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rates were to be levied on plough-lands, instead of having recourse to the usual mode. The people resisted, and in the resistance two of the parishioners, unfortunately lost their lives. The killers were indicted for murder. The bills were ignored this exasperated the people: their minds still in a ferment-a new clergyman was sent to officiate in the parish: they were more disposed in favour of his predecessor: whilst the clergyman was reading his prayers, a boy, perhaps a son to one of the men who had been killed, began to throw stones, and was immediately hindered. As to the fact that the men were killed, I appeal to the Lord Bishop of Cloyne himself, who would not have been glad that the affair would have been brought at that time before the Court of King's Bench, as bloodshed on the score of consecrated goods, has ever wounded the clerical profession in every age, and in every nation: as to the circumstances, I am not acquainted with the minute detail of them. For the truth of the above account, I appeal to the Protestant gentlemen in the neighbourhood of Ballivoorna, when he talks of the reduction of the tithes in the foregoing district. The Bishop and I relate the same facts, but our inferences are different. He relates bare facts, without mentioning one single circumstance which may determine the reader's judgment in favour of an injured and misrepresented people. His only object through the course of his pamphlet, is to prove what no man of sense in Ireland believes, viz. the Church of Ireland is at this present moment in imminent danger of subversion.

If facts such as are related by the Bishop were really believed, they certainly would be very alarming. But when related with their concomitant circumstances, and the motives that gave them rise, the phantom vanishes. The candid reader will infer from the above fact, that the attack on the clergyman was not a Popish confederacy against the esta blished religion, but an ebulition of passion occasioned by resentment. When Pope Alexander the Sixth, ordered six cardinals to be sewed up in a bag, and cast into the Tyber, none but a fool can imagine that it was with a view to overthrow their religion; and no wise man will construe into a plot against the church, two or three stones thrown at a clergyman by a boy, after seeing the mangled body of his

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father stretched dead in a field, in consequence of ecclesiastical dues, however unjustifiable the insult. The Lord Bishop of Cloyne must certainly have piercing eyes when he discovers every one's religion in a crowd: or when he confounds all religions concerned in the South, and amalgamates or unites them into one Popish mass: we can literally apply to the Historian of the Whiteboys, the remark made on Cambden, who from partiality to his nation, had both eyes open when he wrote of the English, one eye shut when he wrote of the Scotch, but was quite blind when he wrote of the Irish.

Angligenus oculis perlustras Camdenne duobus ;
Monoculus Scotos: Cæcus Hibernos.

Hitherto the Lord Bishop has kept me at the doors of his church. Now let us follow him into the sanctuary-he talks of Vestries being intimidated by the Whiteboys from granting money for the purchase of elements for the Holy Communion.

How many Vestries have they intimidated? Or was this intimidation a Popish confederacy, to overturn the established religion by extinguishing fervour and devotion? I do not perceive this extraordinary zeal for the Sacraments in either Catholics or Protestants, which gives the ministers of religion room to complain of the great consumption of sacramental wine, and consecrated bread. The more they see their instructors attached to the world, the contempt of which they are bound to enforce; the more they see them intent upon blowing the trumpet of religious war, on the score of speculative tenets, which surpass the comprehension of the multitude, and neglect charity, peace, and humanity, which are within the reach of all; the more the laity perceive the ministers of a religion which is the offspring of heaven, intent upon fixing its root in the earth, the more they will relax in their fervour, and be inclined to believe that the sacred mi. nistry is a kind of craft in the hands of skilful interested men, who for the sake of lucre and emolument, would preach up Christ in Europe, and Diana at Ephesus, had they lived in the time of Demetrius, the silver-smith, who complained that his trade would be lost if the temple of the Goddess was deserted. His Lordship knows that these are the obloquies. and reproaches of our modern deists and free-thinkers.

He knows that in every age, people have availed themselves of obloquies and reproaches against the clergy, and alleged them as a cause of separation from his church, as well as from mine. The best method of silencing the voice of obloquy raised against the ministers of religion, is a con duct marked with that charity and disinterestedness which the public are entitled to expect from persons of their sacred functions. How far the Bishop of Cloyne's pamphlet has contributed to vindicate the clerical profession from the aspersions of obloquy, and to prove that the ministers of the Gospel are the most charitable and disinterested mortals on earth, let his readers judge. He is a minute historian who is not satisfied with informing his readers that the White-boys intimidated Vestries from collecting Church rates, without alarming the piety of the devoutest souls, by threatening them with a spiritual famine from Popish plunderers, who deprive them of the elements for the Holy Communion.

