and quantities of seeds, wafted on the breeze from giant trees
and humble plants, fall and perish on a barren rock, in the
eddies of a swift-running brook, or, oftener still, on the hard
and unkind soil on which they have happened to alight; so that,
out of a thousand germs, a few only find every thing congenial
to their growth, and attain to the full size allotted them by
Nature --nevertheless, despite this loss, the species is not
only preserved, but so multiplied as to produce on the beholder,
in after-time, the impression that, not only no loss has been
sustained, but that much has been gained. So is it with the
Catholic Church in general, and in particular with the momentous
events now being considered.
The cultivated field of the "father of the family" was about to
be extended over a new and vast area. A whole continent was to
be "fenced around," and "olive-trees," and "fig-trees," and all
plants useful and ornamental, were destined to flourish in that
vast garden to the end of time. The great and eternal Father was,
by his providence, directing the mighty operation from above,
and marking the various points of the compass to which the
floating germs were to be wafted. He knew that he was planting a
new garden for his Son, who would, as usual, be the first
husbandman, and employ many workmen to help him.
How could it be expected that all would be gain without loss,
when the harvest-time had not yet arrived, and the "enemy" was
busy sowing "tares" in all directions? Was not the work human as
well as divine? and, as human, did not the work partake of the
imperfection of human things?
The continent had evidently been predestined to form one of the
strongest branches of the great Catholic tree. Discovered before
the modern heresies of Protestantism had shown themselves, it
was to bring into the fold of Christ new nations, when some old
ones were to be cut off and wither away. This has long ago been
pointed out; but another mighty design of Providence there was
which only now begins to show itself.
Columbus was in search of Asia and the holy sepulchre when he
stumbled on the New World. Nor was the idea of his great mind
altogether a delusion. The new continent was in future ages to
be used as the highway from Europe to the Orient; China, Japan,
India, vast regions filled with innumerable multitudes of human
beings, had, so far, scarcely been touched, could scarcely be
touched, by Catholicism coming from Europe. In fact it was too
far away, and the means of intercommunication were too
inadequate. The holy Catholic Church increases as "things which
grow;" a few husbandmen--missionaries--are required to set the
first seedlings and plants in the soil, to water them, watch
over them, and see that they thrive and flourish; the rest of
the process is a matter of seeds wafted by the wind, falling and
taking root in a fertile soil, which has been already prepared
for their reception. If there were no other means of propagation
than the toil and sweat of the husbandman, how long would it
take to cover the whole earth with vegetation? The first
propagation of Christianity was done in this way; hence it took
more than ten centuries to Christianize Europe. In the fifth
century, Rome was still thoroughly pagan. Were the vast regions
of that dim, far-away East to undergo a similar slow and painful
process, necessitating an immense amount of labor, centuries and
centuries in duration? God hastened the process by adding to it
the wafting of seeds, and America was to be the vast nursery
from which those seeds were to come. It was from that long and
alternately widening and narrowing belt of land, running down
the sea from north to south, that the Japhetic race was to
invade the "tents of Sem."
Thus was the dream of Columbus to be realized. Asia would be
reached by Europe, of which America would form a part. The east
of Asia would become contiguous to a real European population,
large masses of which would easily come in contact with the
Mongolian and Malay races of their immediate neighborhood, steam
and modern improvements in travel reducing the intervening
distance to a matter of a few days. Thus the Japhetic movement
could be carried out on a large scale, and European civilization
come to supersede the obsolete manners of those old and effete
races of Eastern Asia. The unity of mankind would be vindicated
against its blasphemers; and, to crown the whole, Christianity
would find its way back to the cradle of man, then, to its own
birthplace, Calvary and the sepulchre of Christ. Thus would the
conjectural vision of the great Genoese become only an
explanation of the old prophecy of the second father of mankind.1
(1 The reader will understand that all this is merely "a view,
" and not given as a pure interpretation of Scripture or past
history.)
Thus would the Church at last become rigorously Catholic, and
not as some theologians imagined, in their desire to make actual,
incomplete facts coincide with a far wider theory, only
Catholic by approximation.
