The common admission now is that the Catholics are to the
Protestants in Ireland as about four to one, of which Protestants
not more than ONE HALF belong to the Church of Ireland. This, then,
is one of the most striking features in the state of Ireland. That
the great mass of the population is completely subjugated and
overawed by a handful of comparatively recent settlers, in whom all
the power and patronage of the country is vested, who have been
reluctantly compelled to desist from still greater abuses of
authority, and who look with trembling apprehension to the
increasing liberality of the parliament and the country towards
these unfortunate persons whom they have always looked upon as their
property and their prey.

Whatever evils may result from these proportions between the
oppressor and oppressed--to whatever dangers a country so situated
may be considered to be exposed, these evils and dangers are rapidly
increasing in Ireland. The proportion of Catholics to Protestants
is infinitely greater now than it was thirty years ago, and is
becoming more and more favourable to the former. By a return made
to the Irish House of Lords in 1732 the proportion of Catholics to
Protestants was not two to one. It is now (as we have already
observed) four to one; and the causes which have thus altered the
proportions in favour of the Catholics are sufficiently obvious to
any one acquainted with the state of Ireland. The Roman Catholic
priest resides; his income entirely depends upon the number of his
flock; and he must exert himself or he starves. There is some
chance of success, therefore, in HIS efforts to convert; but the
Protestant clergyman, if he were equally eager, has little or no
probability of persuading so much larger a proportion of the