hearth tax 701,000 houses, and there is no kind of question that
there were about 50,000 houses omitted in that return. Taking,
however, only the number returned for the tax, and allowing the
average of six to a house (a very small average for a potato-fed
people), this brings the population to 4,200,000 people in the year
1791: and it can be shown from the clearest evidence (and Mr.
Newenham in his book shows it), that Ireland for the last fifty
years has increased in its population at the rate of 50 or 60,000
per annum; which leaves the present population of Ireland at about
five millions, after every possible deduction for EXISTING
CIRCUMSTANCES, JUST AND NECESSARY WARS, MONSTROUS AND UNNATURAL
REBELLIONS, and all other sources of human destruction. Of this
population, two out of ten are Protestants; and the half of the
Protestant population are Dissenters, and as inimical to the Church
as the Catholics themselves. In this state of things thumbscrews
and whipping--admirable engines of policy as they must be considered
to be--will not ultimately avail. The Catholics will hang over you;
they will watch for the moment, and compel you hereafter to give
them ten times as much, against your will, as they would now be
contented with, if it were voluntarily surrendered. Remember what
happened in the American war, when Ireland compelled you to give her
everything she asked, and to renounce, in the most explicit manner,
your claim of Sovereignty over her. God Almighty grant the folly of
these present men may not bring on such another crisis of public
affairs!

What are your dangers which threaten the Establishment?--Reduce this
declamation to a point, and let us understand what you mean. The
most ample allowance does not calculate that there would be more
than twenty members who were Roman Catholics in one house, and ten