If it were allowed us to read the designs of Providence
reverently, we might say, without presumption, that it seems
such is to be future history, although simple conjecture may
produce too strong an impression on our minds. But, at the
period of which we speak, shortly after the middle of the last
century, any one who would have spoken thus would have been
justly deemed a visionary. The south of America, though
possessed of the true religion, seemed inert; the North was
already showing signs of an intense future activity, but all
opposed to the truth. God was about to change those appearances,
and, by infusing the Irish element into the North, produce, in a
comparatively short space of time, the wonderful phenomenon
which we witness.
Yet, so short-sighted are we, that some are almost staggered in
their faith, because the children of the earliest Irish
emigrants to this country, were apparently lost to the Church.
Nevertheless, several circumstances might be brought forward to
show that a real gain accrued to the Church from these lost
children of the first Irish settlers. How many prejudices, so
deeply rooted in the country as to seem ineradicable, owe their
destruction to them! How many harsh and uncharitable feelings
against Catholics were smoothed away or softened down by their
instrumentality!
Those men who, in after-life, remembered that they "ought to be
Catholics," were not ready to accept, on the word of a "minister,"
all the absurd calumnies spread against the Church throughout
those vast regions. They had heard, by a kind of tradition, kept
alive in their families, of what their ancestors had formerly
suffered, and they at least were not inclined to join in the
universal denunciation of a creed which they were conscious
"ought to be" their own.
Who shall say whether it is not the old Catholic blood, running
in the veins of these children of Irish Catholic parents, which
has been mainly instrumental in creating that spirit of true
liberality which inspires the honorable conduct of the majority
of the American people, and in which the Church has at all times
found her safety?
It is certain that there is a vast difference between that
American spirit and the atmosphere of distrust pervading other
countries, and that the rapid spread of the Church throughout
the broad regions of the Union has been singularly favored by
the soft breeze of a liberal and kindly feeling so common to
those even who are not born within the fold. And that the
children of Irish parents, themselves lost to the Church, have
exercised great influence from the start, in that regard, cannot,
we think, be denied.
But, perhaps, too much space has been devoted to that first
emigration from Ireland; it is time to come to a more recent
period of which there are more certain and positive accounts.
There is no need to speak of the happy change effected in the
position of the Catholic Church in America by the Revolution;
Washington, in his reply to the address of the Catholics of the
country, has given expression to the feelings of the nation in
terms so well known that they require no comment.
From that date commences the real history of the Catholic Church
in North America, outside of the provinces originally settled by
the French and Spaniards. The influx of Irish immigrants now
attracts our chief attention.
From the year 1800, when the "Union" was effected between
England and Ireland, the number of immigrants increased suddenly
and rapidly, and the situation of the new-comers on their
arrival was very different from that of their predecessors. They
found liberty not only proclaimed, but established; few churches
indeed, but, such as there were, known and open, and a bishop
and clergymen already practising their ministry.
Before entering upon the extent, nature, and effects of this
second Irish immigration--which may be studied from documents
existing--it will be well to say a few words on the elements
which constituted the Catholic body when first organized. We are
concerned, it is true, with the new element introduced by the
great movement of which we begin to speak; but we are far from
undervaluing other sources of life, which not only affected the
Church at its birth in the United States, but have continued to
act upon her ever since with more or less of energy. The reader
should not imagine that, by not speaking of them, we are unjust
or blind to their efficiency; they simply lie without the scope
of our plan.
In the North the French, and in the South the Spanish
missionaries, had imparted to Catholicity a vitality which could
not be extinguished; but its operations were almost entirely
confined to limits outside those which circumscribe the field of
our investigations. The French element, however, grew into
prominence even at the outset within those limits, either
through the acquisition of Louisiana, or in consequence of the
French immigration during the terrible revolution of last
century. It is only necessary to open the pages of Mr. R. H.
