their unremitted attention to their flocks. No. XXIV. A juftification of having published this work, fo foon after the late rebellion. AS the Jacobins of England and Ireland have cenfured the Author of this Work, for having published it fo foon after the late rebellion, under a pretence that it would revive thofe feuds and animofities from which it originated, I have written the following defence of myfelf for having done fo. That venerable biographer Plutarch, in his life of Pericles obferves, "That it is difficult to attain truth in hiftory, fince, if the writers live any length of time after the events which they relate, they can be but imperfectly informed of them, and if they defcribe the perfons and tranfactions of their own times, they are tempted by envy and hatred, or intereft and friendship, to difguife or pervert the truth." Confcious that I have not been biaffed by any fuch finifter motives, and defirous of establishing the authenticity of the occurrences which I have related, I refolved to publith a narration of them, while the eye-witneffes of them were ftill living. Hiftory, which is a mirror of past times, is the best guide to the ftatefman; and Livy, in his preface tells us, that he wrote his, that the republick might learn leffons of wifdom and prudence from it, by avoiding fuch measures as had proved fatal, and by embracing fuch as had been tound falutary for its intereft. It is much to be lamented that Ireland has been difgraced, and that her improvement in morals and industry has been retarded, for near three centuries, by civil diffenfions; and as they have arifen from the fame caufe, and have been uniformly directed to one end, a feparation from England, we may fairly conclude, that the predisposing caufes to them must be inveterate, and that the feeds of combuftion must be deeply and extenfively laid. As Ireland is completely annexed to the empire by the union, it is to be hoped that the Imperial government will apply more effectual remedies than have been hitherto adopted, to remove the causes of her rebellions, her crimes and difgraces; but it would be as imprudent to undertake that talk, without having a perfect knowledge of them, as for a phyfician to adminifter medicine to a patient, without having investigated the symptoms and diagnosticks of his difeafe. It is a positive fact, that the mafs of the people of England are as ignorant of the real ftate of Ireland, and of the caufes of her difturbances and infurrections, as they are of the most remote regions in the torrid and frigid zones; and it is no lefs fingular than true, that many of the English nobility and gentry, in their fpeeches on the union, which have been publifhed, difplayed a radical ignorance of it. As it was to be fuppofed that the Imperial parliament would pafs fome new laws, and that government would adopt fome new measures for the internal regulation of Ireland, I confidered it as an important, nay as a facred duty, to lay before them the real ftate of Ireland, in a historical deduction of the most important tranfactions which have occurred in it for fome years paft, with fome preliminary observations on the state of it, from the arrival of the English till the breaking-out of the rebellion in 1798. I fhall now endeavour to point out the principal caufes of the ignorance and mifconception of the people of England of the true and actual ftate of Ireland. An angry oppofition in the parliaments of both kingdoms has conftantly imputed the difturbances to a wrong fource, falfely afcribing them to the tyranny and cruelty of government, and not to the rebellious machinations and feditious conduct of traitors; and afferting, that if conciliation, inftead of coercion and punishment, had been adopted towards the latter, it would have produced loyalty in them, and restored tranquillity in the kingdom. To To fuch conduct, by inciting the difaffected to violate the law, by attempting to varnish over their crimes, and by calumniating and difparaging the executive government, the late rebellion is to be in fome measure imputed. Members of the Irish parliament have made a constant practice of giving a grofs mifreprefentation of the towns or counties which they reprefented to the viceroys of Ireland, for the purpose of pleafing and flattering them; but principally for electioneering purpofes, as it tended to ingratiate them with their conftituents, by concealing their traitorous machinations; and from the fpeeches recently made by fome Irish members in the Imperial parliament, I have not a doubt but that the fame infidious and adulatory conduct will be pursued. In confequence of this, fome of the viceroys of Ireland, by lending too ready an ear to artful and defigning men, and by being deaf to the affertions of men dignified by wisdom and virtue, have unfortunately continued in a state of ignorance as to its real and actual ftate, and have mifreprefented it in England. Why the viceroys have been too credulous to fuch men is eafily accounted for: They confider that the supposed profperity and peacefulness of Ireland, so fubject to be convulfed by treafon and fedition, will be imputed to their wifdom and good fenfe; and that it will ingratiate them with their fovereign, and exalt them in the eyes of the people of England. This practice took place fo much in the 16th and 17th centuries, that the ableft writers of thofe periods have complained, that the viceroys materially retarded the improvement of Ireland, by mifreprefenting its real ftate, and by adopting paltry and temporary expedients, instead of radical and efficient remedies, to eradicate the barbarifm, and the inveterate pronenefs of her inhabitants to treafon and infurrection; and by this they have concealed with afhes the embers of rebellion, which have been conftantly liable to be blown into a blaze by the breath of accident: Et incedis per ignes The conduct of the English cabinet towards Ireland, for feme years past, evinces, in fome degree, what I have advan ced ced; for nothing but their ignorance of it could account for the extraordinary and impolitick measures adopted towards her. Many honeft and loyal fubjects have affigned the following reafon for it: That they wished to reduce her to fuch an embarraffed ftate, that her people, to extricate themselves, would gladly embrace a legislative union; but I am far from imputing fuch finifter defigns to perfons fo noted for wifdom and integrity. Some English gentlemen, who vifited Ireland for a few days or weeks, have taken upon them to write effays on its religious, moral and political ftate, though they were totally ignorant of it; and a host of Jacobin fcribblers have, with intemperate zeal, and unceafing fedulity, endeavoured to give a grofs mifreprefentation of Ireland fince the rebellion, the cause and origin of which they have miftated in a most flagrant manner. This has been done for the following purposes: That of feeding the flame of rebellion, of deceiving the Imperial government, and of mifguiding them in the adoption of any new laws or regulations for the government of Ireland. Mr. Plowden, a Roman catholick gentleman and a conveyancer of the Middle Temple, in a book entitled, The Cafe Stated, fays, page 19, "The lower clafs of the Irish, I understand, to be a race robust and hardy, and of a very irritable difpofition and nature; they are now indolent," in extreme poverty, from being debarred the common refources of industry; and are averfe from all laws, from having felt the conftant preffure of fuch only as are galling and severe ;" and he concludes, for this reafon, "That the zealots for fedition and anarchy have found them ready materials to work on." Can there be a stronger incitement to difloyalty and infurrection, than to tell the mafs of the people that they are under the conftant preffure of laws which are galling and fevere, and by which they are debarred from the common refources of industry? an affertion as groundless as it is dangerous! But I impute it to no finifter defign in this gentleman, and I afcribe it to nothing but his ignorance of Ireland. He makes the following pofition, the purport of which he, in other parts of his work, endeavours to prove: "That the Roman catholick religion teaches no one point of doctrine, that does not greatly tend to render its followers loyal, dutiful and peaceable fubjects." VOL. II. Nn Any • If this gentleman had lived among the Irish he would have known, that they were affive citizens, both by night and by day. |