their meetings until emancipation shall be fully granted them. We petitioned last year with the greatest humility for the restoration of our rights, the British senate; the British senate refused our prayer: this year we call for emancipation; full, total, entire, without condition or qualification whatsoever. We no longer supplicate : we demand. We are told that such are not the means by which we are to succeed; and I answer, such are the means; and there are no others. In the hour of prosperity England has constantly rejected with scorn our most dutiful supplications; in the hour of adversity only has she deigned to listen to our prayer. Let us hope, then; for she suffers:-let us hope; for bankruptcy is at her door let us hope; for she is humbled." When slaves can express themselves thus, there are yet grounds for hope. : The Association is violently attacked, and at times with justice. Open to the whole world, existing only on the passions of the country, recruited from the bosom of a population for centuries in bondage, it cannot but contain within itself a large portion of ignorance, fickleness, and dishonesty. The leaders themselves are confined within too narrow a circle; you would almost say their ideas cannot extend beyond the limits of Ireland. Beyond it, they see nothing, they understand nothing; and instead of boldly associating themselves and their cause with all that is liberal in Europe, it too frequently happens that they speak exclusively as Catholics; and as Catholics, exclusively consider themselves aggrieved. To all these defects I am fully sensible, and yet I am of opinion that the Association is decidedly of advantage to the country. It rallies the friends of religious freedom: it keeps up in the people a due feeling of their rights; forces Catholicity to proclaim the principles of toleration; fatigues and alarms England; and rouses the lower classes from that degrading apathy, from which they have risen but once or twice in a century, to rush into acts of the most atrocious vengeance. In the month of November, the Catholic Association realised per day £50 sterling; and already more than one Orange landlord, who was prepared to eject in mass his unfortunate tenantry, has been obliged to draw back in alarm before it. In a word, it is a species of new parliament, which really represents, and is the organ of, seven millions of men; levies taxes, dictates ordinances, and sends whomever it thinks proper to the House of Commons. The spirit of the priesthood, I repeat it, has too much influence within its circle; but in face of a church, haughty, intolerant, and burning with the spirit of proselytism, it scarcely can be otherwise. The Biblicals are the missionaries of Ireland; and whilst the one are escorted by fifty soldiers to Brest, the others support, by the eloquent arguments of their bayonets, their pious predications at Ballinasloe. Unfortunately, in this rebellious age, the sword has not, in religious matters, all the influence which it ought; nor does it turn away a greater number from Catholicity at Ballinasloe than it brings back to its fold at Brest. From time to time, however, the Protestant papers are very vociferous on the subject of a few conversions, bought by weight of gold, or obtained through the agonies of hunger; but the moment the fever appears, the Catholic priest is immediately recalled. One of these conversions was lately announced in the following terms:"We feel a lively satisfaction in announcing that two Catholics have just abjured the errors of the church of Rome, to embrace those of the church established." The clergy, it is said, were by no means disposed to smile at the blunder. The city not included, nor any principal town except Bandon. |