ties were satisfied. In the other provinces of Ireland it
was otherwise. The English and Scottish settlers in Ulster found this
usage, which was an old Celtic tradition, and adopted it; their power
enabled them to assert it; but the vanquished Celts themselves were not
permitted by those to whom the estates were confiscated, to retain
a custom so favourable to the occupier. The professed object of the
agitation was to secure compensation to the occupying tenant all
over the country for his improvements, and such certainty of tenure,
according to the nature of his lease or taking, as would secure him
from vexatious lawsuits and inequitable ejectments, against which,
notwithstanding that they were inequitable in the eyes of all men, there
was no redress. As the agitation was developed, it was plain that the
real object was political and religious on the part of the prime movers.
It became noticeable that while the clergy of the Established Church,
the Methodists, Congregationalists, &c, abstained from all participation
in the struggle, those of the Roman Catholic and Presbyterian communions
fiercely fanned it. The higher classes were generally episcopal
Protestants, the former in the north, to a large extent, were
Presbyterians, and in the other provinces Roman Catholics; it was
the interest of the clergy of both sects that their flocks and chief
supporters should be placed in as independent position as possible.
Ultimately, however, the two parties ceased to coalesce, their objects
became so dissimilar, that all co-operation was impossible. The
tenant-right league became a focus of Roman Catholic agitation, for
purely Roman Catholic objects. Mr. Lucas, an English proselyte to the
Church of Rome, who had formerly been a Quaker, became a very prominent
person, and he carried his fanaticism to great lengths. Charles Gavan
Duffy coalesced with him, and these men, abetted by others, so disgusted
their Presbyterian confederates, that the latter seceded altogether from
the confederacy. The doctrines taught by the party which remained became
increasingly bold, and it was soon apparent that the league was a
knot of conspirators, whose object was to transfer the property of the
Protestant landlords of Ireland to the hands of their Roman Catholic
tenants, the former having a sort of rentcharge upon their own land,
which would in time have been also taken from them. The state of the law
of landlord and tenant was so unjust, that a wel