AN ULSTERMAN FOR IRELAND
upon yellow meal, Your fathers, who won the Boyne and defended Derry, did not part with their Christian food and take trans-Atlantic rations in exchange. I know how it stands with you. The "gentry," the "noble lords," and fat squires (the men you won the Boyne and defended Derry for) have made a sorry yeomanry of you. They have taken the pluck out of you pretty well. While you had the spirit even to celebrate the exploits of your fathers by flaunting an orange and purple banner on the 12th of July these great patrons of yours in their "landlord Parliament" got what they called a "law" made to forbid you to hold your customary processions a thing that would be forbidden in no other land in Europe but when the famine came the "law" was allowed to expire, and you may walk now if you have the heart.
It is neither to taunt nor to flatter you that I speak of these things; it is merely to remind you of matters that it may be useful for you to think of when any agent or sub-agent conies, to ask you to declare your attachment to the glorious Constitution and your unalterable resolution to resist anarchy and defy the Pope.
The truth of the matter is, and you all know and feel it, that the "laws" in this land are not just laws, do not answer the purpose of laws (which is to protect the rights of all alike), and are, indeed, considerably worse than no laws. Did you ever hear of an "anarchy" or "Jacobinism" that slew a million of men, women, and children in one year? Did you ever hear of an uncivilised and savage country
13
