more forcible illustration of this can be found than that presented
by India, and other of their dependencies that we could name. In
Ireland, also, the same spirit has been evinced; but under different
circumstances. She was already civilized and Christianized when the
invader first landed upon her shores; but in no way was he enabled to
totally overthrow her independence, except through the instrumentality
of the brand of religious discord, which, for upwards of two hundred
years, he had kept flaming at the foundations of her nationality. It
was the hostility bitterly fomented between the Protestants and the
Catholics of Ireland, from 1782 to the year 1800, that led to the
so-called Union, and from this latter period left her, to the present
hour, at the mercy of one of the most relentless and unprincipled
despotisms that has ever disfigured the annals of the human race.

Edmund Burk was right when he declared in his place in Parliament, if
we remember correctly, that the Penal Laws enacted by England against
Ireland, were characterized by an ingenuity the most fiendish on
record, and an attempt to oppress, degrade and demoralize a people,
without a parallel in the history of even the most barbarious ages.
Within the recollection of persons now living, nine-tenths of the
population were held in a condition of the most abject slavery, and
treated as aliens and enemies at their own doors. Add to this the
fact, that, previous to the granting of Emancipation, scarce a
generation had passed away since their priests were murdered at the
altar, or hunted down with dogs, like wild beasts; their goods and
chattels seized upon by any emissary of the government, and at a
nominal valuation appropriated to his own use; their creed and
language denounced and outlawed; their children deprived of the light
of learning under a penalty the most fearful; and, wherever the
tyrant had the power, their lands confiscated and handed over to