the most strenuous efforts, could
barely obtain what would keep them from starvation. It was still harder
that men, who had sacrificed their position in society, and their
worldly prospects, for the sake of their religion, should be obliged to
support clergymen and their families, some of whom never resided in the
parishes from which they obtained tithes, and many of whom could not
count above half-a-dozen persons as regular members of their
congregation.

Mr. Young thus suggests a remedy for these crimes, which, he says, were
punished with a "severity which seemed calculated for the meridian of
Barbary, while others remain yet the law of the land, which would, if
executed, tend more to raise than to quell an insurrection. From all
which it is manifest, that the gentlemen of Ireland never thought of a
radical cure, from overlooking the real cause of disease, which, in
fact, lay in themselves, and not in the wretches they doomed to the
gallows. Let them change their own conduct entirely, and the poor will
not long riot. Treat them like men, who ought to be as free as
yourselves; put an end to that system of religious persecution, which,
for seventy years, has divided the kingdom against itself--in these two
circumstances lies the cure of insurrection; perform them completely,
and you will have an affectionate poor, instead of oppressed and
discontented vassals."[554]

How purely these outrages were the deeds of desperate men, who had been
made desperate by cruel oppression, and insensible to cruelty by cruel
wrongs, is evident from the dying declaration of five Whiteboys, who
were executed, in 1762, at Waterford and who publicly declared, and took
God to witness, "that in all these tumults it never did enter into their
thoughts to do anything against the King or Government."[555]

It could not be expected that the Irish priest would see the people
exposed to all this misery--and what to them was far more painful to all
this temptation to commit deadly sin--without making some effort in
their behalf. There may have been some few priests, who, in their zeal
for their country, have sacrificed the sacredness of their office to
their indignation at the injury done to their people--who have mixed
themselves up with feats of arms, or interfered with more ardour than
discretion in the arena of politics; but such instances have been rare,
and circumstances have generally made them in some degree excusable. The
position of the