Clarke's recently-published "Lives of the American Bishops," to
be struck with the importance of that element. It may be said
that, for the first twenty-five years of the republic, French
prelates and clergymen, together with several American
Marylanders, were intrusted with the care of the infant Church.
Ireland seems to have had scarcely any office to fulfil in that
great work, save through the humble exertions of a few devoted
but almost unknown missionaries; so that, when bishops of Irish
birth were first chosen, they were either taken from Ireland
itself, as was Dr. England, Bishop Kelly, of Richmond, or
Conwell, of Philadelphia, or from the monasteries of Rome, as
were Bishops Connolly and Concanen, of New York. Bishop Egan, of
Philadelphia, can scarcely be called an exception, as he had
only spent a very few years in this country when he was elevated
to the episcopal dignity. The German element showed itself only
in Pennsylvania.
It was under circumstances such as these that that stream of
desolate people began to flow, spreading gradually through
immense regions, and bringing with it only its unconquerable
faith.
From the "mustard-seed" a noble tree was to spring up; but as
yet it was only a weak sapling. In 1785, Bishop Carroll made an
estimate of the Catholic population of the States: "In Maryland,
seventeen thousand; in Pennsylvania, over seven thousand; and,
as far as information could be obtained, in other States, about
fifteen hundred." New York City could not yet boast of a hundred
Catholics.
Like all things durable and mighty, the first swelling of that
great wave was slow and silent, and scarcely perceptible, until
little by little the ripple spread over the vast ocean.
The first apparent causes have been well expressed by T. D.
McGee, in his "Irish Settlers:" "The breaking out of the French
War in 1793, and the degrading legislative Union of 1800, had
deprived many of bread, and all of liberty at home, and made the
mechanical as well as the agricultural class embark to cross the
Atlantic.
"Hitherto the Irish had colonized, sowed and reaped, fought,
spoken, and legislated in the New World, if not always in
proportion to their numbers, yet always to the measure of their
educational resources. Now they are about to plant a new emblem -
-the Cross--and a new institution--the Church--throughout the
American Continent. For, the faith of their fathers they did not
leave behind them; nay, rather, wheresoever six Irish roof-trees
rise, there you will find the cross of Christ reared over all,
and Celtic piety and Celtic enthusiasm, all sighs and tears,
kneeling before it."
Let us look at a few particular signs of the coming of this
great wave in its first scarcely perceptible movement.
"John Timon was born at Conewago, Pennsylvania, February 12,
1797, and baptized on the 17th of the same month; his parents,
James Timon and Margaret Leddy, had quite recently arrived in
this country from Ireland, and were from Belturbet, County Cavan.
A family of ten children, of whom John was the second son,
blessed the Catholic household of these pious parents."--(Lives
of American Bishops.)
"Francis Xavier Gartland was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1805;
he came to America, while yet a child, and made his studies at
Mount St. Mary's, Emmettsburg."--(Ibid.)
"John B. Fitzpatrick was born in Boston, November 1, 1812. His
parents emigrated from Ireland, and settled in Boston in 1805."--
(Ibid.)
What did the parents of the future bishop find on their arrival
at Boston? In the year previous, the first Catholic congregation
was assembled in that city by the Abbe La Poitre, a French navy-
chaplain, who had remained in America after the departure of the
French fleet, which rendered such powerful assistance in the
struggle for American independence. In 1808, four years before
the birth of him who was destined to wear the mitre, the
Catholics had obtained the old "French Church" in School Street,
which was probably a Calvinist meeting house.
Another wavelet of a precious kind was the following: "Bishop
Lanigan was meditating" (in Ireland) "the establishment of a
religious community in the city of Kilkenny, and designed Miss
Alice Lalor for one of its future members. But, in 1797, her
parents emigrated from Ireland and settled in America, and she
felt it to be her duty . . . . to accompany them. But she
promised the bishop to return in two years. On arriving at
Philadelphia, she became acquainted with the Reverend Leonard
Neale. . . . Feeling convinced that it was not the design of
Providence that she should abandon America for Ireland, Father
Neale released her from her promise to return to Kilkenny, in
order that she might become his cooperator in the foundation of
a religious order in the United States (the Visitation Nuns)."--
(Ibid.)
