the Catholic bishop himself, who | York, there was a complaint had a few weeks before arrived amongst the American and Engfrom Rome, without exciting any lish ship-carpenters, that the Irish alarm in the Government of the were thrusting them out of emState, and without anybody pes- ployment. So, here they are butering him with the subject of a sily at work to complete that navy, "veto." So that there cannot by which the Edinburgh Rebe a Catholic population in New viewers fear the Catholic quesYork of less than about twenty tion is to be settled. thousand souls, forming about a What a noble answer is this sixth part of the whole of the popu- for the people of Ireland to give lation of the city; while the Eng- to the charge of slothfulness, lish church, though most richly en- preferred against them by their dowed, from the time of the Royal Scotch and Orange calumniaGovernment, cannot, I should tors. But, Sir, if we had none think, boast of a third part of that of these proofs of the cheerful disnumber. position to labour in the Irish, we have proof enough in what passes under our own eyes. They perform a very large part of the labours of the metropolis; and they come over to help to harvest the hay and the corn. They do not come to beg, but to work. They do not seek to live by trick; they What I have said of the population of the Irish at New York, may be pretty nearly said of those at Philadelphia. At Baltimore, they are still more numerous, and in a higher degree of prosperity; and even at Boston, where a Catholic was formerly held in abhorrence, their number is very con- never want to be the taskmasters siderable. They everywhere yield of others; but want to labour to no part of the community in any themselves for the bread that they quality which a government ought eat. It is a most curious fact, and to hold in esteem; and, as to la- most honourable to Ireland, that boriousness, they far exceed the throughout the whole of the West people of all other nations. They India Colonies, and throughout perform three-fourths of the heavy the Slave States of America, there labour in all the dock-yards of is scarcely such a thing known as America. Many of them are ship- an Irish proprietor of slaves; and, carpenters, and smiths, and sail- perhaps, it would be impossible to makers. When I was at New find one single Irishman in the capacity of slave-driver: Oh!no: |" them is worth more than a handthe lash is confided, or rather the "ful of dollars to anybody else." cart-whip, as Wilberforce calls This is their real character. Treat it; lash or cart-whip, or what it them justly and kindly, and not may be, it is confided nineteen only their labour but their lives times out of twenty perhaps to the are at your service. hands of Scotchmen. It is the What, then, Sir, can have brought such a people into that horrid situation, which has been described to us over and over again, in Reports made to the Parliament by its own Committees? Have we not a right to call upon same in Virginia, in the Carolinas, and in Georgia. Scotchmen are, everywhere, the floggers. There is a saying amongst the negroes through the whole of these countries; "Negro man go to debil, if Cochman go to God;" meaning that Parliament to answer for this that they would go to hell rather situation of Ireland? It is necesthan go where Scotchmen go. By sary, not to go into a whole hisway of compensation, Scotland tory of the sufferings of the Irish has produced more writers to people, but to give just a specipreach up humanity than all the men of the evidence, taken before other countries in the world put the Committee of 1823, in order to together; while, as far as my ob- show the depth of that misery, servation has gone, Ireland has into which the Irish people have produced scarcely a writer of that been plunged. A witness being description. asked to produce a representation that had been made to him, he produced a letter which had been addressed by a clergyman to the Archbishop of Tuam, which was read in the following words, and then the examination proceeded in the manner that your Majesty will see. Such are the people of Ireland, Sir; sometimes irregular in their conduct; seldom over prudent; but always generous, kind, and laborious. By nothing are they distinguished so much as by their cordial, ungrudging gratitude. GENERAL SWARTWOUT, who was an American, who decided upon am"My Lord, I had the honour ple experience, and who must "and pleasure of receiving your have been perfectly impartial, "Grace's letter, enclosing a letter described the Irish character in " from the Liverpool Committee, the short phrase, "A good word to "with a donation of 501. for the "relief of our starving neigh-"re-mould their potatoes, and "bours; it was very kind and "they do not like the cutting turf; "good, but it will not do; effec- " as to the public works and gene "ral employment of the poor in "this country, I fear it is almost "too late, a few more days will "tual relief has not been given " in some public works, and uni"versal employment has been too "long delayed; one poor crea- "incapacitate them for any thing "ture who was employed by me "of the kind; I dismissed this "last week to amuse, but not to "evening the three hundred men " fatigue himself, at the repairing "whom I had employed in the " of roads, was at work on Satur- "repairs of the road, I never wit," day evening, fasted I am afraid "nessed such distress as my .com"yesterday, Sunday, got up this "munication of not being able to "morning, Monday, to work, not give them another day's work " from bed, for bed he had none, "occasioned; they said that a " but from the ground on which day or two more without em" he slept, without bed-clothes, in "ployinent, that is, without food, "his daily rags; he said he felt "would put an end to all their " languid and sleepy, he was in " labours.". 