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army , the eolonies , and even England herself—caii these be the fruit of ignorance , and idleness , and improvidence ? True , those amongst us whose hands produce this food and raiment are half naked , and you have been called upon to subscribe for their relief when they were
actually starving by thousands upon thousands . You generously gave that relief ; and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts . Misery never appealed to English humanity in vain . But , it is not your benevolence , though we join the rest of the world in applauding it ,
but your justice that ive want . That justice will lead you to ask how it can have happened , that a people should be in a state of the most deplorable distress , the most frightful famine , at the very moment when fleets , laden with food , the produce of their own soil and labour , were freighted from their shores ; and
while , oh , deceived Englishmen ! you were paying and clothing a large and most expensive army , who were well fed , and even feasting on Irish food , and whose cannons , and sabres , and bayonets had no other use than that of making the of the food
expiring producers refrain from breaches of the peace \ ' If you put this question to yourselves , if you cast your eyes on this scene , and then coldly turn a deaf ear to the call we now make upon you , never again let us hear of English justice , of English humanity ' ,
Trusting , however , that we shall always hear of both , and that it will be ^ our delight to be amongst the foremost to proclaim them to the world , we will , in few words , lay the history of our wrongs before you ; we will briefly state to you the causes of our miseries , and describe to you that remedy in the obtaining of which we now appeal to you for aid .
During more than one thousand years the Catholic religion was the religion of our and your fathers . A time arrived when the Government became Protestant , and when , no matter by what means , your fathers were brought , by degrees , to adopt and to follow the new religion . Our fathers retained the ancient faith . This faith they have handed down to us : in this faith we were born i
this faith we believe to be that which our Saviour and his holy apostles taught ; and , therefore , to this faith we have remained , and still remain , attached by the double motive of veneration for our fathers , and duty towards God . And what motive more worthy of respect and admiration ever actuated the mind of man ?
Yet , for acting upon this motive , what have we not Hu / Tered ? In the long lipt of persecutions , invented by ' minds at
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once the most fraudulent and ferdcitftis , there is not one which , during some portion or other of the last 250 years , we have not had to endure . To see our abbeys , our cathedrals , our churches ; to see the first of these confiscated and
demolished ; to see the two latter , together with all the immense endowments attached to them by our pious , provident , disinterested and generous forefathers ; to see this our patrimony wrested from us , and given to a clergy who protested against our faith , and in whose doctrines
our consciences forbade us to believe ; to see this , was a trial sufficient for ordinary minds ; but of our wrongs this forms not a thousandth part . During two centuries and a half , we , as well as you , have had eleven Sovereigns and one Usurper ; and , except the reign of one
Sovereign , no reign passed , until that of his late Majesty , without some new law , in addition -to those in existence , for punishing us for our fidelity . Barely to quote the titles of those acts , barely to describe the objects of that code , to propose , or even to think of which would
have made Nero blush , would require much more space than the whole of this our appeal . There is nothing , we believe there is no one thing , which is unjust , cruel , and insulting , which is not to be found in some part or other of that code . ' * Wives , be obedient unto your
own husbands , * ' says the Holy Apostle . Wives , be disobedient unto your own husbands , said , in effect , the code ; for it tendered the former a power over the property of the latter , if the former would become Protestant while the husband remained a Catholic- " Honour thy
father and thy mother , " says God . Dw-Jionour thy father and thy mother , said the code ; for , if any son would but apostatize , cover his parents with shame , and bring their grey hairs with sorrow to the grave , it , in despite of his parents , rewarded the unnatural monster with a large part of their estate . < c Covet not thy
neighbour's goods , " says our Maker . Covet thy neighbour ' s goods , said the code ; for if any Protestant sawa Catholic have a horse worth more than five pounds , it gave him a right to take away the horse and make it his own , upon giving the owner five pounds ; and if any Catholic had a lease yielding him a profit greater in amount than one-third of the rent ,
any Protestant might go , turn him out , and become proprietor of the lease in his stead ; and all this , and a hundred times more than this , for no other cause than that we remained firmly attached to the faith and worship of your and our fathers !
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252 Intelligences ** 'App eal of tfie Catketics qf Ireidnel .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1825, page 252, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2535/page/60/
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