Already was the young church robbing the old of some of its best
members, who were to give some weight to the Irish element in
this country.
"George A. Carrell was born at Philadelphia. . . . He was the
seventh child of his Irish parents, and the house they occupied,
and in which he was born, was the old mansion of William Penn,
at the corner of Market Street and Letitia Court."-- (Ibid.)
Two short observations naturally present themselves here.
Philadelphia is the city oftenest mentioned whenever foreigners
are spoken of as landing in North America at that time. It was
then the great harbor of the country, New York not having
attained the preeminence she now enjoys. Hence, the Church
counted seven thousand children in Pennsylvania; but very few
north of that city. Thither came the German Catholics, also, in
great numbers to spread themselves chiefly West and South. Such
was the direction then taken by the Catholic wave.
Our second remark only concerns the house in which he who became
Bishop Carrell was born. It seemed only fitting that an Irish
Catholic family should thus early take possession of the very
dwelling-place of the founder of the colony, as the Catholic
Church was destined, through the Irish element chiefly, to
supplant and outlive the little church of the "Friends."
All the facts, however, just quoted are exceptional, and regard
only the select few. What became of the mass, meanwhile? As
usual, history for the most part is silent with regard to it. A
very few words constitute the only record which can afford us a
glimpse of the real situation of the vast majority of those poor,
friendless, obscure immigrants, on whom, nevertheless, the
great hopes of the future were built.
We have, happily, some means left us of forming an opinion; and
it will be seen that their situation was much the same as that
of their earlier compatriots. For instance, in the "Lives of
American Bishops" we read the following startling story:
"The Abbe Cheverus very frequently made long journeys to convey
the consolations of religion or perform acts of charity. About
this time (1803) he received a letter from two young Irish
Catholics confined in Northampton prison, who had been condemned
to death without just cause, as was almost universally believed,
imploring him to come to them and prepare them for their sad and
cruel fate. He hastened to their spiritual relief, and inspired
them with the most heroic sentiments and dispositions, which
they persevered in to the last fatal moment of their execution.
According to custom, the prisoners were carried to the nearest
church, to hear a sermon preached immediately before their
execution; several Protestant ministers presented themselves to
preach the sermon; but the Abbe Cheverus claimed the right to
perform that duty, as the choice of the prisoners themselves,
and, after much difficulty, he was allowed to ascend the pulpit.
His sermon struck all present with astonishment, awe, and
admiration."
Here, in 1803, we have almost a repetition of the death of the
poor woman Glover; and, had it not been for the high character
of the admirable man who hastened to their assistance, those two
young Irish Catholics would have had for their only religious
preparation before death a sermon from one or more Protestant
ministers; and, as the great and good Cheverus could not be
everywhere in New England, there is little doubt but that such
was the fate of more than one of the newly-arrived immigrants.
In 1800 and the following years a comparatively large number of
Irishmen landed at New York, and the future terrible scourge of
their race, ship-fever, soon broke out among them. Dr. Bailey,
the father of Mrs.Seton, was Health Physician to the port of New
York at the time, and he allowed his daughter to visit and do
good among them. She was deeply impressed by the religious
demeanor of the Irish just landed. The Rev. Dr. White relates in
her "Life:" "'The first thing,' she said, 'the poor people did
when they got their tents was to assemble on the grass, and all,
kneeling, adore our Master for his mercy; and every morning sun
finds them repeating their praises.' In a letter to her sister-
in-law she describes their sufferings under the 'plague' in the
following golden words:
"'Rebecca, I cannot sleep; the dying and the dead possess my
mind--babies expiring at the empty breast of their mother. And
this is not fancy, but the scene that surrounds me. Father says
that such was never known before; that there are actually twelve
children that must die from mere want of sustenance, unable to
take more than the breast, and from the wretchedness of their
parents deprived of it, as they have laid ill for many days in
the ship, without food, air, or changing. Merciful Father! Oh,
how readily would I give them each a turn of my child's treasure,
if in my choice! But, Rebecca, they have a provider in heaven,
who will soothe the pangs of the suffering innocent.'"
