Mr. Lucre felt much hurt at the insinuation thrown out against his long absence from the parish and replied:—
“I do not, sir, in the least regret our want of intimacy. The character of your ministry in the parish is such, that he who can congratulate himself on not being acquainted with you has something to boast of. Excuse me, sir, but I beg to assure you, that I am not at all solicitous of the honor of your company.”
“Touching my ministry,” said the priest, “which it pleases you to condemn, I'd have you to know, that I will teach my people how to resist oppression so long as I am able to teach them anything. I will not allow them to remain tame drudges under burthens that make you and such as you as fat and proud as Lucifer.”
“I request you will be good enough, sir, to take some other way,” said Mr. Lucre; “you are a rude and vulgar person whom I neither know nor wish to know. The pike and torch, sir, are congenial weapons to such a mind as yours; I do beg you will take some other way, and not continue to annoy me any longer.”
“This way, man alive—”
“Man alive! To whom do you address such, a term?” said Mr. Lucre; “I really have never met so very vulgar a person; I am quite sickened, upon my honor. Man alive!! I trust I shall soon get rid of you.”
“This way, man alive,” responded the priest, “is as free to me, in spite of corrupt jobs and grand juries, as it is to you or any other tyrant, whether spiritual or temporal. If there are turbulence and disturbances in this parish, it is because bad laws, unjustly administered, drive the people, first, into poverty, and then into resistance. And, sir, you are not to tell me, for I will not believe it, that a bad law, dishonestly and partially administered, is not to be resisted by every legal means.”
“Do you call noon-day murder, midnight assassination, and incendiarism, legal? Do you call schooling the people into rebellion, and familiarizing them with crime, legal? All this may be allegiance to your pope, but it deserves a halter from the king and laws, of England.”
“The king and laws of England, sir, have ever been more liberal of halters to the Irish Catholics, than they have been of either common justice or fair play. What do the Catholic people get, or have ever got, from you and such as you, in return for the luxury which you draw, without thanks, from their sweat and labor, but gaols, and chains, and scourges, and halters. Hanging, and transportations, triangles, and drumhead verdicts, are admirable means to conciliate the Catholic people of Ireland.”
“The Catholic people of Ireland may thank you, and such red hot intemperate men as you, for the hangings, and transportations which the violated laws of the country justly awarded them.”