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 sixth part of the whole of the population of the city; while the Eng-to the charge of slothfulness, lish church, though most richly endowed, from the time of the Royal Government, cannot, I should think, boast of a third part of that number.

What a noble answer is this for the people of Ireland to give

preferred against them by their Scotch and Orange calumniators. But, Sir, if we had none of these proofs of the cheerful disposition 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 never want to be the taskmasters of others; but want to labour

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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 considerable. They everywhere yield to no part of the community in any themselves for the bread that they quality which a government ought to hold in esteem; and, as to laboriousness, they far exceed the people of all other nations. They 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

eat. It is a most curious fact, and most honourable to Ireland, that throughout the whole of the West India Colonies, and throughout

capacity of slave-driver: Oh! no:" them is worth more than a hand"ful of dollars to anybody else." This is their real character. Treat them justly and kindly, and not only their labour but their lives are at your service.

the lash is confided, or rather the cart-whip, as Wilberforce calls it; lash or cart-whip, or what it may be, it is confided nineteen times out of twenty perhaps to the hands of Scotchmen. It is the 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 they would go to hell rather than

go where Scotchmen go. By way of compensation, Scotland has produced more writers to preach up humanity than all the other countries in the world put together; while, as far as my observation has gone, Ireland has produced scarcely a writer of that description.

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 that Parliament to answer for this situation of Ireland? It is necessary, not to go into a whole history of the sufferings of the Irish people, but to give just a specimen of the evidence, taken before the Committee of 1823, in order to show the depth of that misery, into which the Irish people have been plunged. A witness being 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. GE NERAL 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 507. for the

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"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"tual relief has not been given" ral employment of the poor in "in some public works, and uni-" this country, I fear it is almost "versal employment has been too" too late, a few more days will 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

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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 "ployment, 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.”

"fact getting worse, he lay down

"Do you receive similar com

"again on the ground and died; "munications from other places?

"four have died in Buffin; and if "Yes.

"swelled limbs, pale looks, sunk "Will you have the kindness “cheeks and hollow eyes, are the" to state to the Committee what "harbingers of death, the work of "communication you received "death would soon be very rapid "from Sligo -This is an extract “in this country. I have often" of a letter from Sligo.

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"witnessed scarcity and dearness" We believe multitudes of ob"of provisions, but I never had" jects remain yet undiscovered, "6 an idea of famine until now; "and we fear that in another "next year will be in all proba-"month, notwithstanding our utbility 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

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bourers in Ireland were always willing to work "for the merest "subsistence that could be ob"tained, and at the lowest pos"sible rate of wages, for two

" provisions, and some within the "last day or two have been dis"covered stealing for food the "sea-weed, which had been car"ried to the fields as manure for potatoes; it is impossible to de- " pence 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 to-"ing 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 Did ever King before receive" procure by labour the means of such an account of the state of his " existence, were supported at an subjects? Other parts of the evi-" expense of not quite one penny dence, 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 have formed no conception, not 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

So much for the Report of 1823. During the last Session of Parliament, an Irish Member said, in his place in the House, upon

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 "the peasants showed some fern," helpless, without any comfort or "and a quantity of straw thrown" convenience, or any possible "over it, upon which they slept "way of gaining their livelihood; "in their working clothes, yet," and, unfortunately, the gentry are "whenever they had a meal of" so used to see that kind of dispotatoes 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

If such be the expense of keep

"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. of. A sum of money is now and then voted out of the general massing down the Irish Catholics in of taxes, and sent over to put a time of peace, what must be the stop to starvation for a while; but, expense in time of war, with an at the same time there are laws to American fleet hovering on the shut people up in their houses coast, and a French fleet always from sun-set to sun-rise, and to ready to sail from Brest or Cotransport them, if they offend runna?. Fifty thousand men ; against these laws; to transport nay, a hundred thousand men, them without trial by jury. To be at a disorderly house, after a certain hour, is punished with transportation in the same way. In short, there are no people in the world, and there never have been people treated as the main body of the Irish people now are treated.

would not, in all probability, be sufficient to provide for the security of Ireland. Does your Majesty think that foreign nations are ignorant of those things upon which I have been observing? Your Ministers would seem to believe them to be thus ignorant. 1 have seen a pamphlet, entitled, They do not submit to this "A Statement of the Penal Laws, treatment very quietly. They" which agrieve the People of 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

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