When she wrote the above, Mrs. Seton was not yet professedly a
Catholic; but how truly animated with the spirit of the Church
of Christ! Happy would the poor immigrants have been had they
only met with Protestants of her stamp on landing, and of her
father's, who, although he prevented her becoming foster-mother
to those poor children, as her first duty regarded her own child,
died himself, a victim to his charity toward their parents,
contracting, in the fulfilment of his office, the fever they had
brought with them, which he was striving to allay!
The following fact, which will conclude this portion of our
inquiry, happened a little later, but, on that very account,
will serve as a connecting link with the considerations which
are to follow, and will open our eyes to the real position of
that already swelling mass of immigrants.
"During the year 1823, Bishop Connolly (of New York) made the
visitation of his entire diocese. . . . He extended his journey
along the route of the Erie Canal, which was commenced in 1819,
where large numbers of Irish laborers had been attracted, and
among whom the bishop labored with indefatigable zeal." At that
time the clergy of the whole diocese consisted of eight priests
with their bishop.
At last we find the "Irish people" at work. The spectacle is
full of sadness; and the only emotion which can fill the heart
is one of deep pity. In that vast wilderness of the West, for
such it then was, along public works extending hundreds of miles,
large gangs of men--such is the expression we are compelled to
use--are hard at work along that dreary Mohawk River; blasting
rocks, digging in the hard clay, uprooting trees, clearing the
ground of briars, tangled bushes, and the vast quantity of
debris of animal and vegetable matter accumulated during
centuries. This was the work which "attracted" large numbers of
Irish laborers. They had left their country, crossed the ocean
under circumstances that should come under our notice, and
landed on these (at that time) inhospitable shores, to find work;
and they found the occupation just mentioned. We can picture
the "shanties" in which they lived, the harpies who thrived on
them, the innumerable extortions to which they were subjected.
Bearing in mind that, in the immense State of New York and in
one-half of New Jersey, there were just eight priests with their
bishop, we may form some idea of the way in which they lived and
died.
How they must have blessed this bishop, who had left Rome, his
second country, and the noble associations which surrounded him
in the Eternal City, to come to the succor of his unfortunate
countrymen scattered away in a New World! And well did he
deserve that blessing!
But his passage along the Erie Canal could be nothing more than
a veritable passage--a transient sojourn of a few days or weeks
at most. What became of those gangs of men after, what had
happened to them before, no one has said, no one has told us, no
one now can ascertain; we are only left to conjecture, and the
spectacle, as we said, is too sad to dwell upon.
But, hidden within this melancholy view, lies a great and
glorious fact. It was the beginning of an "apostolic mission" on
the part of a whole people, a mission which will form one of the
most moving and significant pages of the ecclesiastical history
of the nineteenth century. Every Christian knows that apostolic
work is rough work; the brunt of the battle must be borne by the
earliest in the field, that it may be said of their successors
in the words of the Gospel: "Vos in labores eorum introistis."
Such being the hard lot of the immigrants in the interior of the
country, was that of those who remained in the cities much more
enviable? On this point we are enabled to judge, at least as
regards New York. In a letter written by Bishop Dubois, and
published in vol. viii. of the "Annals of the Propagation of the
Faith," we meet with the following exhaustive description:
"At the beginning of this century, the newly-arrived immigrants
were employed as day-laborers, servants, journeymen, clerks, and
shopmen. Now, the condition of this class here is precisely the
same as its condition in England; it is entirely dependent upon
the will of the trader: not because by law are they forced
thereto, but because the rich alone, being able to advance the
capital necessary for factories, steam-engines, and workshops,
the poor are obliged to work for them upon the masters' own
conditions. These conditions, in the case of servants especially,
sometimes degenerate into tyranny; they are frequently forced
to work on Sundays, permission to hear even a low mass being
refused them; they are obliged betimes to assist at the prayers
of the sect to which their masters belong, and they have no
other alternative than either to do violence to their conscience,
or lose their place at the risk of not finding another. Add to
this the insults, the calumnies against Catholics, which they
are daily forced to hear--a kind of persecution at the hands of
their masters, who do every thing to turn them away from their
religion; consider the dangers to which are exposed numbers of
orphans who lose their fathers almost immediately upon landing;
add to this the want of spiritual succor, a necessary
consequence of the scarcity of missionaries; and you will have a
feeble idea of the obstacles of every kind which we have to
surmount. . . . Supposing an immigrant, the father of a family,
to die, the widow and orphans have no other resources but public
charity; and if a home is found for the children, it is nearly
always among Protestants, who do every thing in their power to
undermine their faith."
