You know, and many Englishmen know, what passes in China; but nobody
knows or cares what passes in Ireland. At the beginning of the
present reign no Catholic could realise property, or carry on any
business; they were absolutely annihilated, and had no more agency in
the country than so many trees. They were like Lord Mulgrave's
eloquence and Lord Camden's wit; the legislative bodies did not know
of their existence. For these twenty-five years last past the
Catholics have been engaged in commerce; within that period the
commerce of Ireland has doubled--there are four Catholics at work for
one Protestant, and eight Catholics at work for one Episcopalian. Of
course, the proportion which Catholic wealth bears to Protestant
wealth is every year altering rapidly in favour of the Catholics. I
have already told you what their purchases of land were the last year:
since that period I have been at some pains to find out the actual
state of the Catholic wealth: it is impossible upon such a subject to
arrive at complete accuracy; but I have good reason to believe that
there are at present 2000 Catholics in Ireland possessing an income of
£500 and upwards, many of these with incomes of one, two, three, and
four thousand, and some amounting to fifteen and twenty thousand per
annum:--and this is the kingdom, and these the people, for whose
conciliation we are to wait Heaven knows when, and Lord Hawkesbury
why! As for me, I never think of the situation of Ireland without
feeling the same necessity for immediate interference as I should do
if I saw blood flowing from a great artery. I rush towards it with
the instinctive rapidity of a man desirous of preventing death, and
have no other feeling but that in a few seconds the patient may be no
more.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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