people, who were still burdened and harassed by the exactions of an alien Church.' In the Personal Recollections' of Lord Cloncurry, that able statesman gave a sketch of English policy in Ireland, and of Irish agitation-which is unfortunately too much in accordance with the facts in each case-from the Union up to the year 1829, when emancipation was extorted. The type of British colonial government was the order of the day. The Protestants were upheld as a superior caste, and paid in power and official emoluments for their services in the army of occupation. During the second Viceroyalty of Lord Anglesea, the effort was made by him to evoke the energies of the whole nation for its regeneration. That effort was defeated by the conjoint influence of the cowardice of the English Cabinet, the petulance of Lord Stanley, and the unreasonable violence and selfishness of the lately emancipated popular leaders. Upon Lord Anglesea's recall, the modern Whig model of statesmanship was set up and followed. Popular grievances were allowed to remain unredressed; the discontent and violence engendered by those grievances were used from time to time for party purposes; the people were hung ard bayonetted when their aroused passions exceeded the due measure of faction's requirement: and the State patronage was employed to stimulate and reward a staff of demagogues, by whom the masses were alternately excited to madness and betrayed, according to the necessities of the English factions. . . . The minister expectant, or trembling for his place, spoke loudly of justice, or of compensation, of fraternity and freedom; to these key-notes the place-hunting demagogue pitched his brawling. His talk was of pike-making, and sword-fleshing, and monster-marching. The simple people were goaded into madness, the end whereof was, for them, suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, the hulks, and the gallows; for their stimulators, silk gowns, commissionerships, and seats on the Bench. Under this treatment the public mind became debauched the lower classes, forced to bear the charges of agitation as well as to suffer its penalties, lost all faith in their social future. To hold out hopes of the establishment of civil and religious equality, of the attainment of complete freedom of industry or even of local self-government, no longer sufficed to arouse the

passions of the mob, or to bring money into the exchequer of the demagogues. It therefore followed that the staple talk of the popular meetings came to be made out of the appeals to the basest passions of the multitude; old feuds between Irishmen were revived, a new appetite for vengeance was whetted-nay, even the bonds of society were loosened by intimations, not obscure, that a triumph of the people would be associated with an abatement of the sacredness of property.'

The peasantry had, as already said, very soon learned that whatever emancipation had done or might do for barristers and others qualified to hold public appointments from which the Roman Catholics had been previously excluded, it had done nothing to remove or mitigate their practical grievances. They found that the rack-rents of their holdings were not reduced, that the tax-collector did not abate his demand, and, above all, that the detested Tithe Proctor paid his customary visits, and, in default of payment, seized upon the cow, whose milk nourished the children; upon the pig, that paid the rent; upon the tenth sheaf of corn, the tenth stone of potatoes, and, in default of these, upon the pot in which the food of the family was cooked, or the blankets which protected them from the winter's cold at night. While exasperated by exactions of this kind, they were addressed from week to week in the most inflammatory language on the Monster Grievance of the Church Establishment." Agitators asked their auditors to place themselves in the position of a half-famished cottier, surrounded by a wretched family clamorous for food; and to judge what his feelings must be when he saw the tenth part of the produce of his potato garden exposed at harvest time to public cant'; or if, as was most common-he had given a promissory note for the payment of a certain sum of money for tithes-heard the heart-rending cries of his offspring clinging round him and lamenting for the milk, of which they were deprived when the cow was driven off to be sold. No wonder that imprecations and threats were mingled with their sighs and tears. No wonder that, at night, houses were seen in flames, as if the country were suffering from the ravages of war. When the oppressed people read Henry Grattan's description of the Tithe Proctor,' that he was 'a species of wolf

6

left by the shepherd to take care of the flock in his absence,' no wonder that they arose in their wrath and killed the wolf. One of those Proctors had at the same sessions proceeded against 1,100 persons for tithes, nearly all small farmers or peasants, the expense of each process being about eight shillings.

This system of clerical support would, indeed, be intolerable anywhere, even if the State clergy were the pastors of the majority. But as the proportion between the Protestants and Catholics was, in many parts of the country, as one to ten, and in some as one to twenty, the injustice necessarily involved in levying the impost was aggravated a hundred-fold. It was impossible to conceive anything in the shape of a tax more irritating and humiliating, or which violated more wantonly men's natural sense of justice. If the Tithe Proctor's system had been purposely devised to drive a nation into insurrection, it might be regarded as a masterpiece of Machiavelian policy. Besides, it tended directly to the impoverishment of the country, retarding agricultural improvement, and limiting production. If a man kept all his land in pasture, as most of the Protestant gentry did, he escaped the impost; but the moment he tilled it, as the small Catholic farmer must, he was subjected to a tax of 10 per cent. on the gross produce. The valuation being made by the Tithe Proctor-whose interest it was to defraud both the tenant and the parson, and whom the large farmers found means of corrupting the main burden of Church support fell upon the small occupiers; and so heavily did it press, that they were known in many cases not to mow their meadows to avoid paying tithe for the hay. There was, besides, a tax called Church Cess,' levied by Protestants in vestry upon Roman Catholics for cleaning the church, ringing the bell, washing the minister's surplice, and purchasing bread and wine for the Communion. Against this tax there arose such fierce opposition that a sort of civil war raged in every parish in Ireland on Easter Monday, when the Roman Catholics assembled to denounce it, and to tell the chairman that he was not their pastor, but a tyrant, a persecutor, and a robber.

