The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-12-11 00:00:00

Dec,L,,,ILEIt 11. 15:35.

cording to the laws of the land in which they live, landlords ate.
entitled to their rents, and clergymen to their tithes. Some of
our brethren in the ministry rent the houses they live in ; some
of them rent also the adjoining fields. The landlords in many
instances held farms in their parishes. Now, if impartial justice
were done, the clergyman should pay his rent and the landlord .
his tithe. If impartial injustice were done—if I may be allowed,
the expression—where the one payment be withhold, Ise
should be the other. But what •is the fact ? The fact is, that
the clergyman is refused his lawful dues year after year, mud
refused by the very man who puts him into the hands of the
sheriff. because he does not—he cannot pay his rent. (Loud
ap-
plause.) This is aggravating injury by insult. - This is a re-
~
finement of cruelty, differing, from the cruelty of a savage tribe
• in the same way as the rack, and the wheel,• and all the other
wire-drawn ingenuities of torture in the Inquisition, differ front
the dagger of the assassin, or the brickbat and the bludgeon or
an infuriated rabble. (Applause.) It is more than human na-
ture can endure, unless restraiuedaudgegulated by divinegrace•
Yet all this has been endured patiently—with a meekness truly
marvellous—with a silence—with a shrinking from observation.
which has been justly described by one who has preceded me
as verging towards fastidiousness. (Hear.) It does, indeed,
appear strange and hard to be accounted for. It can only be.
resolved into one of those mortal phenomena, which, while they '
elude the investigations of philosophy, do from time to time
force themselves upon the observation. I mean an anomaly in.
the Irish character. If' it be true, as unhappily must be con-
fessed, that the Irish character in the gross presents features re-
volting to a civilised community, it is equally undeniable, that
when refined at all, it receives a pre-emiueut polish, and mani-
fests a pre-eminent purity. (Hear.) An educated Irish gen-
tleman, with all the fire, and all the fervour, and all the bold en-
thusiasm which belong to hint in every case where public prin-
ciple. is concerned, or the atone and character of his friend are
called in question, is nevertheless, in all that belongs to personal,
private, and domestic matters, peculiarly modest and retiring-
(Cheers.) It is a fact, though it may not strike on your judg-
ment at first hearing—but it is a fact well known to accurate
observers of Irish character, that such a man cannot speak as s
others often speak; of their domestic affairs, and especially or
their wives and children. I will not attempt to pursue the cease
of this further than simply to remark, that it may in sortie do-
gree be accounted by the nature of their domestic associations,. ,
I have alluded to their wives. And I will not be deterred by ,
any dread of the charge of vanity or of undue love of country,
from affinities: concerning them, that--1 will not say amongst'
the habitations of men, or amongst the courts of kings, in all
their glory—but I will say that amongst all the works of God its
this fallen creation of ours, not excepting the soft folds of the
lily or the. tints of the vernal rose there is nothing more exqui-
sitely refined—more copstrainingiy refining, than the heart and
:hind, and tnanners of au educated Irish lady. (Loud cheers.)
But the subject wears a far more serious aspect than individual,
suffering, however acute, can at any otte period p esent.
wears a continuous and ati increasing aspect,—continuous stud '
increasing in itten a degree, and with,eueh characteristic fea-
tures, that the very eSt taice
church is endangered. (Hear, hear.) I Say not the church
Ireland, but the protestant estahlielaedichurch. It is but out
church; and
-it' the Irish branch tie sweet away, the power that_
has gained such an advantage will attack with redoubled force
and with redoubled effect the English branch also. (Much ape
plause.) I desire to speak within due bounds of truth, not indeed
within what some men are pleased to call prudence. I desire to
speak with temper, but 1 desire to speak with firmness. Sir, if the
assailants of all we hold most dear iu the institutions of our coun-
try, be encouraged in their utmost violence—if it be deemed meri-
torious in them to persevere in their attack! with the most un-
abated vigour, under the plausible pretence of improving what
they are in fact undermining unto destruction ; while from false
delicacy, or mistaken prudence, the friends of those institutions
who attempt to repel the attack, are frowned upon as injudicious:
If while the besiegers are busied day and night in sinking their ,
trenches, and perfecting their parallels, and preparing their vole
lies ; the besieged are to continue too gentlemanlike and too
peaceable to attempt any sallies for defence, what must the end
be, what ought' it to.bes but confusion, and ruin, and degrade-,
tion, and shame to such a dastard garrison? I allege, then, that
it would be a great and grievisus mistake to suppose that the
present opposition to the payment of tithes owes Its origin to
any recent occurrence. It is not to be traced to the proceed-
ings of the present government, or the late government, or any
British government. It is not to be traced to the alleged abuse,
hi the patronage of the Irish church, or to the conduct in days
that are, gone of the Irish clergy. No; to attribute it to any,
such causes is to deceive the inquirer, by fixing his attention on
merely superficial symptoms and not going to the root of the in-
veterate disease. And here, sir, I would say that an attempt to
reach the source of this disease, is strictly within the limits of
the subject before the meeting. It is held-to be perfectly within-
the live of propriety, in every investigation, whether philoso-
phical, medical, political, or religious, on proof of the actual
existence of an evil, to endeavour to trace so tar as fair data can, s
be referred4O, the causes of that evil. I affirm that the present
opposition to tithe is- but a modern aspect of an ancient and or-.
