that we verily believe the empire would be much stronger if
everything was open sea between England and the Atlantic, and if
SKATES AND COD-FISH swam over the fair land of Ulster. Such
jobbing, such profligacy, so much direct tyranny and oppression,
such an abuse of God's gifts, such a profanation of God's name for
the purposes of bigotry and party spirit, cannot be exceeded in the
history of civilised Europe, and will long remain a monument of
infamy and shame to England. But it will be more useful to suppress
the indignation which the very name of Ireland inspires, and to
consider impartially those causes which have marred this fair
portion of the creation, and kept it wild and savage in the midst of
improving Europe.

The great misfortune of Ireland is that the mass of the people have
been given up for a century to a handful of Protestants, by whom
they have been treated as Helots, and subjected to every species of
persecution and disgrace. The sufferings of the Catholics have been
so loudly chanted in the very streets, that it is almost needless to
remind our readers that, during the reigns of George I. and George
II., the Irish Roman Catholics were disabled from holding any civil
or military office, from voting at elections, from admission into
corporations, from practising law or physic. A younger brother, by
turning Protestant, might deprive his elder brother of his
birthright; by the same process he might force his father, under the
name of a liberal provision, to yield up to him a part of his landed
property; and, if an eldest son, he might, in the same way, reduce
his father's fee-simple to a life-estate. A Papist was disabled
from purchasing freehold lands, and even from holding long leases;
and any person might take his Catholic neighbour's house by paying 5
pounds for it. If the child of a Catholic father turned Protestant