This picture of immigrant-life in New York was certainly
repeated through all the other large cities. Under such a
combination of adverse circumstances it is most probable that
men and women of any other nation would have entirely lost their
faith. Such, then, was the dreary prospect for the new-comers.
Who at that time would have dared hope to witness the consoling
spectacle which followed soon after? To begin with the dawn of
that bright day, we must pass on to a new period of immigration,
commencing in 1815 or shortly after, and continuing down to the
"exodus" of 1846.
It may be well, before entering upon it, to look at the causes
which drove so many to leave the shores of Ireland. From the
year 1815 the number of immigrants increased considerably and
kept on a steady increase until it swelled to the startling
proportions of 1850 and the following years.
It is easy to demonstrate that the causes were twofold: 1. The
wretched state of the vast majority of the Irish at the best of
times. 2. The periodical famines which have regularly visited
the island since the beginning of last century. At any time it
was in the power of the English to remedy both causes by
effecting certain changes in the existing laws. The first of
these is evidently the necessary result of the penal laws which
had converted the Irish, designedly and with the wilful intent
of the legislators, into a nation of paupers. The second can
only be the result of the laws affecting the tenure of land and
the trade and manufactures of the country.
To attribute the pauperism which now seems a part and parcel of
the Irish nation while in their own country to the indolence and
want of foresight on the part of the natives themselves, as it
is a fashion with English writers to do, is wilfully to close
the eyes to two very important things: their past history in
their own land, and their present history outside of it.
As to their past history in their own land, it is an established
fact that pauperism was unknown in the island, until Protestant
legislators introduced it by their confiscations and laws with
the manifest intent of destroying, rooting out, or driving away
the race. What has been previously stated on this point cannot
be gainsaid; and it suffices for the vindication of a falsely-
accused people. There might be some hope for a speedier and
happier solution of the vexed "Irish difficulty" did the
grandsons of those who wrought the evil only honestly
acknowledge the faults of their ancestors--the least that might
be expected of them; and it would not be too much to imagine
them honest enough to repair those faults in these days of
severe reckoning and self-scrutiny.
As to the present history of the race outside their own land,
now that it has been scattered, by these grievous calamities,
all over the world, whatever characteristics its children may
present, indolence and want of foresight can scarcely be
numbered among them, in view of the success which attends their
march everywhere. And if these qualities would seem to be rooted
in the native soil, they are only "importations" like the men
who fastened them there, and due only to the cramped position in
which their legislators so carefully confined them. Where should
there be energy, when every motive that could urge it has been
taken away? How is it possible to improve their condition, when
every improvement only imposes an additional burden upon them in
the shape of rack-rent or eviction?
In his work on "The Social Condition of the People," Mr. Kay
quotes from the Edinburgh Review of January, 1850, the evidence
on this point given by English, German, and Polish witnesses
before the Committee of Emigration, and the proofs gathered from
every source as to the rapid improvement of the Irish emigrant,
wherever he goes, are certainly convincing.
