ORD HOWICK, now Earl Grey, was the first person in the present reign who publicly informed us, and the world, that our "superabundant population, is an an object of alarm to British Statesmen. This communication was incautiously drawn from the Noble Lord, in the House of Commons, in the unguarded heat of argument. His Lordship was very pressing and eloquent on the policy of Catholic Emancipation, and urged the wisdom of the measure, merely on the expediency of diminish. ing our numbers, which his speech taught us to believe was understood by his hearers, as a paramount duty due to the safety of the Empire, for, said he, by granting this Emancipation, you will encourage the Catholics to flock into your armies, and a twofold good will arise from it; the pub. lic force will be encreased, and the

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superabundant population of Ireland will be drawn off." If the stupidest, or the most credulous admirers of the humanity of English Statesmen, enter tain any doubt of the principle which has been ascribed to them by public writers, let them read this. There is no man of the privileged classes, in this country, who is not of the opinion of Lord Howick, on the necessity of what Mr. Windham termed "killing off." Their principles are not abstract exclusively, they reduce them into practice periodically, and on certain seasons the Irish Papists are musketted as regularly as geese are roasted at Christmas. The French kill us off, for travelling, and the Orangemen kill us off for staying at home.

There are plans of discouraging our encrease, besides that of shooting, but they want the merit of rapidity.-starv ing us off, may be ranked the second

in the order of this political economy, if waste can be properly named econo

my.

The Farming Society contributes. to the latter plan of extending famine, disease and death, by the persevering ingenuity they pursue in the exportation of our provisions, and the cold and studied neglect they express by the silence they invariably preserve, towards the wretched peasantry. Their laureats, their dinners and historiogra phers, loudly panegyrise the man who has fed the biggest hog, or who built the best stye, but, not one word is ever expressed by the Bishops and Lords who form the society, to tell the world, that the peasantry are to be rewarded for their labours, by being allowed to share what they raise, that they are to be taken out of the ditches, to be allowed the comfort of a dry shed to shield them from the weather, or a clean bed, to renew their strength, for eternal labours. Not one word or insinuation of this kind is ever entertained by any society of the description; so far from encouraging the unfortunate people by fair and adequate rewards, they are taught to be amply compensated, being allowed to exist, for the Orange mur derers stare them with the menaces of death, and by frequent example teach them lessons on the precarious tenure of human life. They are shot so frequently at their devotions, in their hovels, and in the fields, that, the terror of a violent death has lost much of its character, by the frequency of its visitations. The very recent pardon of Hall the yeoman, who was convicted for the most wanton exercise of his authority, by the murder of a boy in the streets of Dublin, in the day light, has thrown such a gloom over the Catholic inhabitants of the City, with the exultations of the Major, at whose solicitation the wretch has been spared for new murders; have so terrified every description of the proscribed, that, nothing but the most

serious apprehensions occupy the pub lic mind; some have adopted the precaution of shutting themselves in their houses, on days of review or parade of the yeomen, others whose circumstan ces were equal to it, have it in contemplation to emigrate. As to the houseless and pennyless poor, they ate in distraction, they cannot conceal nor transport themselves, and their tattered garments declare their profession of faith, which is their treason, and the unerring proof marks them out for the musquet, Had murders and pardons been unfrequent, this fever would not be so general, so alarming, or fatal to the public repose, but, the remembrance of Orange atrocity, and certain impunity, is within every per sons recollection. The case of a murder of a boy of eleven years of age, of the name of Moyvournagh, shot on the 12th of July last, and the utter disregard paid to the com plaints of his father, by all the surrounding magistrates, lay, and ecclesiastic. The murder of another boy of twelve years old, in Kilkenny, by Howard, the yeoman, of a boy of the name of Walker, shot at the Pigeonhouse, by one Browne, a yeoman, of a young man shot by Shields, in Kevinstreet; all within those five years, and instead of punishment the two latter murderers have been appointed to places in the post-office. We say nothing of the continual shooting and chapel burning in the North, our limits will not allow us, but, we say, that our numbers are diminishing daily, by the united policy of the Farming Societies, and Orange Societies, and the men who bathe their licensed hands in our blood, are granted not only mercy, but, promotion. We have no doubt, that from the interest Town Major Sirr, and Earl of Charlemont have made for the protec tion of Hall, that the trembling inhabitants of Dublin, who cannot aban. don the scene of poverty and persecution, will witness Mr. Hall basking in

all

whose absurdities defeat their own purpose. The Irish owe some obligation to the goverment that pays such historians to write against them. But it is incredible that a Scotch historian, liberal, enlightened, and learned, such as Lain, should not have shaken off such antiqusted prejudices. And that he should at the same time that he accuse with becoming spirit, the cruelties and massacres committed by the English in his own country, be guilty of the inconsistency of justifying the same crimes when committed upon the Irish. He has drawn a picture of the massacres by the army of O'Neil, with all the glowing colours of a poet, and yet has neither cited time, place, or person. He has contradicted the most circumstantial, conect, and authentic Irish historians, upon no better authority than certain manuscripts in Trinity College, of all other things the most suspicious, as this university was endowed with the very confiscations that took place, These mauuscripts are moreover the same from which Temple derived his information, when he says, "that hundreds of the ghosts of Protestants that were drowned by the rebele at Portadown bridge, were seen in the river, bolt upright, and were heard to cry out for revenge on these rebels." "One of these gnosts," says he, "was seen with hands lifted up, and standing from the 29th of December, to the latter end of the following lent." A principal deposition was made by Maxwell bishop of Kilmore, whose credie is principally relied on. He has described the different postures and gestures of the ghosts, as sometimes having been seen by day and night, walking upon the river; sometimes brandishing their naked swords; some times singing psalms, and other times shrieking in a most fearful and hideous manner." but he was candid enough to say, he obliged no man's faith,

in regard he saw them not with his own eyes; otherwise he had as much certainty as could morally be required of such matters."

One word more, and I shall have wound up the history of the Popery code.

In the reign of George I. (A. D. 1723) heads of a bill were framed for explaining and amending the act to prevent the growth of Popery, into which was introduced a clause for the castration of all the Irish priests, and presented on the 15th of November, 1724, to the Lord Lieutenant, by the commons, at the castle; who most earnestly requested his grace to recom mend the same in the most effectual manner to his majesty, hun.bly hoping from his majesty's goodness, and his grace's zeal for his service, and the Protestant interest of the kingdom, that the same might be passed into a law.

It was said to have been owing to the interposition of Cardinal Fleury, and his interest with Mr. Walpole, that this bill which was transmitted with such recommendation to England, was there thrown out. The duke of Grafton (Lord Lieutenant) condoled with the Irish parliament upon the loss of their favorite bill, apologised for its rejection upon the ground that it was brought forward too late in the session; and recommended a more vigorous execution of the laws against the growing evil.

I believe you will be now convinced, that the history of the Universe con tains nothing more atrocious than the persecutions of the Irish by the English; nothing more repugnant to çivilization; nothing more base or more flagitious; nothing more blasphemous or more profane; bidding a bold defiance to every attribute. by which the Creator has distinguished the human species from the ravening beasts of prey.

With