doctor Butfon, dean of Waterford, when a confiderable collection was made. Fifty-two popish, and twenty-eight proteftant children resorted to it; and every benevolent perfon rejoiced at feeing the good effects which were likely to arife from it; when fuddenly their hopes were in fome degree defeated, by an extraordinary inftance of popish bigotry.

Father Corrin, the popish priest of Wexford, at the inftance of his bishop, doctor Caulfield, as I am informed, announced from the altar, on Sunday the 24th day of January laft, that any of his parishioners who prefumed to fend their children to the fchool, fhould be excommunicated; and they accordingly withdrew them, in obedience to his charitable inhibition.*

Within a few days, a popish female child of eleven years, told a protestant lady of my acquaintance, in Dublin, that fhe hated her; and being afked for what reason, she answered, because she was a proteftant, and therefore must be damned.

Many inftances of this kind have come to my knowledge, within these few months; and it is a pofitive fact, that Irish priests frequently fwear a folemn oath in the presence of their fectaries, that a protestant never did, and never can, enter the kingdom of heaven.

The reader will find fome observations on this doctrine, and its fatal effects, in page 22 of vol. i. of this work, and p. 202 of vol. ii.

b 2

Such

In Appendix, No. XXV. 1. the reader will see father Corrin's defence, with observations thereon; and in No. XXVI. 2. the refolutions of the governors on that procedure.

Such tenets, conftantly, and from the earliest age, infufed into the minds of the populace, render them hoftile to a proteftant state, and to their proteftant fellow fubjects, and have been a fruitful fource of difcord and rebellion, ever fince the introduction of the reformation.

The favage joy manifefted by the popish multitude of Dublin, at the interment of that great and good man, the late lord Clare, and the infults offered to his remains at the grave, afforded a melancholy indication of their malignant influence on the minds of the populace.

I mentioned in page 525 of vol. ii. that the mafs of the people were as difaffected, and as eager to join the French, whom they expected a fhort time before the peace was concluded, as they were in the year 1798; though the royal mercy had been extended to them in a very extraordinary manner, for the crimes committed by them during the late rebellion.

A vagabond, of the name of James Walsh, was actively employed in the county of Kerry, in organizing the people; for which he was arrefted at Tralee, on the 9th of September, 1801, and was tried and sentenced to transportation at Limerick.

On being fearched, a fcapular, a charm, and fome other pieces of popifh trumpery were found on the person of this pious miffionary. The first, and initiatory oath, which he exhibited to thofe whom he enrolled in the ranks of rebellion, was to be true to the French and the Virgin Mary. The two fuc

ceeding

ceeding ones were to have been fworn in an old abbey, at Ardfert, to give them the greater appearance of fanctity.

He acknowledged that he had been successful in feducing fome popifh foldiers of the Limerick militia, whose religion had made them acceffible to his arts of feduction.

What stability can any government have, and what fecurity can it afford for the lives and proper

ty

of its loyal fubjects, where religion is made the vehicle of treafon, and a priest in a few hours can fummon, and enrol, many thousand vagabonds under the ftandard of rebellion? of which many instances occurred in the provinces of Leinfter and Connaught, in the year 1798.

In that year proteftant property to the amount of one million was destroyed in less than three weeks, and in but a few counties; and yet there was an army of more than 80,000 men at that time in the kingdom.* At two critical junctures of the rebellion, it might have been fatal to the empire. Had the rebels fucceeded at the battle of Rofs, the infurrection was to have been general in the provinces of Munster and Leinfter; and it has been difcovered, that the day on which it was to have taken place, was to have been imparted to the populace at their respective chapels.

Behold the general and dreadful spirit of difaffection which appeared on the landing of but 1000 French! The marquis Cornwallis was under the neceflity of employing an army of 30,000 men

against them; and yet, notwithstanding his great military skill, and though he made the beft poffible difpofition of his troops to prevent them from approaching the metropolis, which they endeavoured to attain, they were very near eluding his vigilance.

He had ordered general Dundas to move towards him with the troops under his command in the county of Kildare, but he could not venture to do fo, as the mafs of its inhabitants were on the point of rifing; and the fame difpofition appeared in different parts of Leinster, Connaught and Ulfter, and even in the metropolis.

It is much to be lamented, that the Irish Roman catholicks in general, have, for two hundred years, manifested a marked hoftility against the protestant empire, which all the rebellions kindled on the score of rebellion, or in which its influence chiefly predominated, unquestionably prove.

I have faid a good deal in the fecond volume, beginning at page 496, on the means by which these evils may be remedied; but on a serious investigation of the state of the Charter-fchools, I find myself under a neceffity of retracting an opinion which I gave on them in page 500. It is moft certain, that the fanatical fpirit of profelytifm, which is infeparable from popery, in a great measure defeats their beneficial effects; for the greater part of the children. bred in them, who are apprenticed to individuals, relapse into popery, as they are unremittingly teized and perfecuted till they conform to the popish fuperftition.

Government

Government then should establish manufactories, or lay the foundation of towns, which fhould be exclufively, and rigidly, appropriated to protestants.

English manufacturers with large capitals fhould be encouraged to fettle in them; and the Charter schools, the Foundling hofpital, and the Hibernian school, would fupply them yearly with 1000 or 1200 apprentices.

Such inftitutions, when once eftablished, would maintain themselves, and grow like a tree, without any adventitious affiftance. In the Foundling hofpital, children of eleven years, who have been but a twelvemonth at the loom, earn fourteen fhillings a week; but unless some proteftant establishments be immediately formed, to breed them up in ufeful industry, they will relapse.

Derry and Bandon, two proteftant towns established in the reign of James I. evince the policy of this measure; for in all the rebellions kindled by popish fanaticism, they fought as bravely in defence of the conftitution in church and state, as the Irish protestants did in the year 1798. If all the charitable funds in Ireland which have been purloined or abused, were made productive, and converted to this plan, the most useful and exalted of all charities, protestantism, and loyalty, its infeparable concomitant, would make fuch rapid ftrides, that in a few years rebellion would not dare to rear its baleful head; and Ireland would be able to defend herself. I have faid much on this in page 496 of

vol. ii.