bidding of their priest; and their priest compels them to exercise it against their own interests and the wishes of their best friend, their landlord. Add strict impartiality in the government-yet, it may be, rewarding the Roman Catholic laity even more than the Protestant for acts of loyalty, order, and support of law, which the history of the past will justify us in expecting in very many of that body--and punishing Protestants even more than Romanists for any bitterness, or uncharitable, or violent aggression upon those who differ from them: In this we do not think there is anything which a candid mind can object to as sectarian or uncharitable. Upon this should follow a strict watch and inquiry into the schools of every class maintained by Roman Catholic bodies, male or female, to prevent the use of inflammatory books and treasonable doctrines. After that a proper encouragement should be demanded for priests; who are disposed to learn the errors of their system, and to abandon them an encouragement such as was once held out, sufficient to secure them against want, without being a temptation to hypocrisy. And, lastly, let the English people join in straining every nerve to procure "real justice to Ireland in all things, as to a part, and the vital part of England-justice in watching over her interests justice in encouraging her manufactures and commerce-justice in maintaining quiet justice in large expenditures upon public works→→→ justice in the distribution of patronage justice in granting every liberty, which can be granted without really introducing slavery. All this in the present state of parties may sound impracticable and visionary; but a course is not the less right because our own sins and follies may prevent us from following it. o godt kommt, Of the course which ought to be pursued by government, of whatever party, we are unwilling to speak. Few things have so injured the cause of peace and of religion in Ireland as the intro duction of party politics into questions of a far higher order. But we will venture to point out the course by which James II.a name set as a beacon, upon our history to warn us against Tyranny and against Popery endeavoured to subvert the liberties and constitution and religion of England. There are warnings in history what Government should not do. Let us take up The State of Protestants in Igeland, 1692,' and mark, page by page, the steps which the author there successively enumerates as so many preparations made by James for the establishment of Popery in Ireland.smolow htje

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...1. The employment of Public Ministers who, having no fortunes of their own, could scarcely afford to adopt rigid measures, by which they might risk their places (p. 24). The forcing men of low birth and education on the bench of magistrates, to the disgust

of

3. The resting for support

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of the gentry of the country (p. 29). of government upon men who, though they seemed to make conscience of hearing masses and not eating flesh on Fridays,' were notoriously knaves,' and yet the publicly declaring that they must make use of such' (p. 31). 4. The permitting men to exercise powers under law from which they were excluded by law (p. 43). 5. The encouragement of a party who took pains to conceal the real oppression of the Protestants in Ireland, and ' to run down and discredit all relations to the contrary' (p. 49). 6. The peculiar selection of Roman Catholics for offices of trust. 7. The filling the army (there was no constabulary then) with a preference to Roman Catholics (p. 60). 8. The same with respect to the bench of Judges (p. 65). 9. The placing some few Protestants in commissions, but enough only to give a colour of impartiality, without allowing them any real power_(p. 68). 10. Annoying and insulting the magistracy (p. 85). 11. Destroying the Protestant corporations, and putting them into the hands of Roman Catholics (p. 88). 12. The introduction of perjuries into courts of justice and juries, so that neither life nor property was safe (p. 101). 13. The disarming of Protestants, by permitting nightly marauders to rob them of arms, and by putting down quiet and peaceable associations of Protestants combined for self-defence (p. 119): a proceeding on which the author makes a pertinent observation, that if one should tie a man's hands, and turn him naked among wild beasts, all the world would believe that he designed they should devour him' (p. 118). 14. The permitting the landlords and Protestants to be attacked in their houses and lives, until it was no longer safe for them to live in the country (p. 133). 15. The giving great discouragement to the most eminent Protestant lawyers' (p. 135). 16. The multiplication of friars, nuns, monks, and priests (p. 138). 17. The permitting Protestant property to be destroyed, without adequate efforts to secure it:-(The author is speaking of lay property, such as might be embarked in manufactures or in estates-not of tithes, as we might speak :)-Chief Justice Nugent confessed it was a necessary piece of policy" (p. 143). 18. The putting it into the power of Roman Catholics to ruin Protestants by imposing taxes on them (p. 149). The poor-laws were not then in Ireland; the writer confines his remarks to other cases.* 19. King James had a parliament, and a papist majority in it, who passed various striking laws affecting Protestants, which it must be needless to mention. 20. This same Irish parliament were very anxious to remove

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* Now we have the poor-laws,' said a priest to a friend, when thrown off his guard, 'won't we tax the landlords, and drive them fairly out of the country? This, by the by, will account for the anxiety of the priests to secure the poor-law guardians.