As for the foolish (for it is nothing else, unless it be wicked)
assertion that those frightful famines referred to are to be
attributed to the sufferers themselves, it is only necessary to
say in refutation that in the very years when thousands were
being swept away daily by their ravages in Ireland--1846 and
1847-- the harbors of the island were filled with English
vessels, loaded with cargoes of provisions of every kind to be
transported to England in order to pay the rents due to absentee
landlords: and all these provisions were the product of the
famine-stricken land, won by the toil of the famine-stricken
nation. This has invariably been the case when famine has swept
over the island: the island's riches were in her harbors, stored
in the holds of foreign vessels, to be carried away and
converted into money that these noble Anglo-Irish landlords
might be enabled to "sustain" life
Others have ascribed these periodical visitations to a surplus
population; but, without entering into a discussion on the
subject, Sir Robert Kane, in his "Industrial Resources of
Ireland," shows that, taking the island in her present state and
under the existing system of cultivation, she could support with
ease eighteen million inhabitants; that, if the best methods of
farming were generally adopted, the soil, by double and even
triple crops, could feed without difficulty, not only twenty-
five million, the figure stated by Mr. Gustave de Beaumont, a
French publicist of eminence, but as many as from thirty to
thirty-five million inhabitants.
But, as the same judicious writer observes, "the enormous
quantity of cattle annually shipped off from Ireland to England
would, in that case, be consumed in the country which produces
it."
It is clear, therefore, that the pretended surplus population of
Ireland is, as Sir Robert Kane says, a piece of pure imagination,
perfectly ideal, and that it is its unequal and not its
aggregate amount which is to be deplored.
But no one has presented the question more clearly and solved it
more precisely than Mr. Gustave de Beaumont in his admirable
work on Ireland, from which we note one or two telling passages,
as given in Father Perraud's "Ireland under English Rule."
"The celebrated French publicist, who was the first to present
to us (in France) a complete picture of the condition of Ireland,
examining in 1829 how emigration might or might not do away
with all the misery he had witnessed, proposed to himself the
following questions:
"I. To what extent ought emigration to be carried, in order to
bring about a material change in the general state of Ireland?
namely, by taking away the pretended surplus population.
"II. Would it be possible to carry it out to the proposed extent?
"III. Supposing it practicable, would it be a radical and final
solution of existing difficulties?
"The advocates of emigration replied to the first question by
estimating at a minimum of two million the number of individuals
who would have to leave Ireland, at one time, in order to
produce there that kind of vacuum which would improve the
conditions of labor and the existence of the rest of the
agricultural population.
"Upon these data the solution of the second question was easy.
It was by no means difficult to prove that the system was
impracticable on so large a scale; impracticable on account of
the insufficiency of the means of transport at disposal;
impracticable on account of the enormous sums required to carry
it out.
"In fact, supposing an emigrant-ship to carry a thousand
passengers--a very high figure--two thousand vessels would be
required to attain the end in view, namely, the sudden and
universal emigration of the whole so-called surplus population.
That is to say, the whole merchant navy of Great Britain would
have to be drawn off from the commerce of the world, and
chartered for the execution of this very chimerical plan. Where
was the sum required for the most necessary expenses and urgent
wants of two million passengers to be got? And what country in
the world would have submitted to a monster invasion like those
of barbarous times? Unless, indeed, these two million
individuals were beforehand coldly devoted to death by hunger,
was there a single country in which it could be hoped they would
immediately find work or the means of subsistence?"
All those impossibilities, genuine indeed and at the time, 1829,
of unforeseen solution, became, under Providence, possible by
extending the period of transportation from one year to twenty;
so that, instead of two, in reality three million and a half
were thus transported.
But, where M. de Beaumont displayed all his talent for
appreciation and keen reasoning was, when he came to consider
the third and most embarrassing question of all. Was it certain
that, the system of renting and cultivating land always
remaining the same, emigration would suffice to heal those
inveterate sores, and effect, in conformity with the wishes of
its partisans, a social transformation?
