Note 19 — PREFACE.

Si je ne vous mange pas en oiseau, je vous mangerai en souris. “Other times,” they say, “bring other manners;” and it is not impossible that men, restrained by the manners of our own times, may avail themselves of the circumstance of their enforced moderation, to reproach the writer who thus recalls a fact disreputable to the English government, with ripping up old sores. The fact, however, is “germane to the matter;” for it was such forfeitures that sowed the first seeds of that permanent absenteeism which modern ministers affect to deplore: and it was these flagrant violations of common justice, that first nurtured the lawless disposition in the peasantry, which is made an excuse for the suspension of all constitutional rights, and which is most unjustly charged on the Catholic religion. Besides, as long as the system is continued, which withholds emancipation, and gives over the land to the tyranny and plunder of churchmen and their inherents, the “ripping up old sores” is both useful and justifiable.