“No,” replied the other, “I only want to see the length of your tongue; don't be alarmed, the whole thing will end merrily; come, now, give three of the heartiest laughs you ever gave in your life, or down goes your apple-cart—you know what that means?”
“I—I c—a—n'—t,” said he.
“Yes, you can,” replied his castigator; “nothing's more easy; come, be merry.”
The caitiff, for he was a coward, and wanted bottom, upon getting a little wind, whilst the other held him by the throat, gave three of the most ludicrous, but disastrous, howls that ever were witnessed. On his opponent letting him go, he took to his heels, but got a kick on going out that was rather calculated to accelerate his flight. Legislators, therefore, ought to know that no political whipping will ever make a people laugh at the pleasure of it.
But to resume our narrative. England, now apprehensive, as we have said, of a descent of the French upon her southern coast, and startled by the successes of the young Pretender, who had cut Cope's army to pieces, deemed it expedient to send over the celebrated Earl of Chesterfield as Viceroy, with instructions to relax the rigor of the laws, and conciliate the Catholics, as well as he could, so, at least, as to prevent them from joining the Pretender, whose object it was understood to be to cross the frontier and march upon London. Lord Chesterfield's policy afforded great gratification to the Catholics, who were now restored to their usual privileges; and its political object was so far successful that, as we have said, not a single man of them ever joined the Pretender. Still, the liberal Protestants, or, as they were termed, the patriotic party, were not satisfied with the mere removal of the Catholic restrictions. Ireland, at that time, was studded with men, or rather with monsters, like Smellpriest and Whitecraft, who were stained with the blood of their fellow-subjects and fellow-Christians. Sir Robert Whitecraft, especially, was now in a bad position, although he himself was ignorant of it. The French Ambassador demanded satisfaction, in the name of his Court and the French nation, for the outrage that had been committed upon a French. subject, and by which international law was so grossly violated. We must say here that Whitecraft, in the abundance of his loyalty and zeal, was in the habit, in his searches after priests, and suspected lay Catholics, to pay domiciliary visits to the houses of many Protestant magistrates, clergymen, and even gentlemen of wealth and distinction, who were suspected, from their known enmity to persecution, of harboring Catholic priests and others of that persuasion; so that, in point of fact, he had created more enemies in the country than any man living. The Marquis of———, Mr. Hastings, Mr. Brown, together with a great number of the patriotic party, had already transmitted a petition to the Lord Lieutenant, under the former Administration; but it was not attended to, the only answer they got having been a simple acknowledgment of its receipt. This, on coming to Sir Robert's ears, which it did from one of the underlings of the Castle, only gave a spur to his insolence, and still more fiercely stimulated his persecuting spirit. He felt conscious that Government would protect him, or rather reward him, for any acts of violence which he might commit against the Catholic party, and so far, under his own pet Administration, he was right.
The petition we have alluded to having been treated with studied contempt, the persons and party already mentioned came to the determination of transmitting another, still more full and urgent, to the new Viceroy, whose feeling it was, for the reasons we have stated, to reverse the policy of his predecessor.
His liberal administration encouraged them, therefore, to send him a clear statement of the barbarous outrages committed by such men as Smellpriest and Sir Robert Whitecraft, not only against his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects, but against many loyal Protestant magistrates, and other Protestants of distinction and property, merely because they were supposed to entertain a natural sympathy for their persecuted fellow-subjects and fellow-countrymen. They said that the conduct of those men and of the Government that had countenanced and encouraged them had destroyed the prosperity of the country by interrupting and annulling all bonafide commercial transactions between, Protestants and Catholics. That those men had not only transgressed the instructions they received, from his predecessor, but all those laws that go to the security of life and property. That they were guilty of several cruel and atrocious murders, arsons, and false imprisonments, for which they were never brought to account; and that, in fine, they were steeped in crime and blood, because they knew that his predecessor, ignorant, perhaps, of the extent of their guilt, threw his shield over them, and held them irresponsible to the laws for those savage outrages.
They then stated that, in their humble judgment, a mere relaxation in the operation of the severe and penal laws against Catholics would not be an act of sufficient atonement to them for all they had greviously suffered; that to overlook, or connive at, or protect those great criminals would be at variance, not only with all principles of justice, but with the spirit of the British Constitution itself, which never recognizes, much less encourages, a wicked and deliberate violation of its own laws. That the present was a critical moment, which demanded great judgment and equal humanity in the administration of the laws in Ireland. A rebellion was successfully progressing in Scotland, and it appeared to them that not only common justice but sound policy ought to prompt the Government to attract and conciliate the Catholic population of Ireland by allowing them to participate in the benefits of the Constitution, which hitherto existed not for them, thousands of whom, finding their country but a bed of thorns, might, from a mere sense of relief, or, what was more to be dreaded, a spirit of natural vengeance, flock to the standard of the Pretender.
His excellency, already aware of the startling but just demand which had been made by the French Ambassador, for the national insult by Whitecraft to his country, was himself startled and shocked by the atrocities of those blood-stained delinquents.
His reply, however, was brief, but to the purpose.