informer that he was at the attack; but it was proved he sent for the men, and met them at his own house, and offered them a 30s. note, which was refused.

"Who was that proved by ?-Robinson the informer, who went to attack the house; Robinson was taken up by the country people, by a lad of the name of Kikfoyle; and he has since been put into the police, because he could not live in the country."

Mr. Price further adds,

"I know other instances where the Whitefeet have been sent for by one Protestant to intimidate another Protestant; that is the reason that I say those Whitefeet are made use of by designing men, who may not be bound by their oath, but who, by the agency of a servant-boy or understrapper in their employment, make use of them to carry their purposes into effect.

"Do you think that a man who so makes use of an existing evil, identifies himself with it?-Yes, I think so; I think he is worse; the receiver is worse than the thief.'

"Will you be so good as to name any other Protestant that has been convicted or accused of participation in these offences ?—I have no knowledge of any other convicted or accused. I know an instance where a Protestant tenant ploughed up a considerable number of acres of pasture land; the landlord remonstrated with the tenant for it, and cautioned him not to burn it; and notwithstanding that caution, I heard and believe that a considerable number of Whitefeet came there in the open day and cocked the peating, or prepared it for burning, and it was supposed those people would not come there without the tacit consent of the tenant; that was the inference drawn from it. I am sure I am far from wishing to make an impression that any considerable number of Protestants are connected with it, but I am asked as to the fact, and I am bound to state it."—H. C., 1832, Nos. 6680-4, 6989-92, 7008.

Mr. Myles O'Reilly having confirmed Mr. Price's

statement with respect to Wall's having employed Whiteboys to commit an outrage for him, proceeds to

say,

"I have never heard of any other Protestant being engaged in similar proceedings, directly or indirectly; and I am quite certain that if it be not absolutely a solitary case, it is as nearly so as possible: I never heard of any other case, nor ever heard, nor do believe, that Protestants were members of that faction; on the contrary, they have been, in the Queen's County, the special, though not by any means exclusive, objects of persecution and intimidation by the Whitefeet and Blackfeet, and are compelled thereby to transport themselves into foreign countries in vast numbers; an emigration which it appears very lamentable, on many considerations, to witness." -H. C., 1832, No. 7126*.

Many Protestants seem, however, to have been engaged in the Whiteboy disturbances of 1786.

"Were they not Protestants (says Mr. O'Leary, in his answer to Bishop Woodward), who proposed the oaths to the congregation at Clonakilty? Were they not Protestants who overran the parishes of Affydown, Skibbereen, &c.? Were they not Protestants who headed a party of four hundred Whiteboys near Butterant? The most respectable criminals-if a criminal can be respectable-who were arraigned before the judges on the Munster circuit, were Protestants. If from the county of Cork his lordship had taken an excursion to the county of Kerry, he would find the truth of an assertion made by a gentleman who is both a clergyman and a magistrate, and who bears the happy character of uniting in his person the

* Whenever Whiteboyism has prevailed in parts of the country where Protestants are more numerous, some of them seem to have been engaged in it. Mr. Sergeant Moore states, of the disturbances of the Thrashers in the county of Longford in 1806, that "they were not con fined to any particular persuasion of people." (Above, p. 42). A Protestant Thrasher is incidentally mentioned in the county of Leitrim. Trials of the Thrashers, p. 259.

liberality of the gentleman, the charity of the clergyman, and the justice and uprightness of the magistrate. Many Protestants, though, I thank my God, mostly of the lower order (says that gentleman), were engaged in tendering oaths, in procession by day and in outrages by night, as any other description of men whatsoever. Nay, some of them were captains of these lawless corps, and have been obliged to fly from the prosecution that awaited them*.”

