In 1852, Mr. Nassau Wm. Senior was on a visit with the Archbishop, at his country house, near Stillorgan, five miles from Dublin.  Mr. Senior asked him, to what cause the conversions made during the Famine were attributable.  The Archbishop replied, that the causes must be numerous.  Some, he said, believed, or professed to believe, that the conversions were purchased; this of course was the Catholic view.  He then related the following anecdote on the subject: 

“An old woman went to one of my clergy, and said, ’I’m come to surrender to your Reverence—­and I want the leg of mutton and the blanket.’  ’What mutton and blanket?’ said the clergyman.  I have scarcely enough of either for myself and my family, and certainly none to give.  Who could have put such nonsense into your head?’ ‘Why, Sir,’ she said, ’Father Sullivan told us, that the converts got each a leg of mutton and a blanket; and as I am famished, and starving with cold, I thought that God would forgive me for getting them.’"[311]

Dr. Whately was president of the “Society for protecting the Rights of Conscience,” and he indignantly denied that any reward or indemnity had been held out, directly or indirectly, by that Society, to persons, to induce them to profess themselves converts; and he adds:  “not only has no case been substantiated—­no case has been even brought forward.”  This may be true of that particular Society, but to deny that neither money nor food were given, to induce persons to attend the Scripture classes and proselytizing schools, is to deny the very best proven facts.

In the Tralee Chronicle of the 19th of November, 1852, Archdeacon O’Sullivan, of Kenmare (lately deceased), published an abstract of a Report of one of those Missionary Societies which fell into his hands.  The expenditure of a single Committee was L3557 1s. 6d.  The salaries of clerical and lay agents are set down at L382 0s. 11d.  What became of the remainder of the money?

But here is testimony that Dr. Whately himself would scarcely impugn: 

Dr. Forbes, in his “Memorandums made in Ireland” in 1852, visited Connaught, and examined many of the proselytizing schools.  He speaks without any doubt at all of the children who attended those schools receiving food and clothing.  It did not seem to be denied on any side.  Here is an extract:  “I visited two of the Protestant Mission Schools at Clifden, one in the town, and the other about a mile and a-half beyond the town, on the road leading to the mouth of the bay.  In the former, at the time of my visit, there were about 120 boys and 100 girls on the books, the average attendance being about 80.  Out of the 80 girls there were no less than fifty-six orphans, all of whom are fed and clothed out of the school funds, and a large proportion provided with lodgings also.  Only two of these girls were children of Protestant parents; and in the boy’s school there was only one born of parents originally