If I were asked to point out one single thing that did more to make sure American liberty than any other, I would speak of the tithing of the Presbyterians in the province of Ulster. When this colony had been planted in Ulster on the “confiscated” lands of the O’Donnells and O’Neils and other septs, when these brave, intellectual, industrious, independent Scotch Celts (for that is what the large majority of them were) brought over to settle this province under promises not kept—and in this connection it should be remembered that these settlers had no part in the conspiracy of Sir Arthur Chichester and Sir John Davies and other English “Civilizers” and land grafters in despoiling the O’Donnells and O’Neils and minor Irish septs of 3,000,000 acres of the best land in Ulster—were confronted with the test oath of Queen Anne applied to Catholics and Presbyterians alike, when they were compelled to pay tithes, the same being taken from their fields of wheat or the corn from their barn, to support a church into which they would not enter in common with their Catholic fellow countrymen, upon emigrating to this country they became American Rebels on every battlefield in the United States. They came to the States before the Revolution in such numbers that in one year twelve thousand Ulster Presbyterian Irish left that province for American ports. The flow of immigration was so continued and so great in volume that it is a matter of record, which anyone can read in the State Papers, that the Presbyterian ministers of the province of Ulster petitioned the King to stop the immigration by repeal of obnoxious laws and alien injustice, or they would have no congregations left in Ireland. You can trace them today from Londonderry, N. H., and Dublin in the same state, to Donegal in Pennsylvania, and down the whole Appalachian chain into Florida; and everywhere you will find settlements and towns bearing the good old Irish names and founded by these patriots, who stood by Washington and whose motto was, “No surrender to the British Government.” (Applause.) On that subject alone I hope to be permitted, Mr. President, if I can find the leisure, to present to this Society, with due historical references, the truth of history as regards that period. During the famine period that I spoke of there was a Cunard ship called the “Cephelonia.” The “Cephelonia” was one of the most celebrated ships of the Cunard line, and, during the famine period, she brought great numbers of Irish immigrants to Boston. One day not many years ago I was talking to a couple of Irish American friends of mine in Boston, when a third man came up and gave the time of day to my friend and passed on. One of my friends turned to the other and said, “Is he a ‘Mayflower’?” and my friend replied, “No, he,” said he, “is a ‘Cephelonian.’ The ‘Cephelonians’ now outnumber the ‘Mayflowers.’”