‘Ah, so you think, but I assure you, sir, that it is quite otherwise; yet all that we ask from England is justice. England is rich and powerful, and uses her riches and her power to oppress poor Ireland.’ ‘How so?’ ‘Sir, allow me to refer you to the history of my unfortunate country. There was a time when Ireland had a flourishing linen trade, but England, in her jealousy of Ireland, destroyed it.’ ‘Well,’ said Wentworth, ‘I have been in Belfast, and was struck with the prosperity of the place, the respectability of its shops, the size of its warehouses, the extent of its harbours. I saw a large population all seemingly well employed, well dressed, and well fed, with no end of public institutions and newspapers, and all in consequence of that linen trade which you tell me the English have destroyed.’ ‘Oh, sir,’ said the priest, ‘one swallow does not make a summer. If one town is fairly well off, that is no reply to the charge of poverty produced by the English. You’ve seen our harbour in Galway?’ ‘I have been there, and, undoubtedly, it is a fine harbour.’ ‘Indeed, sir, it is,’ replied the priest; ‘and, as you are probably aware, at one time it was intended to be the seat for a great Transatlantic trade.’ ‘Yes, we all know that. We have, unfortunately, all heard of the collapse of the Galway Line. It is a sad sight to see the great warehouse standing there empty. I believe a good deal of money was lost by too confiding shareholders?’ ‘Indeed, sir, you’re right; but what was the reason?’ ‘Well, I really don’t recollect at this particular moment.’ ‘Sir, the reason was the jealousy of the Liverpool shipowners. What do you think they did?’ ‘I really can’t say.’ ‘Well, as soon as the Liverpool shipowners saw the line was going to be a success, they came over to Galway and bribed the pilot to run the ship on the only rock there was in the harbour, and there was the end of the Galway Transatlantic Line.’ ‘Of course, Father O’Bourke, I am not going to contradict you,’ replied Wentworth. ‘I am not a Liverpool shipowner, and know little about them; but I was not long ago in Galway, in the very harbour to which you refer, and while I was there a man said to me that Allan’s steamers used to call in there for emigrants, and I asked why they did not then. “Oh,” said he, “the fact was, that while they charged in Londonderry a penny a ton, and in Queenstown a halfpenny, in Galway the charges were sixpence a ton, and so the steamers were driven away.” Thus, you see, it was not the Liverpool shipowners, but the Galway people themselves, that drove the trade away. What do you say to that?’ ‘Well,’ said the priest, rather confusedly, ‘the fact is, there are wheels within wheels; we do not want the people to emigrate.’ ‘No, you fear you will lose your power over them if they do; but, for the sake of abusing England, you tell me that England ruined the Galway Steam Packet Company. I am inclined to believe it did nothing of the kind.’