No such thing; the people, as they always are, and, we fear, ever will be, were mere instruments in the hands of a host of lay and clerical agitators; and no argument was left unattempted or unurged to hound them on to the destruction of the Establishment.

From the Corn Exchange down to the meanest and most obscure tribunal of agitation throughout the kingdom, the virtues of passive resistance were inculcated and preached, and the great champion of popular rights told the people publicly and repeatedly that they might not be afraid to follow his advice, for that it mattered little how oppressive or stringent any act of parliament in defence of the Established Church might be, he would undertake to drive a coach and six through the very severest of its penalties.

Nor were the Catholic priesthood idle during these times of storm and commotion.

At the head of them, and foremost in both ability and hatred of tithes, stood the late Dr.Doyle, the celebrated J.K.L.of that day, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin; a man to whose great intellectual powers the country at large chiefly owes the settlement of that most difficult and important question.

This able prelate assailed the system with a fiery vehemence that absolutely set the country in a blaze, and reduced the wealthy Establishment to a case of the most unprecedented distress.