As religion, therefore, is not at all necessarily mixed up with the Irishman's prejudices as this subject--it is consequently both dangerous and wicked to force it to an adhesion with so dreadful a principle as that which resorts to noon-day or midnight murder.

This is unfortunately what such fellows as this M'Clutchy do.

They find the Irish peasant with but one formidable prejudice in relation to property, and by a course of neglect, oppression, and rapacity, joined to all the malignant rancor of religious bigotry and party feeling, they leave him goaded by a hundred.
I believe in my soul that there are many fire-brands like M'Clutchy in this country, who create the crime, in order to have the gratification of punishing it, and of wreaking a legal vengeance upon the unfortunate being who has been guilty of it, in order that they may recommend themselves as loyal men to the government of the day.

If this be so, how can the country be peaceable?
If it be peaceable, such men can have no opportunity of testing their loyalty, and if they do not test their loyalty, they can have no claim upon the government, and having no claim upon the government, they will get nothing from it.

The day will come, I hope, when the very existence of men like these, and of the system which encouraged; them, will be looked upon with disgust and wonder--when the government of our country will make no invidious distinctions of creed or party, and will not base the administration of its principles upon the encouragement of hatred between man and man.
"Hickman, the former agent, was the first to whom I presented Lord Cumber's letter.