Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/261

 poor persecuted covenanters, and to do honour to their base and cruel persecutors."

"I don't say a word in defence of his worship of such heroes as Claverhouse—a man whom I don't even much admire as a soldier—and who, in every other respect, can only be an object of detestation for his tyranny and cruelty—cowardly cruelty too, in order to establish the despotism of such despicable tyrants as Charles the Second and his brother James. These were one set of your native oppressors. But what say you to this description, which I have reason to know is borne out by the best historical evidence, of the other set of your native oppressors, consisting of such right worthy and pious noblemen' as this Earl of ?"

He then read the following passage:—

"It remained to dispose of the wealth lately enjoyed by the Catholic clergy, who were supposed to be possessed of half of the revenue of Scotland, so far as it arose from land. Knox and the other Reformed clergy had formed a plan for the decent maintenance of a National Church out of these extensive funds, and proposed, that what might be deemed more than sufficient for this purpose should be expended upon hospitals, schools, universities,