no law could be taken of them." But he added, "that the people should be quiet until mass was over." "I saw from the gallery," says the witness, "fifty men rush upon one (Edmund Milligan), drag him out of the gallery, pelt him with mud, stones, and gravel, kick and bruise him," and with difficulty, by the intervention of the police, he was rescued. All this is proved in a court of justice.' (Evidence. 11561.) Mr. Colquhoun continues thus :

"So established is the reign of terror everywhere"-I quote the words of a magistrate and deputy-lieutenant (5196)-" that, however severely a man suffers, he dare not complain." "It is nearly impossible," says Mr. Fitzgerald, "to procure evidence even of what is passing before our eyes, so great is the prevailing intimidation." (5243.) "It is very hard," says Mr. Willcock, "to get one of the flock of a priest to make affidavit of a fact which has occurred." (5525.) "Though I could mention numerous cases," says another, "it would be quite impossible to get anything satisfactorily proved of this nature." (5196.) Two witnesses, after stating facts of personal outrage, when asked to sign their names, refused, because they said they dared not. A third witness, Priest Kehoe's gardener, when asked, if he went back to Ireland (after giving the evidence he had done before the Committee against the priest), "Should you feel yourself safe?" answers, "I would not be safe; they would put me to death." (8110.) Another, a magistrate, says, respecting facts which occurred at Mountmellick, that there was only one man who could give information, and he was then in London. And why was he in London? He had been seized by Father a priest of Mountmellick, carried in his gig, and kept a prisoner in his own house, that he might not vote for the Conservative candidate; but as he would not vote for the Catholic, the priest "has since persecuted this individual," and so successfully that the man was at last "driven to desperation," and fled from Ireland. Mr. Singleton was asked what would happen to this man, if, after giving evidence respecting the conduct of the priest, he were to return to Ireland? "His life would not be safe for twenty-four hours after he returned." "What!-if his evidence was in obedience to an order of the Committee and the Speaker's warrant?" "He would be assassinated if he gave his evidence against his priest." (pp. 30-34.)

Even on matters not avowedly connected with politics, if any one favours the administration of justice, and prosecutes or gives evidence against those who commit outrages, his life is forfeited.

"After the special commission in Queen's County, I was obliged," says Mr. Singleton, "to send many of the witnesses to America." In one case where witnesses were examined, touching their house being attacked, the son of the owner of it being stabbed in the breast, Mr. Singleton was obliged "to commit them to Bridewell for safety," because they had thus presumed to tell in a court of justice these crimes. No one would hire his cars out to convey them to Dublin, and they had to remain in Bridewell till an escort of military arrived. (5224.) At the Carrickshock trials, in like manner, men re

fused

fused to serve as jurors, because they dared not follow their consciences and convict; and others were found who were summoned as jurors, who had actually subscribed to the funds of the confederate body which had effected this wholesale massacre. In the trials of those who were the chief actors in the tragedy, the juries, all without exception, acquitted the murderers. Nor is this a solitary case, though, if it stood alone, it were enough. At the Borrisokane trials, Dr. Heisse, a resident physician in Borrisokane, where he had lived ten years, gave his evidence in court of that which fell before his eyes. It was a simple statement of facts; but facts which convicted the populace. Another witness gave evidence which exculpated the police. Mark the results. The latter witness was murdered after the trial (p. 127); Dr. Heisse found his life in danger and was obliged to leave the country. And what part did the priest, Mr. Spain, take in this? An attack was concerted by the Roman Catholics upon the house of John Ledger, a Protestant, because he assisted the police in their defence, which had led to Smith being shot. The priest, instead of allaying the excitement of the popu lace, infuriated them by placing Smith's body in the chapel, and allowing it to lie naked there, which, he says, was never done except in the case of a priest.'

