- Tait's Edinburgh Magazine
- No. XI. February, 1833.
On the 22d of October last, the persons whose names are subscribed to
the following address were arrested. This masterly document will explain
their feelings. (NOTE REF 22 October 1832)
To the People of Ireland
We, the undersigned, now prisoners in the Gaol of Carlow,
under a process issued against our persons at the suit of his Majesty's
Attorney General, on account of arrears of tithes alleged to be due of
us, adopt this mode of protesting before Heaven and the nations of the
earth against the punishment inflicted on us, and of appealing to you
for sympathy in our confinement, whilst we pray you to imitate our
obedience to the constituted authorities, our constancy in trial, and
our legal opposition even unto chains and prisons, to those claims which
our conscience, the voice of nature, and the judgment of the whole
civilized world proclaim to be unjust.
We have heard, with sorrow of heart, of the blood of our countrymen
shed in struggles produced by the enforcement of tithe. May we hope,
that from the depth of a prison our voice may be heard, imploring our
fellow-subjects and fellow-sufferers to oppose no resistance but such as
is legal and constitutional, and such as we have given to those agents
of power who execute against us laws which we detest. Our strength is in
suffering, and not in opposing our naked breasts or excited passions to
the armed force which is arrayed against us. By patiently submitting to
the loss of our goods, or imprisonment of our persons, we will expose
the injustice of the laws which oppress us; we will collect and
strengthen the indignation of three whole nations — England, Ireland,
and Scotland; and direct it through Parliament to the destruction of
that old iniquity, which, in the name of Christ, deprives us of our
peace and of our property, and repays us with stripes and insult.
But what fills us with affliction, and adds peculiar pain to our
confinement is, that we suffer at the suit of a government to whose
support we contribute some thousands of pounds sterling annually to a
government whose measures and stability we maintained with all our
strength and mind against the very men who sought its overthrow, and
factiously opposed, and still oppose, all their measures; but whose
alleged claims this same Government have adopted, and have now enforced
by the imprisonment of our persons.
Our pain in this respect is no way alleviated by the specious but
uncandid allegation, that a government is obliged to uphold existing
laws: for the law under which we suffer was introduced into parliament
by the Government itself, and instead of being called for by the
country, was denounced, in and out of Parliament, as injurious to all
the feelings and interests of the people of Ireland. From our prison we
protest against this law; we blame the Government which introduced it,
and we believe that no friend to Ireland consented to its enactment, or
shares in its execution.
We therefore conjure our countrymen who are fellow-bondsmen with us,
or likely to become so, to submit patiently, as we have done, to the
loss of goods, and even to incarceration of their persons ; and to
protest aloud and unceasingly, but at the same time constitutionally,
legally, and peaceably, against the injustice exercised against us — to
deprecate the Government from warring against their own subjects from
oppressing those who would be their friends; and to petition, with one
voice, the Legislature utterly to abolish tithes, and apply the residue
of what is called church property to those purposes of religion and
charity which the wisdom of Parliament can so easily discover.
- The Very Rev. Dr. FITZGERALD, President of
Carlow College.
- Mr. J. HANLON, Proprietor, Coffey's Hotel.
- Mr. J. COFFEY, 80 years of age, and the
richest trader in Carlow.
- Mr. J. HAUGHTON, of the Society of Friends,
and Distiller in Carlow.
- Mr. R. PAUL, Brewer.
- Mr. R. IVERS, Shopkeeper.
- Mr. J. LENNON, Farmer.
- Mr. Js. BERHAM, Farmer.
- Mr. Js. D'ARCY, Farmer.
-
Transcribed by:
Terry Curran
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