"If the present Nationalist movement succeeds, it will have the effect of putting the worst elements of the Irish nation in power, and keeping them there irremoveably. We are to have an Executive at the mercy of a House of Representatives, and the result will be a government, or series of governments, as weak and vicious as those of France, with this difference, that here all purifying changes such as seem imminent in France will be absolutely prevented by the irresistible power of England. The true model for us would be a constitution like yours in the United States, with an Executive responsible to the nation at large, and irremoveable for a term of years. But this we shall never get from England. Shall we make use of Home Rule to take it for ourselves? "Many earnest and active Irish Unionists now say that if any bill resembling Mr. Gladstone's passes, they will make separation, their definite policy. If Home Rule comes without the landlords having been bought out on reasonable terms, a class will be created in Ireland full of bitter and most just hatred of England--a class which may very likely one day play the part here which the persecuted Irish Presbyterians who fled from the tyranny of the English Church in Ireland played in your own Revolution beyond the Atlantic." <p><hr /></p> APPENDIX. NOTE F. THE "MOONLIGHTERS" AND "HOME RULE." (Vol. ii. p. 38.) On Monday, the 1st of February 1886, the _Irish Times_ published the following story from Tralee, near the scene of the "boycotting," temporal and spiritual, of the unfortunate daughters of Mr. Jeremiah Curtin, murdered in his own house by "moonlighters":-- "TRALEE, _Sunday_. "It was stated that the bishop had ordered Mass to be celebrated for them--the Curtins--but this did not take place. At the village of Firies a number of people had assembled. They stopped loitering about the place in the forenoon, waiting for a meeting of the National League, which was subsequently held. A threatening notice was discovered posted up on the door of a house formerly used as a forge. It ran as follows:-- "'NOTICE.--If we are honoured by the presence of the bloodthirsty perjurers at Mass on any of the forthcoming Sundays, take good care you'll stand up very politely and walk out. Don't be under the impression that all the Moonlighters are dead, and that this notice is a child's play, as Shawn Nelleen titled the last one. I'll be sure to keep my word, as you will see before long, so have no welcome for the Curtins, and, above all, let no one work for them in any way. As you respect the Captain, and as you value your own life, abide by this notice.'--Signed, 'A MOONLIGHTER.'