id their utmost to gain the priests over to their cause. The priesthood
was, however, suspicious of the Young Irelanders, from the conviction
that they were generally indifferent to religion. This impression was
also received at Rome; and the English government, by its secret agency,
did its best to strengthen that opinion. The pope had sufficient reason
to dread any tendency to red republicanism in any part of the
world where his disciples or subjects might be influenced by it. He
accordingly issued a rescript, which created a powerful sensation
in Ireland. The _Nation_ newspaper, and the press generally which
sympathised with it, denounced the English government, and the English
Roman Catholics, with having, by false representations, induced the pope
to issue this document. The censures fell with especial weight upon the
English Roman Catholic aristocracy, who were believed to have a peculiar
prejudice against Ireland, and in this case to have allowed their
antipathies of race and nationality to interfere with the good of their
religion; for it was alleged that the promotion of agitation, and even
revolution, in Ireland by the priesthood, was the surest way to make
England concessive to the Roman Catholic clergy and people. It was also
maintained that the severance of Ireland from England would give a wider
scope to the influence of the church, and rescue one of her fairest
provinces from the sceptre of a heretic sovereign. These different
grounds were taken up by various organs of the press, according to their
degrees of prudence, or the especial light in which they regarded the
transaction. At all events, it was felt that the rescript would baulk
the efforts of the Young Irelanders to engage any portion of the
priesthood on their side, and greatly lessen the chances of their
success. The Protestants of Ireland, ignorant of the true nature of
the mission of Lord Minto to Italy, which the government organs
systematically misrepresented, and ignorant also of the progress which
the English government had made at Rome, through certain Roman Catholics
of influence, considered the rescript as a _ruse_ on the part of the
pope, acting in concert with the Irish episcopacy, to throw the English
government off its guard. The Protestants were therefore stirred up to
more vigorous preparation to resist the approaching insurrection, while,
at the same time, the hopes of the opposite party were damaged, and
depression was necessarily