Let us stop one moment more to contemplate the machinery with which this reign of terror is supported:

"In every parish," says Mr. Singleton, "a complete political organization exists." In Meath, for instance, its nature was laid bare in 1831, "for there was then an effort made to see how soon the people could be raised and organised over different parishes of the county, and at different places. There were bodies of 20,000 men assembled here this day-twenty miles off the next-ten miles off the next." These were all confederated on oath; all Catholic Ribbonmen; they paid large salaries to their leaders. (6144.) Whatever were their objects they could accomplish them. (6135.) "So tremendous was their power," says another witness, "that in Queen's County, though the farmers and peasants hated the association, they submitted to it through fear." In Galway, "a most respectable man, a large farmer, made application to be admitted into this association in order to preserve his life and property." "Of this organization," says Mr. Singleton, "the priests are avowedly the movers: they touch the spring over the whole country, and they are all linked together, receiving their suggestions from the central political body in Dublin (of which Mr. O'Connell is the chief agent at present); they direct the mass of savage forces to the object selected-tithes to-day-church to-morrow-elections-repeal." "So perfect is the system," says Mr. Singleton, " that they can raise the whole of Ireland in three weeks."

In Queen's County, at the last election, the passes of the country were, by their command, occupied, so that even large bodies of freeholders could not enter or approach the poll, and Mr. Singleton was obliged to call out the military in order to open a passage.'

Let

Let us now turn with Mr. Colquhoun to the published Report of the Maryborough Special Commission in 1832 :

'But the case of most fearful interest, which connects these atrocities with their secret authors, was that of John Magee, who had occupied a farm from which a previous tenant had been expelled. Just after midnight, on Good Friday, when he was in rest, and, as he thought, in safety (for his fears had been composed by the assurances of the very men who were sent to attack him), thirty men came to his house-awaked him from his sleep, by knocking at his window-forced open the doorplaced him upon his knees-shot him, and then struck him with their guns to finish the work of slaughter. "I saw them," says the mother of their victim, " dragging my son in his shirt from the bed-room into the parlour; they were kicking him about. My daughter lit a candle; she was with my son about a moment before I found him in the hall. He was so heavy that we could not raise him-we dragged him as well as we could-we got pillows-he was cold and quite pale-I held him in my arms, endeavouring to stop the blood-he was speechless-we put warm bricks to his feet." Asked in court about the murder of a dog; she answered, "Was it a dog I was minding, when I saw my child bleeding to death?"

Now turn from this humble cabin plunged in blood to the dark agency by which this murder was produced. The family assailed were Protestants. One of them, the sister of the victim, Ellen Magee, was (though a Protestant) in the habit of attending the Catholic chapel. When asked in court why she did this? if she liked the Catholic prayers? she said, O no, she always said her own in the chapel. Then why did she go there? She went to look about her. But why go to mass? The reason at last came out: it was thought by her and her friends that if she professed herself a Catholic she would be safe herself, and a means of safety to her family. Her uncle and all her friends pressed her to go; and "I told my uncle," says the girl, "that there was no fear of us, as they thought that I was a Catholic." When asked the particulars, she said there was a priest, Father Tyrrell (p. 176), who told her that the place was full of Whitefeet," full of those secret associations," and he desired me go to Father Kelly, and in consequence of that I did go to Father Kelly." Thus we are at last led to the agent who wove the toils round the victim. Q. "What was your object in going to Father Kelly? A. I thought the people there would be civil to anybody that the priest would like. Q. You had no religious feeling that brought you to him? A. I would not go about religion to a priest.' Then another fact comes out, that the cause of the hostility against the Magees was (as Father Kelly told her) that one of their ancestors had murdered a priest. Such was the tradition; and therefore they were pelted as they went to the Protestant church, and their lives were unsafe. She says Father Kelly questioned her about her religion, and she professed she was inclined to attend the chapel. ("I was not," she adds, "though I told him so.") He then asked her a great many questions about the arms which they had in the house; and, in her simplicity, she told him they had none; and well did the assassins, it after

2 P 2

wards

wards appears, know this fact-" the priest must have told the White feet," she says. He then lulled her fears by assuring her that they had no need of arms-that he would take care they were not attacked-"that I need not be afraid of the Whitefeet, he had them at his command, and that they would not meddle with me."-" Then he bid me often go and see him at his house, and come to confession; and he said, that he expected he would make a Christian of me." But as to her uncle, whose house was the one attacked, the priest told her "he did not like him, because he was hindering me from going to mass." And as to the Protestants, he said, "that this day twelvemonth there would be no Protestants left alive in Ireland; that they had beat the Catholics out and robbed them, when they had established their own religion, but that the people were ready to lay down their lives to have their rights again; and that he would shortly have his own religion established again."— "He told me that I would be damned if I would go to church; and that none of my blood would have any chance of being saved but myself.”— From the words of Nash, one of the assassins, we find how well the priest's denunciations on the Protestants were understood. In the attacks, when one of the men was about to assail Ellen Magee, the others interfered and said she was not to be touched, Father Kelly had said they would not meddle with her.'