In 1831 the organised resistance to the collection of Tithes became so general and so terrible that they were not paid except

where a composition had been made, and agreements had been adopted. The terrified Proctors gave up their dangerous occupation after some of their number had been victimized in the most barbarous manner. Some of the clergy preferred destitution to the exaction of their incomes under such circumstances; but others, more courageous, felt bound to persist, for the sake of the Church, in the enforcement of their rights. Strange scenes were then presented over extensive districts in many of the best counties. Not only bailiffs and policemen, but the military also, in strong detachments, were seen driving away cattle, sheep, pigs, and geese, to be sold by public auction; the 'Pounds' (uncovered enclosures), crowded with all sorts of animals, cold and starved, uttering doleful sounds; auctions without bidders, in the midst of groaning and jeering multitudes; the slaughtering of policemen with fiendish rage and yells of triumph; the mingling of fierce, vindictive passions with the warmest natural affections; and exultation in murder as if it were a glorious deed of war. The clergy and their families, shut up in their glebe-houses, trembled for their lives; and, but for the relief extended to them by sympathising friends, were liable to perish with hunger, to avert which many a precious library was sent to Dublin for sale.

During this desperate struggle between the people and the Government, bloody tragedies were enacted, and many lives were sacrificed. At Newtown Barry, in the county of Wexford, the mob attempted to rescue some cattle seized for tithes, when the yeomanry fired upon them, killing twelve persons. This was the result of a placard, posted through the town, announcing as follows:-"There will be an end of Church plunder; your pot, blanket, and pig will not hereafter be sold by auction to support men in luxury, idleness, and ease, while most of you are starving. Attend an auction of your neighbours' cattle." At Carrickshock there was another slaughter. A number of writs against defaulters were issued by the Court of Exchequer, and the processservers were guarded by a strong body of the constabulary. They hastened to the place secretly and at night, hoping to be protected by the darkness. But they saw signal bonfires blazing along the surrounding hills, and heard shrill whistles on every side. They pushed boldly on, however, until they were con

fronted suddenly by an immense body of peasantry armed with scythes and pitchforks. A terrible hand-to-hand struggle then ensued, and in the course of a few moments eighteen of the constabulary, including the commanding officer, lay dead upon the field. The remainder fled, marking the course of their retreat with the blood which trickled from their wounds. At Castlepollard, in Westmeath, an attempt at rescue was made, when the police fired, and half a score persons were killed.

Among these tragedies the one which produced the most thrilling effect, and inflicted most damage on the Church, occurred at Gurtroe, near Rathcormac, in the county of Cork. Archdeacon Ryder brought a military force to recover the tithes of a farm belonging to a widow named Ryan; and he attended in person to see the enforcement of his legal rights. The crowd of countrymen resisted; the military were ordered to fire; eight persons were killed and thirteen wounded; and among the dead was found the bleeding body of a fine young man, the widow's son.

It was absolutely necessary that some strong measures should be adopted to put an end to a state of things threatening the utter disruption of society. In the first place, something should be promptly done to meet the wants of the destitute clergy and their families. Accordingly Lord Stanley, then Chief Secretary, in May 1832, brought in a Bill authorising the Lord Lieutenant to advance 60,0007. as a fund for the payment of the uncollected tithes of the previous year. This Bill became law on June 1st. But Lord Stanley was determined that the Roman Catholics should be made to respect the law,' and that the tithes must be exacted from them at whatever cost. The Irish Government, therefore, undertook to be itself Collector-General of this odious and blood-stained impost, employing for the purpose the large military force then stationed in Ireland. The Roman Catholics, so far from being intimidated, broke forth into a state of frantic excitement, and met the threat of military force with defiance. Then commenced a sort of insurrection throughout the south of Ireland. Bonfires blazed upon the hills, rallying sounds of horns were heard along the valleys, and the mustering tread of thousands upon the roads, hurrying to the scene of a seizure or an auction. It was a bloody campaign. There was considerable loss of life, while the Church and the Government became more