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.

His secretary acknowledged the receipt of the memorial, and stated that
the object of his Excellency was not to administer the laws in cruelty,
but in mercy; that he considered all classes of his Majesty's subjects
equally entitled to their protection; and that with respect to the
persons against whom such serious charges and allegations had been made,
he had only to say, that if they were substantiated against them in a
court of justice, they must suffer like other criminals--if they can be
proved, Government will leave them, as it would any common felons, to
the laws of the country. His Excellency is determined to administer
those laws with the strictest impartiality, and without leaning to any
particular class or creed. So far as the laws will allow him, their
protection shall be extended, on just and equal principles to the poor
and to the rich, to the Catholic and to the Protestant.

This communication, which was kept strictly secret, reached the Marquis
of ---- at a critical period of our narrative. Whitecraft, who was
ignorant of it, but sufficiently aware of the milder measures which the
new Administration had adopted, finding that the trade of priest-hunting
and persecution was, for the present, at an end