I will speak first of the political remedies. At present,
there prevails throughout three-fourths of the Irish people a total
unbelief in the honesty and integrity of the Government of this country.
There may or may not be good grounds for all this ill feeling; but that
it exists, no man acquainted with Ireland will deny. The first step to
be taken is to remove this feeling; and, to do this, some great measure
or measures should be offered to the people of Ireland, which will act
as a complete demonstration to them that bygones are to be bygones, with
regard to the administration of Irish affairs, and that henceforth new,
generous, and equal principles of government are to be adopted.
I have on a former occasion stated my opinions on one or two subjects,
and I will venture again briefly to explain them to the House. Ireland
has long been a country of jars and turmoil, and its jars have arisen
chiefly from religious dissensions. In respect of matters of religion
she has been governed in a manner totally unknown in England and
Scotland. If Ireland has been rightly governed--if it has been wise and
just to maintain the Protestant Church established there, you ought, in
order to carry out your system, to establish Prelacy in Scotland, and
Catholicism in England; though, if you were to attempt to do either the
one or the other, it would not be a sham but a real insurrection that
you would provoke.
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