ertions of the first men and ablest writers in the empire, it is not in the nature of things that they should much longer remain an inferior cast, the Helots and the Gibeonites of their native land. This is augured by their friends*: this is dreaded by their enemies t. They are sailing into port with a straight and rapid course. Nothing can defeat their hopes, but an unexpected dereliction of that prudent, temperate, and loyal conduct which they have hitherto pursued.

I am, &c.

DEAR SIR,

LETTER XX.

Waterford, August 5, 1807.

HAVING travelled through a considerable part of Leinster and Munster, I should have been glad to see something also of Connaught, and to accept likewise of the kind

* See the Speeches of Lord Grenville, Mr. Fox, Mr. Grattan, &c. upon the Catholic Question in 1805.

+ See the Speech of Dr. Duigenan on the above-mentioned

occasion.

invitation of the noble proprietor of Killarney to view the wonders of his celebrated domain. But having already exceeded the time I had prescribed to myself for this hasty excursion, and business calling me home, behold I am now at the seaport from which I am to quit this interesting island. With respect to the great commercial city from which I write, I have experienced that its intercourse with the opposite coasts of Wales, inhospitable as they are to all strangers, and particularly to their never-forgotten invaders, the Sassenachs*, has not, in the least degree, affected the national character of its inhabitants. They are as open-hearted and hospitable, particularly to those of our countrymen who are disposed to be friendly to them, as the rest of the Irish are.

My road from the grand emporium of Cork to this of Waterford, led me through the elegant town of Fermoy, the populous town of Clonmel, and the pleasant town of Carrick upon the Suire. The pleasure, however, which I experienced in viewing these several places was much alloyed by the pain I felt in surveying the most magnificent and beautiful buildings in them, I mean the barracks. From the habitations of this denomination which you are accustomed to see in England, you will not be able to judge of the extent or sumptuousness of those in all the considerable towns and many of the villages in Ireland, the whole ex

* Saxons, the Engligh people.

pense of which erections and of supporting the numerous inhabitants of them necessarily falls upon the people. The following facts, which have been communicated to me by a well-informed personage, may serve to give you some just ideas upon this subject. There are at all times from thirty to fifty thousand regular troops stationed in Ireland, besides twenty-one thousand militiamen, and numerous bodies of yeomanry; the total expense of which military establishment, including the ordnance and incidentals, consumes the whole four millions which the taxes of Ireland annually produce, Hence the whole civil establishment, the pensions, and every other expense of government in this island, is left to be provided for by a new and enormous loan, made every year for Ireland exclusively, the capital and interest of which, thus rapidly accumulating, evidently tends to a national bankruptcy. It is not, however, the expense of this military establishment which I here so much complain of, as of the system of governing the country which it bespeaks, that of jealousy and coercion. The barracks are, in the system of modern tactics, what the numerous castles were with which the Normans so severely oppressed the English after the conquest*, and

* Henry of Huntingdon, speaking of William the Conqueror, says; "Ad castella omnes fatigabat construenda." The Saxon Chronicler says of the same king: "Castella permisit ædificari et pauperes valde "opprimi." Ad an. 1086. He elsewhere draws a most horrible picture of the sufferings of the people in consequence of these military sta tions. Ad. an. 1137.

with which the English themselves bridled the Irish upon the invasion of this island a century later. And yet, Sir, the British constitution is not that odious thing, nor is the reigning monarch such a tyrant, that a nation which could freely enjoy the former, and live quietly under the latter, would rush into all the guilt and horrors of rebellion to get rid of them! Neither is the religion of our forefathers, which reared that glorious structure of the constitution, so averse to a settled and monarchical form of government, that its professors must necessarily be traitors and Jacobins; nor are the Irish people the faithless and cold-hearted race, that they are not to be won by justice and kindness, but must necessarily be kept to their duty by chains and the sword! In a word, Sir, the four millions per annum spent upon soldiers and barracks might be saved to government; the 50,000 regulars might be spared for the general exigencies of the empire, and these even might be strengthened by 100,000 more of the finest recruits in the universe; whilst the island itself would be rendered infinitely more safe than it is at present, by raising whatever number of hardy and well-trained military men or fencibles might be thought necessary, provided only Protestants had liberality enough to say: "Since Irishmen will not give up "the faith of St. Patrick (which indeed they pro"fessed, when our ancestors were pagan savages "in the wilds of Holstein) let them retain it! "And since, according to our fundamental

maxim, all Christians are free to interpret the scriptures for themselves, if they persist in maintaining that Christ gave his real body "when he said: Take and eat, this is my body; "and that he actually conferred a spiritual

jurisdiction on St. Peter and his successors, "when he said to him: Thou art a rock, "and upon this rock I will build my Church: "let them maintain it; provided they ascribe to "the civil power, as they certainly do, the ple"nitude of temporal authority. We will not insist "on their swearing the contrary, nor shall any "of them fare the worse for their religious te

nets.""Do you then wish," say the bigots, whose only religion consists in a hatred of Catholics," that a believer in transubstantiation, "the mass, and prayers to the saints, should be a commander in chief or a lord chancellor, and "thus domineer over us?"-"No," the Catholics reply, 66 'we have never for a moment "looked up to such honours, nor aimed at such "" powers. You Protestants well know that, "with all the advantages which you possess

over us, and particularly that of having the "sovereign of your religion, who alone can dis

pense civil and military, honours and autho"rity, ages would pass away without one of our people attaining to the above-mentioned or any other of the first offices of the state. What

66

we really want are the substantial and ordinary "benefits of the constitution; which, however,

experience convinces us we never shall enjoy