Page:A letter to the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, M.P. on the state of Ireland.djvu/55

 far more importance to mankind, for good or evil, than the black letter of any statute.

In fact, the Administration of Lord Normanby, Lord Morpeth, and, perhaps more than both, of Thomas Drummond, the Under- Secretary, was of more value to Ireland than the Appropriation Clause. The mere announcement that property had its duties as well as its rights was a knell to the old Orange Ascendancy, from which that mischievous faction has never recovered. Sir Robert Peel could not, in spite of all his liberality, separate himself from the minority of the Irish people, and from their offensive presumption that the entire government of Ireland belonged to them. When he said that Ireland was his difficulty, he knew well that no Irish Catholic would accept office under him. Unfortunately he had, early in his political life, filled the office of Irish Secretary at a time when Protestant Ascendancy was the motto, the spirit, and the cry of the governing party. When Chief Secretary he adopted that cry. To have changed this cry for that of 'Justice to Ireland,' was the claim of Lord Melbourne to public confidence. The Irish Liberals freely gave that confidence. In fact, the whole spirit of the Irish administration was changed, and the miserable monopolising minority have never been able to restore their magnum latrocinium.

We now arrive, then, at the great question of the Irish Established Church. But here, as in other cases, it is well to know the facts before we pronounce an opinion.

Personally the clergy of the Protestant Episcopal