ganised conspiracy. (Hear.) Doubtless that conspiracy has
been affected in its operations by the proceedings of govern-
ment and parliameut at various periods, sometimes restrained,
sometimes encouraged. Doubtless, its hopes of success were
considerably diminished by the improved system of church pa-
tronage introduced by the Earl of Liverpool. Doubtless, its
inveteracy has been increased by the improved spirituality and
zeal of the clergy; while at the same time its power for present •
mischief and ultimate triumph has been incalculably augmented
by the parliamentary proceedings of the last six years. But.,
although all these things have affected the proceedings of the ,
conspirators the conspiracy itself is antecedent to, and indee
pendent of them' all. I -do nut ground this assertion upon any -
assumption or reasoning of my own. but upon evidence given
before committees of both Houses of Parliament. Major War:.
burton described-the organization of a conspiracy, whose ob-
jects he declared to.be the establishment of the Roinish religion
in Ireland, the extrrpat inn of protestentism, and the separation of
the two countries. H e described its continuous operations in whicle
he pointed out one short intermission. Fur this intettnissien
he accounted by saying that "the conspirators imagined that the
English rsidicais would withdraw from them a support on which
they had previously relied, and leave them without the power
of accomplishing their designs."—(Lords, 26th May, 1821,--=
Mr. EN her declared himself centittent that these plans were
not contrived by the peasantry themselves, but that there were
some prime movers, who had not been discovered.—[Lords,
June 1, 1834.J—Mr. O'Connell declared that the oath a of obe-
dience .and secrecy, which are faithfully observed iu bath rib-
bonism (1: e. the conspiracy) and in the disturbances in the • '-
south of Ireland, are so vigorously enforced, that prosecutors
must be provided for by government, as they dare not return to
live among their friends.—[Commons, March I.lB2sl—Such,
continued Mr. M'Neile, was the state of things in 1825. It re-
quires little sagacity to compreheud the effect that meet have •
been produced-on such a state of things by the events th t have
since taken place in England. One thing on which it is here
stated the Irish conspirators depended, was theassistance of the
English radicals,—so much so, that on one occasion. appre-
hending that that assistance would Le withheld, they p.OO Ira
to abandon the plan of the conspiracy. Such assistance has
been largely given—given, not only by the revoletit n sts, who
desired to foment the mischief, but by high-minded, eloquent,
liberal men, who designed nothing but gond: Such men ap-
peared before the British public as the apost'es of liberality,
while they were complacently beheld by the Irish conspirators,
as the infatuated pidneeis of their grand object. (Loud cheers.)
Those conspirators saw that it was snit, by the door of fashi"n-
able liberality that the citadel of the British constitution, ieelu-
sive of the protestant church, could he effectually assailed. They
therefore publicly encouraged, and flattered, and fawned upon,
while they secretly laughed at, these men, who were the elo-
quent advocates of equal rights, while they were weakening the
principle which alone could successfully resist the progress of
the Irish conspiracy, namely, the principle of genuine new tels
tament chi istianity supported by a christian state. (Much cheer-
ing.) This mode of procedure went on with fatal success.
Aided by the defection of Protestants from the more advised
principles of their forefathers,—aided by the defection, for in-
stance, of suck nieu is Charles Brownlow, Esq., the hon. mein-
bee for Armagh, and accelerated to the pace of a steam-carriage
by the-burning eloquence-of your late incomparable represen-
tative George Canning,—on, the wings of the wind thus raised
Mr. O'Connell got himself returned to parliament in defiance
of the late of the land, and before the pressure of the storm, thus
condensed and overwhelming, the Duke of Wellington and Mt.
