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ti pQQ equal terms , their Orange as sail ants . To these several causes of disturbance , we may add certain moral causes . There has existed an ancient
connection , soUtary in its nature , between the Catholic pastor and his flock . This connection has been often , with very little reflection , inveighed against , by those who call themselves friends to the constitution in church and state . I have had judicial
opportunities of knowing , that this connection between the Catholic pastor and his flock , has been , in some instances , weakened and nearly destroyed ; the flock , goaded by their wants , and flying in the face of the pastor , with a lamentable abandonment of all
religions feeling , and a dereliction of all regard to that pastoral superintendance , which is so essential to the tranquillity of the country . For , if men have no prospect here , but of a continued series of want , and labour , and privation ; and if the hop s and fears of a future state aie withdrawn
from them , by an utter separation from their own pastor , vyliat must be the state of society ? The ties of religion aud morality being thus loosened , a frightful state of things has ensued . Perjury has abounded . The sanctity of oaths has ceased to
he binding , . save where they administer to the passions of parties . The oaths of the Orange Associations , or of the Ribbon men , have , indeed , continued Jo be obligatory . As for oaths administered in a cuurt of justice , they have been set at nought .
Gentlemen , another deep-rooted cause of immorality has been the operation of the county presentment code of Ireland—abused , as it has been , for the purposes of fraud aud peculation , will you not be astonished ,
when I assure you , that I have had information judicially , from an upright country gentleman and grand juror of unquestionable veracity in a Western county , that in the ge-Ueral practice , not one in ten of the
accounting affidavits was actually sworn at all ? Magistrates have signed , and given away printed forms 01 such affidavits in blank , to be filled ** P at the pleasure of the parly . This abuse produced a strong representation fruav me to the Grand Jury ; and had
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I known the fact in time , I would hav made an example of those magistrates who were guilty of so scandalous a dereliction of duty . Another source of immorality mav be traced in the
registry of freeholds . Oaths of registration are taken , which , if not perjury , are something very near it . The tenantry are driven to the hustings , and there , collected like sheep in a pen , they must poll for the great undertaker , who has purchased them
by his jobs ; and this is frequently done , with little regard to conscience or duty , or real value of the alleged freehold . Another source of immorality lay in the hasty mode of pronouncing decrees upon Civil Bills , which vvas common before Assistant Barristers
were nominated for the several counties . AH these concurring causes , however , created such a contempt for oaths , that 1 have often lamented it to be my painful lot to preside in a court of justice , and to beob \ % ed to listen to such abominable profanation . I now come to another source of
vice and mischief , with which you are , perhaps , unacquainted— " Illicit Distillation . " From this source , a dreadful torrent of evils and crimes has flowed upon our land . The excessive increase of rents had induced many persons to bid rents for their farms , which they knew they could not faiily or properly discharge ; but they
flattered themselves , that , in the etiurse of years , the value of those farms would rise still higher , and that thus they might ultimately acquire beneficial interests . In the mean time , they have had recourse to illicit distillation , as the means of making good their rents . Hence the public revenue has been defrauded to the
amount of millions—nay ; h is a fact , that at one period , not far ba k , there was not a single licensed chstille y in an entire p . ovince—namely , the north west circuit , where the consumption of spirituous liquors is , perhaps , CdJled for by the coldoess and humidity of the
climate . The old powers of the law having proved unavailing , the l . gisla . ture was compelled to enact new laws , which , though clashing with the ^ y first principles of evidence under our happy constitution , were yet called for by the exigency of the times—laws ,
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Judge Fletcher ' s Charge . 585
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1814, page 585, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2444/page/61/
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