l government. They trade
in our cities, and are employed in our manufactories. They are received
also into English families; and treated with great humanity by the
protestants.

The heads of their clans, and the chiefs of the great Irish families,
who cruelly oppressed and tyrannized over their vassals, are now
dwindled in a great measure to nothing; and most of the ancient popish
nobility and gentry of Ireland have renounced the Romish religion.

It is also to be hoped, that inestimable benefits will arise from the
establishment of protestant schools in various parts of the kingdom, in
which the children of the Roman catholics are instructed in religion and
reading, whereby the mist of ignorance is dispelled from their eyes,
which was the great source of the cruel transactions that have taken
place, at different periods, in that kingdom.

In order to preserve the protestant interest in Ireland upon a solid
basis, it behooves all in whom that power is invested, to discharge it
with the strictest assiduity and attention; for should it once again
lose ground, there is no doubt but the papists would take those
advantages they have hitherto done, and thousands might yet fall victims
to their malicious bigotry.

FOOTNOTES:

[C] Although Garnet was convicted for this horrible crime, yet the
bigoted papists were so besotted as to look upon him as an object of
devotion; they fancied that miracles were wrought by his blood; and
regarded him as a martyr! Such is the deadening and perverting influence
of popery.

[D] The king of England was at that time called _highness_, not
_majesty_, as at present.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE RISE, PROGRESS, PERSECUTIONS, AND SUFFERINGS OF THE QUAKERS.

In treating of these people in a historical manner, we are obliged to
have recourse to much tenderness. That they differ from the generality
of protestants in some of the capital points of religion cannot be
denied, and yet, as protestant dissenters, they are included under the
description of the toleration act. It is not our business to inquire
whether people of similar sentiments had any existence in the primitive
ages of Christianity: perhaps, in some respects, they had not, but we
are to write of them not as what they were, but what they now are. That
they have been treated by several writers in a very contemptuous manner,
is certain; that they did not deserve such treatment, is equally
certain.

The appellation _Quakers_, was b