ject)had spread in Ireland as it did in England, and if there never had been any difference of faith between the two countries, can it be believed, that the Irish, ill-treated, and infamously governed, as they have been, would never have made any endeavours to shake off the yoke of England? Surely there are causes enough to account for their impatience of that yoke, without endeavouring to inflame the zeal of ignorant people against the Catholic religion, and to make that mode of faith responsible for all the butchery which the Irish and English, for these last two centuries, have exercised upon each other. Every body, of course, must admit, that if to the causes of hatred already specified, there be added the additional cause of religious distinction, this last will give greater force (and what is of more consequence to observe, give a name) to the whole aggregate motive. But many of those sanguinary scenes attributed to the Catholic religion, are to be partly imputed to causes totally disconnected from religion; the unjust invasion, and the tyrannical, infamous, policy of the English, are to take their full

share of blame with the sophisms and plots of the Catholic priests. In the reign of Henry the Eighth, feudal submission was readily paid to him by all the Irish chiefs; the reformation was received without the slightest opposition; and the troubles which took place at that period in Ireland, are to be entirely attributed to the ambition and injustice of Henry. In the reign of Queen Mary, there was no recrimination upon the Protestants;-a striking proof, that the bigotry of the Catholic 1eligion had not, at that. period, risen to any great height in Ireland. The insurrections of the various Irish princes were as numerous during this reign as they had been in the two preceding reigns; a circumstance rather difficult of explanation, if, as is commonly believed, the Catholic religion was at that period the main spring of men's actions.

"In the reign of Elizabeth, the Catholic in the pale regularly fought against the Catholic out of the pale. O'Sullivan, a bigotted papist, reproaches them with doing so. Speaking of the reign of James the First, he says, "And now the eyes even of the

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English Irish (the Catholics of the pale) were opened, and they cursed their former folly for helping the heretic.' The English Government were so sensible

of the loyalty of the Irish English Catholics, that they intrusted them with the most confidential services. The Earl of Kildare was the principal instrument in waging war against the chieftains of Leix and Offal. William O'Bourge, another Catholic, was created Lord Castle Connel for his eminent services; and Mac Gullay Patrick, a priest, was the state spy. We presume that this wise and manly conduct of Queen Elizabeth, was utterly unknown both to the Pastry-cook and the Secretary of State, who have published upon the dangers of employing Catholics even against foreign enemies; and, in those publications, have said a great deal about the wisdom of our ancestors-the usual topic whenever the folly of their descendants is to be defended. To whatever other of our ancestors they may allude, they may spare all compliments to this illustrious Princess, who would certainly have kept the worthy

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Confectioner to the composition of tarts, and most probably furnished him with the productions of the Right Honourable Secretary, as the means of conveying those juicy delicacies to an hungry and discerning public."

There was nothing, then, in the spirit of the Catholic religion itself, adverse to the English Government; and what opposition it may at times have manifested, has been roused by the unvarying contempt and indignity it has experienced from the English, whose conduct with respect to Ireland has been uniformly regulated by contemptible bigotry, and the most shallow maxims of selfish and contracted policy.

From the time of the reformation to that of the revolution, popery seems to have been regarded by the legislature rather as a crime, for which individuals, regularly convicted of any overt-act, were liable to punishment, than as a system of faith, the possession of which was to be repressed by permanent disqualifications. Celebrating mass, or attend

ing its celebration, were indictable offences: and every subject whatsoever, was made liable to a severe imposition, if he omitted to attend the established church at least once every Sunday. Catholics, however, were neither excluded from parlia ment, nor laid under any difficulties as to the enjoya ment and transference of property-the rights of self-defence-or the economy of their families. Those laws were administered with great mildness, on the whole, during the reign of Elizabeth; and with regard to Ireland, were little more than a dead letter. In the time of James the First, when the Protestants for the first time formed a majority in that parliament, they were enforced with occasional rigour; and under Charles, the severities which his necessities, rather than his disposition, led him to exercise, joined with the oppressions of Strafford, and the permitted insolence of the English settlers, led to those scenes of misery and devastation in the rebellion, 1641, of which no man, till lately, conceived that the repetition was possible. The soldiery of