The “second reformation” was commenced in 1827.  The Catholic priests were challenged to controversy; even laymen interfered.  Theology and theological differences became the town and table-talk of Ireland.  Bibles and tracts were distributed in all directions amongst the starving poor, food and clothing were occasionally added; yet, notwithstanding these powerful inducements, the people starved and remained Catholics.  Writs of ejectment were then tried; and the Irish poor had their choice between the Bible and beggary—­but they chose beggary.

So far did the Bible craze go, that it almost amounted to a monomania.  One noble lord, to show his reverence for that book, and to convince his tenantry of the estimation in which he held it, flung every volume of his library into the lake of his demesne, and with the Bible in his hand, which commanded him to feed the hungry, refused to feed them unless they complied with his commands.  Moore’s satires were, unquestionably, the best weapons against such fanaticism.  Sheil wrote in the Gazette de France, and hundreds of pens wrote in the American papers.  A loud cry of “Shame!” arose in every quarter of the world; the echo reached the ears of the promoters of the movement; and the force of public opinion succeeded in suppressing the futile attempt.

The influence of Irish emigrants in America was already beginning to be felt.  Large sums of money poured in from that country to swell the Catholic rent, and a considerable portion of the funds were employed by O’Connell in providing for men who had been ejected by their landlords, for refusing either to believe a creed, or to give a vote contrary to their conscience.  He even threatened to buy up the incumbrances on some of these gentlemen’s estates, to foreclose their mortgages, and to sell them out.  His threat, added to his well-known determination, was not without its effect.

The whole subject of Irish emigration may be safely predicted to be the key which will unlock the future fate of Great Britain.  It is true that, at this moment, every effort is being made by the English nation to conciliate America; it remains to be seen how Americans will be disposed to accept present flattery as a compensation for past injustice, and scarcely past contempt.  A better knowledge of Irish history might prevent some fatal mistakes on both sides of the Atlantic.  I have, therefore, felt it a duty to devote the concluding pages of this History to this important subject.

The great tide of western emigration was undoubtedly caused, in part, by the sufferings of the famine year; but these sufferings were in themselves an effect, rather than a cause; and we must look to more remote history for the origin of the momentous exodus.  It has, indeed, been well observed, that “when a man leaves his country for one subject to foreign rule, it must, in general, be that he does not care for it, or that it does not care for him; it must