They said that the conduct of those men and of the Government that had countenanced and encouraged them had destroyed the prosperity of the country by interrupting and annulling all bonafide commercial transactions between, Protestants and Catholics.

That those men had not only transgressed the instructions they received, from his predecessor, but all those laws that go to the security of life and property.

That they were guilty of several cruel and atrocious murders, arsons, and false imprisonments, for which they were never brought to account; and that, in fine, they were steeped in crime and blood, because they knew that his predecessor, ignorant, perhaps, of the extent of their guilt, threw his shield over them, and held them irresponsible to the laws for those savage outrages.
They then stated that, in their humble judgment, a mere relaxation in the operation of the severe and penal laws against Catholics would not be an act of sufficient atonement to them for all they had greviously suffered; that to overlook, or connive at, or protect those great criminals would be at variance, not only with all principles of justice, but with the spirit of the British Constitution itself, which never recognizes, much less encourages, a wicked and deliberate violation of its own laws.

That the present was a critical moment, which demanded great judgment and equal humanity in the administration of the laws in Ireland.

A rebellion was successfully progressing in Scotland, and it appeared to them that not only common justice but sound policy ought to prompt the Government to attract and conciliate the Catholic population of Ireland by allowing them to participate in the benefits of the Constitution, which hitherto existed not for them, thousands of whom, finding their country but a bed of thorns, might, from a mere sense of relief, or, what was more to be dreaded, a spirit of natural vengeance, flock to the standard of the Pretender.
His excellency, already aware of the startling but just demand which had been made by the French Ambassador, for the national insult by Whitecraft to his country, was himself startled and shocked by the atrocities of those blood-stained delinquents.
His reply, however, was brief, but to the purpose.
His secretary acknowledged the receipt of the memorial, and stated that the object of his Excellency was not to administer the laws in cruelty, but in mercy; that he considered all classes of his Majesty's subjects equally entitled to their protection; and that with respect to the persons against whom such serious charges and allegations had been made, he had only to say, that if they were substantiated against them in a court of justice, they must suffer like other criminals--if they can be proved, Government will leave them, as it would any common felons, to the laws of the country.