CHAP. 6,000,000.* At least two millions and a half of perXXI. sons have disappeared from Ireland during ten years, 1830. and of these above two millions are Roman Catholics. The consequence is, that the disproportion between the Protestants and Catholics has disappeared; already it is doubtful whether they are not equal in number; at the next census they certainly will be so. The priests in the country have already sunk to one-half their former number-they have declined from nearly 5000 to 2600. At the same time the embarrassments of the landed proprietors, arising from the depression of agriculture, consequent upon Free Trade and the fall in the value of rural produce, have come to such a climax that a rigorous measure became indispensable. The land was in great part wrested from the old insolvent proprietors, and the sales of the Encumbered Estates Commission have transferred it to Saxon wealth nearly as generally as the * A return has been issued from the Census Office in Dublin, showing the population of Ireland from the year 1805 to 1851, both inclusive, as far as the same could be ascertained from various sources. The result is thus set forth : Celtic exodus has consigned its cultivation to the direc- CHAP. tion of Saxon hands. XXI. 1830. full Beneficial salu- these effect of Ire- changes Ire on the Empire. These changes, which have come on so suddenly that 171. we are scarcely able even now to appreciate their effects, have already produced a visible and most tary change on the condition of the whole empire. land has ceased to be, what for about a century past it had been, a thorn in the side of England, a source of weakness instead of strength to the United Kingdom. It is no longer necessary to retain thirty thousand soldiers in the country to keep down its inhabitants. The barracks are empty, or tenanted only by the police-monster meetings are unknown-the undiminished strength of the empire can be sent to the Baltic or the Euxine. Agitation has disappeared-the repeal of the Union is no longer heard of all thoughts and desires are turned to the promised land on the other side of the Atlantic. England was punished, and justly punished, for her religious intolerance and political selfishness by a century of vexation and weakness, consequent on the connection with Ireland-she is now reaping the reward of a more generous policy, and a great act of justice, in the comparative comfort of that connection, and the dawn of prosperity visible in the sister isle. But it is not to the gratitude or loyalty of those to whom this act of justice was done that she is indebted for this blessed consummation; she owes it to their ingratitude and blind submission to a foreign potentate, which, by depriving the Catholics of the remuneration for their industry, has driven them headlong across the Atlantic. That which all the wisdom of man had failed to effect has resulted from the unforeseen and not intended consequences of his passions. Thus does the wisdom of the Almighty cause even the wrath of man to praise Him. Nor have the consequences of emancipation been less decisive against the spread of the Catholic faith in Great XXI. 1830. 172. Reaction Britain. CHAP. Britain. It was natural that the Romish hierarchy, seeing this great victory gained by the effects of agitation in Ireland, and many persons of distinction of both sexes in England embracing their faith, should have thought that against Catholicism the time had come when the work of the Reformation in Great was to be undone, and the British Isles were to be wholly regained by the Holy See. They openly announced the project accordingly. Great Britain was divided into ecclesiastical districts; bishops were appointed, and the cardinal-legate assumed the long-forgotten title of Catholic times. The effect was decisive. A burst of Protestant enthusiasm ensued unparalleled since the Reformation, and the prime-minister of the Crown, a leading supporter of emancipation, took the initiative in calling it forth. The aggressive and ambitious spirit of the Church of Rome-which is recorded in every page of modern history, but had come to be forgotten during the tolerant slumber of the close of the nineteenth century—was again brought to light, and the contest of the Protestants with the Catholics was renewed, but without the withering alliance with political distinction which had so long detached the generous from the side of the former. Men saw that the Church of Rome was unchanged and unchangeable, and must be combated with vigour as in the first fervour of the Reformation; but the contest came to be carried on, not by pains, penalties, and disabilities, but by reason, argument, and intelligence, and above all, by raising the intellectual character of women, among whom its principal votaries are always to be found. The whole vantage-ground gained by the Catholics during the struggle for emancipation was lost by its acquisition. 173. And in Nor have the consequences of that concession been less injurious to the cause of Catholicism on the other side of the Atlantic. The pastors in vain followed their flocks to the New World; their ascendant was at an end when they left the shores of the Emerald Isle. Vast was XXI. 1830. the difference between the dark night of Celtic ignorance, CHAP. lighted only by the feeble rays of superstition, and the bright aurora of Transatlantic energy, illuminated by the effulgence of knowledge, intelligence, and intellect. The priest was swallowed up in the gulf of democracy. The ascendant which the Romish clergy had acquired amidst the ignorance and solitude of the Irish wilds, was speedily lost when surrounded by the turmoil of American interests, the conflict of American sects. So signally has the influence of the Church of Rome declined in the United States, that, notwithstanding the immense influx of Irish Catholics in the last ten years, there are only now 1,200,000 members of Romish churches in the Union, out of 13,000,000 embraced in the whole divisions of the Christian communion. It is a common complaint, accordingly, of the Catholic clergy in America, that they have lost all influence over their flocks; that their followers live altogether without God in the world; and that, without embracing any new faith, they have simply renounced the old. This, it is to be feared, is too often the case. From superstition to infidelity is but a step. It is by the torch of knowledge, and it alone, that the flame of a pure and lasting piety is, in an enlightened age, to be kindled. But that torch is not awanting in America; and, without anticipating the march of events that yet lie buried in the womb of time, it may with confidence be predicted that, however strongly the Catholic tenets may be rooted amidst the traditions and corruptions of the Old World, it will never make head against the energy and intelligence of the New; and that still less will infidelity permanently retain any hold of a people open to the influences and blessed by the choicest gifts of Nature. CHAPTER XXII. DOMESTIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE PASSING OF THE XXII. 1. THE English nation can never have more than one CHAP. object of interest or ambition at one time; and thence it is that internal discord has so often been appeased by the 1830. advent of foreign war. Accordingly, the three years which The interval elapsed between the passing of the Catholic Relief Bill in emancipa- 1829, and the Reform Bill in 1832, presented but one feapassing of ture-the preparation for or approach of reform. As the the Reform Hundred Days were nothing but the eve before the battle entirely oc- of Waterloo, so these three years were nothing but the eve the question before the Reform Revolution. All interests were wound between tion and the Bill was cupied by of reform. up in it, all desires centred in it, all heads occupied with it. The indifference which had so long prevailed on this subject had passed away, and been succeeded by an intense passion, which gradually went on accumulating in violence, until at length it became altogether irresistible. Various causes conspired at that time to feed and strengthen this passion which had never before come into operation, and by their combined action brought about the great and all-important, though happily bloodless, revolution of 1832. 1. The first of these was the immense increase of manufacturing and commercial wealth and industry which had taken place during and since the war, and the great |