religious belief for all; and such freedom is certainly incompatible
with the slightest restraint, with the most trifling penalty for
difference of opinion on such subjects. Again, Burke had recourse to the
_argumentum ad hominum_, the only argument which those with whom he had
to deal seemed capable of comprehending.

"After the suppression of the great rebellion of Tyrconnel by William of
Orange," writes Mr. Morley,[568] "ascendency began in all its vileness
and completeness. The Revolution brought about in Ireland just the
reverse of what it effected in England. Here it delivered the body of
the nation from the attempted supremacy of a small sect; there it made a
small sect supreme over the body of the nation." This is in fact an
epitome of Irish history since the so-called Reformation in England, and
this was the state of affairs which Burke was called to combat. On all
grounds the more powerful party was entirely against him. The merchants
of Manchester and Bristol, for whose supposed benefit Irish trade had
been ruined, wished to keep up the ascendency, conceiving it to be the
surest way of replenishing their coffers. The majority of Irish
landlords, who looked always to their own immediate interest, and had
none of the far-sighted policy which would enable them to see that the
prosperity of the tenant would, in the end, most effectively secure the
prosperity of the landlord, were also in favour of ascendency, which
promised to satisfy their land hunger, and their miserable greed of
gain. The Protestant Church was in favour of ascendency: why should it
not be, since its ministers could only derive support from a people who
hated them alike for their creed and their oppressions, at the point of
the sword and by the "brotherly agency of the tithe-procter," who, if he
did not assist in spreading the Gospel, at least took care that its
so-called ministers should lack no luxury which could be wrung from a
starving and indignant people?[569]

There were but two acts of common justice required on the part of
England to make Ireland prosperous and free. It is glorious to say, that
Burke was the first to see this, and inaugurate the reign of concession;
it is pitiful, it is utterly contemptible, to be obliged to add, that
what was then inaugurated is not yet fully accomplished. Burke demanded
for Ireland political and religious freedom. Slowly some small
concessions of both have been made when England has feared to refuse