Hugh Grimes, William Kean, Rev. Mr. Stevelly, James Burnside, James Green, Rowley Osborne, Mr. Turner, Rev. Mr. McNeil, William Simms, John Rabb, Rev. Mr. Simpson, Israel Milliken.
It may interest Dr. Brownson to know that eighteen of the above named Protestants loved Ireland so well that they were hanged for their affection. It was to these men, when speaking to Irishmen who understood him, that "our poetical friend" alluded.
Shall Irishmen forget these men because they were Protestants? Dr. Brownson says he takes no interest in anything but Catholic politics and Catholic leaders. In the name of God he is preaching the devil's own doctrine—the old English doctrine of dissension. Are the Catholic citizens of this country to repudiate the deeds of all Protestant Americans, and scout the memory of the Protestant Washington? Are Irish Catholics, at Dr. Brownson's bidding, to forget the name and fame of such a Protestant Irishman as Edmund Burke, who was addressed by Pope Pius VI. as a "noble man" and a benefactor to the world? Dr. Brownson, we suppose, would reject the services of Warren and Putnam at Bunker Hill because they were Protestants; he would depose Washington, Clay, Henry, and the others from their high place in the national memory; he would reject Grant, Sherman, and Thomas, because they were Protestants, and fling Sheridan after them because he was only a middling Catholic. Dr. Brownson mixes too much religion in his politics. His intolerant meddling can bring nothing but discredit on Catholicity. He has made a reputation for literary pugilism by knocking his own straw men to smithereens; but now, in his old age, he forgets himself and strikes at living men, with other results. When Dr. Brownson says that Ireland suffered more from Protestant Irishmen than from England—he is doting. Irishmen know better. They remember whole centuries of wrong—
"Strongbow's force, and Henry's wile,
Tudor's wrath, and Stuart's guile,
Iron Stafford's tiger jaws.
And brutal Brunswick's penal laws;
Not forgetting Saxon faith.
Not forgetting Norman scaith.
Not forgetting William's word,
Not forgetting Cromwell's sword."
Such a spirit as that shown by Dr. Brownson in this article is scandalous and abominable.
As to the Irish in the prisons, and the Irish children in the penitentiaries, it comes with a bad grace from a converted Anglo-American Protestant to cast them in our teeth. They were prepared for prison and penitentiary by English law that enforced generations of ignorance