This, we presume, is the English translation of Mr. Wyse's phrase that Maynooth began to be felt:'

་

The clergy,' Mr. Wyse says elsewhere, had been roused to a spirit of combination by the necessities of self-defence. Their repugnance to public exhibition was overcome; they stepped out beyond the modesty of their habitual functions into the activity of public life-they began to feel the usual excitement of such scenes, to acknowledge the gaudia certaminis of such a warfare: the Church became gradually militant, and the weak inventions of the enemy recoiled in front and in flank upon themselves. The priesthood no longer refused co-operation in every expedient of constitutional annoyance-they seized with alacrity every opportunity of legitimate attack; they joined every meeting, they seconded every proposition, they lent their aid to the execution of every project.... It cannot be denied,' the Romish historian proceeds in this very remarkable confession, that the priesthood, though they may have lost in some particulars, in others gained materially by this active union!' [i. e. with political agitators.] The doctrines of passive obedience, once so popular in the Irish Catholic Church, and in so many other churches on the Continent, have altogether disappeared from the political creed of the modern ecclesiastic. No disciple of Locke or Blackstone can now speak with more fervent conviction of the great principle of civil and religious freedom than the Irish Catholic priest. A revolution not less miraculous than that which occurred amongst the peasantry spread upwards through every order of the clergy. The rights of conscience were solemnly placed beyond all human interference in this new profession of faith; the sanguinary usurpations of inquisitorial power, under whatever form they had appeared, were anathematised. The encroachments of the spiritual power on the civil were not less reprobated than the encroachments

encroachments of the civil on the spiritual.'-History of Catholic Association, vol. i. p. 231.

Now, setting aside the political conduct of the priests, of which something has been seen already, let us confine ourselves to the spiritual proceedings of this anti-inquisitorial power. May we ask Mr. Wyse what is the meaning in Ireland of rights of conscience? In England (whether right or wrong we are not here called on to say) the phrase is commonly assumed to mean the privilege of reading the Bible, of listening to instruction as we choose, of judging for ourselves on all points of religion, the casting off all interference of the clergy, the following any teacher we like, the bringing any truth or falsehood before the world without fear of molestation. In Ireland it takes a different shape. The chief energy of these rights of conscience' priests, according to Mr. Wyse, was directed—against what? Against the reading of the Bible-against the Kildare Place schools, which had been filled willingly with Romanist children-and against the efforts of the Protestant clergy, efforts to which the people when left to themselves made no objection, to set the truth before them. And it took a singular direction for the men who repudiated the inquisition.

'The war,' continues Mr. Wyse, 'raged long and loudly, and in some places the spiritual brought the fleshly arm to its aid. Teachers were sometimes burnt out of their schools by nightly marauders-flourishing Kildare-street colonies were in a moment annihilated by a single anathema from the popish altar; every man took part in the insurrection; children were withdrawn from the hostile establishments, and were forced by their parents to give up their reading and writing, rather than run the risk of reading or writing in the wrong way.'

May we ask Mr. Wyse who are the parties here indulged with this right of conscience-the children forced away from school, or the parents who had sent them there willingly in numbers till the anathema was fulminated from the altars, and who, as Mr. Wyse informs us in the next page, had no other schools to recur to, because their priest, who prohibited Protestant, had himself established no Romanist education? Is it part of the right of conscience to be excluded from reading the Bible? Is it civil and religious liberty to bring in the fleshly arm in aid of the spiritual to burn out from their houses teachers who were bringing instruction in its most simple and least offensive form to a people left in darkness by their spiritual guides, and thirsting for education? Will Mr. Wyse propose a parliamentary committee to inquire of the converts from Popery, in Ireland, what they have been made to suffer in escaping from that Egyptian bondage? Curses, ejection, scorn, the malediction of friends, banishment