But although Whiteboyism springs from motives altogether foreign to religion; although it would unquestionably continue to exist unchanged in its main features, if all the Irish Catholics were converted to Protestantism, or if all the Irish Protestants were converted to Catholicism, or if both were converted to the Greek church; yet the connexion of religion with the political state of the people-the fact that the rich and governing and rent-receiving class is almost exclusively Protestant, and the poor and subject and rent-paying class is almost exclusively Catholic, naturally gives a religious tinge to the disturbances in question. Mr. Sergeant Lloyd, being asked in reference to disturbances in the county of Cork, whether" any part of the disposition to outrage arose from religious opinions,"

answers,

"It occurs to me, that when a disturbance takes place, always those religious jealousies are called in aid, and aggravate it, and make it of longer continuance, and perhaps of a worse description."-H. L., 1824, p. 112.

Mr. Newenham also gives evidence to the same effect.

"I consider that most of the disturbances in Ireland, though they may not in the commencement be influenced by a

* O'Leary's Defence, p. 40.

difference of religious feeling, have always come to that; because it is one of the strongest handles the ill-disposed can make use of to turn to their own purposes.

"Do you allude to an habitual discontent prevailing among the people on religious matters ?-I consider that whenever there is disturbance in the country, the discontent is more or less tinged with religious feelings."-H. C., 1824, p. 300.

Where such strong grounds of hostility exist, religious differences doubtless embitter the spirit of opposition; yet any person who will fairly review the evidence on this subject, however prepared to meet with traces of the mischief produced by the sectarian animosities of Ireland, will be surprised to find how little the Whiteboy disturbances have either begun or ended in religious hatred.

It is moreover to be observed that an obscurity has been thrown over the genuine objects of the Whiteboy combination by its confusion with Ribbonism; a confusion which exists not only in language, but in reality, as the one system appears in some instances to pass insensibly into the other, or rather the one is connected with the other. Now Ribbonism (strictly so called), which has prevailed chiefly in the north of Ireland, is a Catholic association, continued from the Defenders of the last century, and has been formed in hostility to the Orange association, consisting exclusively of Protestants*. The leading features of the Ribbon system, as well as its origin, are well exhibited in the following statement of Mr. O'Connell :

"Do you know at what time the Ribbon association began in the north of Ireland?-No, I cannot say when it began. My own opinion is, that it is a continuation of the Defender

* See Wyse's Hist. Sketch of the Catholic Association, vol. i., p. 409, 10, and above, p. 37.

system, which immediately ensued on the original formation of the Orange association in the north, and was connecting itself with the French Revolution, looking at a complete revolution in Ireland, and a separation from England. The Defender association was at first confined to the lower classes, but had the bad feature of being almost exclusively Catholic, as the Ribbon system is exclusively Catholic. Before the Defender system was put down, the Presbyterians joined a good deal among the Defenders, and thus combined, they mixed with the United Irishmen, when the events of the rebellion put down the Defenderism. Since that period, in proportion as the Orange irritation increased in the north of Ireland, has that of Ribbonism increased.

"Do not you think the extension of the Ribbon system, within the last few years, has considerably tended to spread Orangeism?-Unquestionably, they act on each other; the existence of Ribbonism makes it necessary for one perhaps to become an Orangeman, and the existence of Orangeism has certainly created many Ribbonmen.

"Does not it appear that the outrages that have taken place in the north of Ireland have generally taken place in consequence of conflicts between the Ribbonmen and Orangemen ? -No; a great many of them, in my opinion, and I have looked at them pretty closely, have originated with the mere insolence of triumph of the Orangemen, speaking of the lower classes of them. In their lodges they work themselves up into a great hatred of popery; they go out; they are armed with muskets and ball cartridges; and at the slightest sign of disrespect to them, they fire at the peasants.

66

Do you mean to say that they go out with arms to fairs, for instance, where men of both political feelings assemble; that one party goes armed and the other is unarmed?—I have not the least doubt that if that, were the subject of inquiry, it could be established, that the Orangemen go to fairs unarmed ; certainly the Catholics, many of whom are Ribbonmen, go equally unarmed, but the Orangemen, in general, leave their arms in a depôt, about a mile or half-a-mile from the fair. In