every vestige of their subjection to the crown of England; they were, in fact, Repealers (p. 173). 21. The tenants were set against their landlords, and taught to deny their right to their estates (p. 182). 22. There were a number of private murders and assassinations of Protestants, and government was supposed not to be very active in the persecution of them (p. 188). 23. The priests were active; fearing to shock their friends in England and Scotland,' when they encouraged people to rob their Protestant neighbours, they charged them not to kill them-(Dr. Doyle's recommendation in the tithe war)assuring them that everything else would be forgiven them (p. 211). 24. People were kept very much in the dark, both in England and Scotland, as to the real sufferings of the Protestants in Ireland; and when travellers came over to Ireland and found the Protestants persecuted, they seemed to stand amazed at what they saw, and could hardly believe their own eyes' (p. 213). 25. Protestants, in large numbers, emigrated (p. 210). 26. The Protestants were numbered (p. 202): a step which, in modern times, Mr. Wyse has not hesitated to consider as one of the most important taken by the so-called Catholic Association, as preparatory to the enforcement of its demands. 27. The king commenced his reign with a solemn declaration that he would protect the Church of England; but the Romanists took care to observe that in this was no specific mention of Ireland (p. 216). It is a singular coincidence that observers have remarked at this day on the studied exclusion of Ireland from similar declarations of the crown. 28. One of the first of James' plans was to introduce Jesuit schools; 29. to discourage the former schools of Protestants; and to place the education of the country in the hands of Papists; though not under the name of a national system, professing no religion whatever. In this he surpasses ourselves (p. 217). 30. He tampered with the statutes of Trinity College (p. 218). 31. He diminished the number of the bishops by refusing to keep up the succession (p. 220). 32. Their revenues were seized on, and applied to the use of Papists-though in a more direct way than by relieving them from the payment of a just debt. 33. And Cashel, Clogher, Elphin, and Clonfert, were expressly accepted by the Papists 'as an instalment' of the whole (p. 221). 34. The people were taught to refuse the dues, and the priests forbade the payment of tithes; so that for two years scarcely any were recovered by the clergy, or recovered with so much difficulty and cost, that they turned it to little account' (p. 223). 35. The principle was publicly recognised that every man ought to pay the ministers of his own religion (p. 223). 36, The crown-rents reserved upon livings

livings were exacted from the Protestant clergy, notwithstanding the greatest part of their tithes was taken from them.' (p. 227). It was but the other day that the government, in conveying to the clergy the amount of tithes received for them, balanced it by their demand for crown-rent; and in a case which came under our own observation, the tithes recovered were so many shillings, the crown-rent demanded so many hundred pounds. 37. The crown encouraged all kinds of sectarians in their resistance to the church (p. 230). 38. It proceeded to subvert the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the bishops (p. 231). 39. It claimed a right of interference with the church, which it professed itself incompetent to exercise over other religious bodies (p. 232). 40. It employed about the person of the monarch men 'very corrupt in morals and debauched,' as being the persons most in a fair way to embrace the persuasion' of popery (p. 233); and they were particularly remarked for their profanation of the Lord's Day, so as, if they had any signal ball or entertainment to make, any journey or weighty business to begin, they commonly chose that day for it' (p. 234). 41. Churches were damaged and profaned (p. 236), others shut up (p. 242) :—as it was proposed recently to shut them up where the congregation fell short of fifty souls. 42. The utmost violence was exhibited by the priests in making converts (p. 244). 43. They interfered with mixed marriages (p. 244); and employed secret rioters, like Ribbonmen, to insult and assault Protestants who were firm to their religion (p. 245). 44. The clergy were attacked and beaten (p. 246). 45. Funerals were made the scenes of insult and riot (p. 246). 46. Protestants, on their death-bed, were exposed (as they are now) to the intrusion of the priest, anxious to claim them as converts, by forcing on them the rite of extreme unction (p. 247). 47. The clergy were compelled to undertake offices and discharge duties as the menial servants of the state (p. 248). 48. Every effort was made to exhibit the church and the Protestant religion as a monster (p. 249). 49. Newspapers were set on foot for the very purpose of circulating calumnies against the clergy (p. 251). 50. All this was carried on while the government were loudly proclaiming liberty of conscience.'

These fifty points, to those who have studied the recent progress of affairs, will probably seem curious. They have been roughly thrown down here, for the purpose simply of showing what English ministers should not do, who do not wish to establish Popery in Ireland, and to rule it by the instrumentality of the priests.

But whatever thoughts are turned to governments, there is a truth which every day's experience must impress deeper both on the English and the Irish people-that in the present state of

this country no ministers can do much for good, though they may do much for mischief. It is on the landlords and the clergy that the hopes of the empire must rest-and on their co-operating together heartily and vigorously, and at the same time prudently and quietly, as men who can have but one interest, and one duty, and of whom, if one is destroyed, the other must perish likewise.

**It is to give, professedly to such a population as we have described, but substantially to the priests their directors and despots a vast accession of political power, that the Government -the Government of a Queen who holds her throne by the tenure of Protestantism-have, while we have been writing these articles, introduced, under the colour of a Registration Bill, a NEW FRANCHISE for Ireland. Their Bill is so monstrous, that, ill as we think of the ministry, we are almost inclined to doubt whether they were, before the debate-whether they are even yet— fully aware of the practical effect of that revolutionary project.

We, at the conclusion of our last Number, foretold too truly that the earliest duty imposed on the Conservative party would be the defence of the Reform Bill against its own authors; but we hardly expected that the attempt would be made either so soon, or in so sweeping, yet so insidious a form.

The abuses of the Irish registry were so enormous and so flagrant, that, in spite of the combined efforts of the Papists and the Ministry, Lord Stanley had last year carried a remedial Bill beyond the second reading, and had announced his intention to renew it early this session. Any measure which should tend to rescue the real elector from the thraldom of the priests and Mr. O'Connell, and to brush away any portion of the fraudulent registration, must be fatal to the Ministry, whose existence, as we have already shown, depends on this illegal, but at present irresistible, influence of the Priests. What, then, was to be done to avert the danger of a real remedy for those abuses?-Why, the old Popish shift of confessing, when it could be no longer denied, the existence of the evil and the necessity of a remedy-and then, with Jesuitical candour, offering to provide one-which, of course, prepared by the self-same hands that had created the abuse, was certain to be at least as bad as the disease itself.

This is the real history of Lord Morpeth's Bill, and the way in which it proceeds to effect its object is in exact pursuance of that mixture of impudence and cunning-that sly audacity-in which it was conceived. One of the main conditions and supposed securities provided by the Relief Bill—not merely accepted

VOL. LXVII. NO. CXXXIV.

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but