66 66 "Do you receive similar com-"munications from other places ? "fact getting worse, he lay down " swelled limbs, pale looks, sunk : "We believe multitudes of ob"jects remain yet undiscovered, "and we fear that in another "month, notwithstanding our ut " witnessed scarcity and dearness " of provisions, but I never had "an idea of famine until now; "next year will be in all proba"bility as bad as this, the poor "most efforts, the aspect will be "people of this barony at least" even worse than it is now: be" will find it so; they are so weak "fore their distress was published, "they cannot work for themselves, "all the little furniture of their "because they have no food; "cabins had been sold, even to " they are not able to recover or "their only pot for boiling their 66 " provisions, and some within the bourers in Ireland were always " last day or two have been dis- willing to work " for the merest "covered stealing for food the "subsistence that could be ob"sea-weed, which had been car- "tained, and at the lowest pos"ried to the fields as manure for "sible rate of wages, for two" potatoes; it is impossible to depence a-day, in short, for any "scribe the admiration and grati- "thing that would purchase food " tude which prevails throughout " enough to keep them alive dur"all classes of society here toing the ensuing twenty-four "wards their English benefactors, "hours." Another witness says, " indeed our only hope of any that, "twenty-six thousand eight "thing like effectual relief is in "hundred and forty-five persons, "the liberality of British bene- " in one county, most of them un"volence." "fitted, by age or disease, to 66 procure by labour the means of " existence, were supported at an "ex expense of not quite one penny So much for the Report of 1823. During the last Session of Parlia Did ever King before receive such an account of the state of his subjects? Other parts of the evidence, taken before the Commit- " each per day." tee, tell us, that a large portion of the peasantry live in a state of misery, of which the witness could ment, an Irish Member said, in have formed no conception, not his place in the House, upon imagining that any human beings what he deemed good authority, could exist in such wretchedness. that even the females amongst "Their cabins scarcely contain the labouring classes were per"an article that can be called fectly naked. His words were " furniture; in some families there these: "They are perfectly naked "are no such things as bed-clothes, "as to clothing, and perfectly " helpless, without any comfort or "convenience, or any possible way of gaining their livelihood; "and, unfortunately, the gentry are " so used to see that kind of dis "the peasants showed some fern, " and a quantity of straw thrown "over it, upon which they slept "in their working clothes, yet, "whenever they had a meal of "potatoes they were cheerful; "tress, that it does not shock them; "the greater part, he understood, "they see people naked, and with "to drink nothing but water." " nothing in the world but a Another witness says, that the la- "blanket to sleep on, without a "bed to lie on, and they are not strife. An army, altogether, not " aware that it is not the usual much short of forty thousand horse " and proper way for them to ex- and foot, are continually in acti" ist, they are so used to see it." vity to prevent the flames of open Your Majesty must here see war. This army is said to be in that you are the Sovereign of the aid of the "civil power." That most miserable set of people that civil power, together with the army, the world ever saw. And this costs more money than the whole state of things, which has conti-gross amount of the revenue of nued for a long while, it is not Ireland; to say nothing of the even proposed to change. No votes of money occasionally made effectual remedy is even talked to prevent actual starvation. If such be the expense of keeping down the Irish Catholics in time of peace, what must be the expense in time of war, with an American fleet hovering on the coast, and a French fleet always ready to sail from Brest or Co of. A sum of money is now and then voted out of the general mass of taxes, and sent over to put a stop to starvation for a while; but, at the same time there are laws to shut people up in their houses from sun-set to sun-rise, and to transport them, if they offend runna? Fifty thousand men; against these laws; to transport nay, a hundred thousand men, them without trial by jury. To would not, in all probability, be be at a disorderly house, after a sufficient to provide for the secucertain hour, is punished with rity of Ireland. Does your Matransportation in the same way. jesty think that foreign nations In short, there are no people in are ignorant of those things upon the world, and there never have which I have been observing ? been people treated as the main Your Ministers would seem to hebody of the Irish people now are lieve them to be thus ignorant. 1 treated. have seen a pamphlet, entitled, "A Statement of the Penal Laws, "which agrieve the People of They do not submit to this treatment very quietly. They seek and they take vengeance as "Ireland." I have been told often as they can. The strife is that it has been proposed to have very unequal; but it is incessantly this pamphlet translated into going on : neither stripes, chains, French, and circulated abroad by or transportings put an end to this way of an appeal to Europe on |