If the Lord Bishop of Cloyne had been as accurate in the enumeration of all the transactions of the Munster peasantry, as he has been in his detail of churches and elements, more figures would rise to view on his historical canvas, and in the groupe would appear persecuted priests and deserted chapels. He has painted one side of the face and shadowed the other. It is incumbent on me to supply the defect. He has given the profile, I must draw the face in full. My readers will excuse my prolixity when they are acquainted with my motives, and the reasons which induce me to enter into so minute a detail.

The character of the nation has been injured in foreign countries, where we are considered as in a state of barbarism and rebellion, in consequence of the exaggerated accounts industriously circulated in the prints, since the beginning of the disturbances. The Lord Bishop of Cloyne's pamphlet has been read at St. James's; and his Majesty must entertain an extraordinary opinion of the Dissenters and Catholics of Ireland. The Irish Catholics in particular, are objects of detestation all over Great Britain, in consequence of Theophilus's address, the marrow of which is inserted in the Monthly Review, which fell into my hands the day I sat

down to write this defence. In that Review of January, eighty-seven, the disturbances in Ireland are the result of a Popish confederacy, cemented by Popish clergymen, and their votaries, with a design to overturn the established re. ligion. All these misfortunes flow from a relaxation of the Popery laws, as from their genuine source,' &c. &c.

I am then indispensably bound to undeceive the pubic both in Ireland and wherever this pamphlet may appear. Justice to my country, to the Irish Catholics, and to myself, requires an exact and minute detail.

A pitched battle, in which ten thousand on each side had fallen in the field, has not employed so many pens, nor occa sioned such alarms, as the mighty excursions of Captain Right's forces. They disturbed the peace of the community, it is true; and for this they are justly censured, and justly punishable. They collected money in two or three places, for the support of their confederates who were in goal. No person exculpates them for this ill-directed benevolence; and if they forced it from the people whose relations were in goal, they deserved death. There was one man cruelly and barbarously murdered in the county of Tipperary: at this murder humanity shudders; there was a respectable clergyman of the established church, the Rev. Mr. Ryan, most cruelly used; the Rev. Mr. Hare, was way-laid and escaped. In the county of Cork, the Rev. Doctor Atterbury, was forced to swear to the Rightboys table of tithe-rates, but received no other injury; the Rev. Mr. Mayne had some of his out-houses burned; the Rev. Mr. Kenny, from terror quitted his habitation; and Archdeacon Tisdal, with Father Burke, the priest of the parish, in which both resided, took shelter in Cork; the Rev. Mr. Brownè had two or three horses cropped: these gentlemen are the clergymen of the established church, who were most materially injured. There was not a sensi ble Catholic in the county of Cork that did not condemn and detest the usage given to the Rev. Gentlemen now mentioned, and the more so, as some of them are considered as fathers to the poor; though the Lord Bishop of Cloyne up. braids me with uttering panegyrics on some of the Protes

tant clergy. But equally indifferent to his applause, or censure, I shall ever pay a tribute to merit. Sorry am I, as an Historian and a man of feeling, that he has not enumerated the Catholic clergymen, who were equal sufferers in the storm. His readers would then be of opinion, that the Rightboys were as hostile to the Church of Rome, as to the established religion.

In the long space of fifteen months, whilst the distur bances continued, until the Earl of Carhampton, (then Lord Luttrell) came to Munster, I heard of no murder committed by the Whiteboys; if there has been any such barbarity committed, I shall relate it in the second edition of my pamphlet.

Every robbery, every outrage has been attributed to those deluded and unhappy people: and to my surprise, (if surprised I would be, after so many falsehoods propagated from the county where I reside,) on my arrival in Dublin, what should I see but an account of four hundred Whiteboys attacking officers of the army near Cork. Three nights before I set off from Cork, we had an account of this extraordinary encounter: an officer on his return from the sports of the field, for want of other game, shot a peat sant's dog; before he had time to charge his piece, the active clown with his stick, revenged the death of the guardian of his cabin. This brought on an affray which was construed into Whiteboyism; and had there not been a Whiteboy or a Rightboy in the world, touch me, touch my dog would be a standing maxim with an Irish peasant; he commonly answers one question with another, and returns blow for blow: this last part of his education he receives from the instinct of nature, which is forwarded by the Irish soil, so favourable to the growth of valour. If he was guilty of no other fault but that of resenting an unprovoked injury, with a stroke of Shilelah, the nobility and gentry of Ireland would not blame him much. They themselves are remarkable for bravery; and their character is not to be insulted with impunity.

Far be it from me to countenance disorder, but I must make allowance for the passions of man; and I feel when I see every trifling scuffle magnified into rebellion against the

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