Peel committed the national crime of 1829. I borrow the term
"national crime" from Mr. Prebendary 'lownsheriti, who used
it at a meeting similar to the present, convened at Durham",
and I was struck with the appropriateness of the designation.
It is true that security was taken for the preservation of our
national church, confirmed by the ultimatuut of security, the •
sanction of an oath. - How that oath has been treated is matter
of history. But it if worthy of observation that there was my
flagrant v.olatiou of that oath till the further progress of parli-
aineutury mestsures returned such, a House of Commons as gave
a fair prospect of advantage to the objecti of the conspiracy
arising out of such violation. The final success of the couspte
racy is the grand point. For this oaths are kept: for this oohs
are broken, us the expediency of the case may from time to time
require. All must yield to this. Here we have the true answer
to the plausible argument so often urged in defence of Roman
catholic veracity, from the fact that Human catholica were lot
years excluded from parliament by their reverence for au oath.
It is manifest that a violation of that oath could out have tor-
warded the interests of the conspiracy. Seats in parliament;
as the law then existed, could not have been made available for
the attainment of ultimate objects. Many collateral points were
indispeusable to the efficient working of Homan catliolic.mein-
tiers, and all those points would have been incalculably re-
tarded, if not wholly defeated, by such a premature and undieg
guised dehauce of all faith with heretics. Present faith was
kept, not for truth's sake, but for the Wain end of' the conspiracy:
This is agrave.cbsiege, Instal slo not edywricesit.withisut pea--
proof out of the mouth of the most influential'reader.of the dee
ceittul system. It is true that Popery in theoryis not answer-
able for all the sayings of Dr. Doyle; but it is equally true that
Irish popery in practice was powerfully influenced by tit, se
sayings. I will now call your attentiou briefly to a:few ;Answers
of Dr. Doyle, in 1824, and beg you to coMpare them with wt tit
you have already heard of the evidence pi Dr. Doyle, in 1832.
I. am convinced," he says, "iu my soul, and I never ipoko
inure from the feelings-of my heart than Ido at this moment,
that if we were freed from the disabilities tinier which we la-
bour, we should have no mind, and no thought, and lie will, but
that which would lead- us to incorporate ourselves fully and
essentially with this great kingdom. * * * I thiiik, if
emancipation were carried, the whole catholic population would
consider their grievances as it were at an end, and those ob-
stacles which exist to the improvement of their a/edition, and
the general interest of their own country, as removed. • 1,
I have never discovered in any class, ur in any individual of
the cathode religion, any disposition hostile to the protestant
established religion. * * * They, (the Irish clergy) hay!
certainly a legal, just, and good right to the property they hold.
You have heard the language quoted by Mr. Lyons, in whicie
Dr. Duvle justifies his opposition to the law on which this
"legal, "just, and good" right is founded, and trusts that the
opposition of the catholics to tithes would be as enduripg
their love of justice. And this is how the same man ! NV hat
is the solution ? It is simply this, that allegiance to the law
was laid down in 1824, when emancipation was the object of the
conspirators, and resistance to the law was preached in 1832,
after emaucipation had taken place. (Great applause.) Befegr!
1829 the language was, "Gain emancipation by all means,
tamsehood intruded. (A laugh.) "But suppose we should be
called upon to swear we do not aim at anything beyond ?".
"Never mind; swear anything, but get emancipation." (Loud
cheers.) "By getting that," they argued, "wee plant our foot
on new ground; we cuter upon a campaign of parliamentary
intrigue, and iu the present state of England—lukewarm, di'
vided, half-protestant England, we shall have a lever whereby
to wrench protestantism out of Ireland." (Cheers.) This was
the object of the conspiracy, and so far fearfully has it suc-
ceeded. From this object popery can never voluntarily recede.
She can, and does, and will deny it, so lung as any additional
means towards the attainment of it can be secured by the de-
nial; so lung as she can find influential Englishmen, ignorant
enough of her character, to take her at her word. 13ut finally
give it up she cannot. lu proof of this, I refer to one of those
documents which the Irish conspirators are taught to look upon
as sacred. It is a bull of Pope Urban VIII., heeded "Asa fu
twain liei memoriam," dated at Houle in the Vatican, or Gtr
Peter's Palace, the 25th day of May, 1643. • •• • A full
and plenary indulgence and absolute remission of all their
&c., to all who gallantly do what lieth in them, to extirpfito-Od
totally root out those workers of iniquity who, in the.kinglloo3
of Ireland, bud infected and are always striving to infest, fee
mussof catholic purity with the pestiferods leuveu it gait Leas_