On this point, he showed, in a manner admitting of no reply,
that the emigration of a third or even of half the population
would not radically put an end to the misery of the country. The
difficulty with Ireland does not consist in being unable to
produce wherewith to feed her population; it lies in the manner
in which landed property is managed, a system which no amount of
emigration can possibly modify; for, "if one of the first
principles of the landlord be that the farmer should gain by
tilling no more than is strictly necessary to support him--if,
in addition, this principle is, as a general rule, rigidly
followed out, and all economical means of living resorted to by
the farmer necessarily induce a rise in the rent--what, upon
this supposition (of the sad reality of which every one knowing
Ireland is perfectly conscious), can be the consequence of a
decrease of population?"
Always obliged to live as sparingly as possible, in order to
escape a rise in the rent, and forced to undergo daily
privations in order to meet his engagements, how is the Irish
farmer to gain by the departure of his neighbor? "Thus, after
millions of Irishmen have disappeared, the fate of the
population which remains is in no wise changed; it will forever
be equally wretched."
Then, glancing at the past, making a sad enumeration of
Ireland's losses during the last three centuries, and evoking
from these too eloquent figures the accents of a touching
eloquence, the writer asks himself how far so much bloodshed,
such armies of individuals, stricken down by death, or hurried
out of the country by transportation--so many families extinct,
and the like--had contributed to restore and save Ireland?
"Open the annals of Ireland, and see the small amount of
influence which all those violent enterprises and all those
extraordinary accidental causes of depopulation have had upon
the social state of the country. Calculate the number of souls
that perished during the religious wars; count the thousands of
Irishmen that perished under the sword of Cromwell; to all that
the victor massacred add the myriads that he transported; think
of the hundreds of thousands who sank under famine, the number
of whom exceeded in one year, 1741, forty thousand; do not
overlook the formerly considerable number who yearly died by the
hand of the executioner; in fine, to this add the twenty-five or
thirty thousand individuals who emigrate from the country every
year" (this was written before 1830); "and, having laid down
these facts, you look for the consequences: when, in the midst
of these different crises, you see Ireland always the same,
always equally wretched, always crammed with paupers, always
bearing about with her the same hideous and deep wounds, you
will then recognize that the miseries of Ireland do not arise
from the number of her inhabitants; you will conclude that it is
the nature of her social condition to generate unmitigated
indigence and infinite distress; that, supposing millions of
poor swept out of her by a stroke of magic, others would be seen
rising up in abundance out of a well-spring of misery, which in
Ireland never dries up; and that the fault does not lie in the
number of her population, but in the institutions in force in
the country."
The celebrated French writer had certainly pointed out what were
the real causes of the distress in Ireland. He had shown how
false were the pretended causes then assigned for it by
Englishmen; he touched the key-note--the land tenure; and, as a
well-wisher to Ireland, deprecating any new calamities, he was
firmly opposed to those various fancy projects of emigration en
masse, suggested by numerous British writers, many of whom, such
as the editors of the London Times, were induced to promulgate
them by their deep hatred for the old race, which led them to
represent under a modern garb the old Norman and Puritan
philanthropic desires of rooting out and sweeping off the Irish
from the land.
The projects of emigration, therefore, were most eagerly
advanced by the enemies of the Irish, their real friends being,
on the whole, opposed to the movement at the time. But, the true
causes of Irish misery being either unseen or unappreciated, or,
if known, studiously fostered, with a view of bringing about the
one aim which ran all through the English policy, of emptying
the island and destroying the race, eventually it did actually
become a dire necessity for the people to fly; and therefore,
from 1815 to 1845, the wave of emigration began to rise fast,
and go on swelling in volume and widening in extent from year to
year. Midway between the two extreme points, about 1830, it
amounted to between twenty-five and thirty thousand. M. de
Beaumont could not see how two millions could be transported at
once. Nor were they. But he did not foresee that in the twenty
years succeeding that in which he wrote more than three millions
and a half would actually be shipped from the island; and all
the difficulties that he anticipated--the number of ships
requisite, the immense amount of money needed, the countries
where such numbers might be received--were furnished by
Providence for the spread of the Irish in many lands. But these
considerations can only be briefly touched upon here; they will
form the interesting subject of the next chapter. What we have
now to consider is the commencement of the great exodus,
confined so far to Canada and the United States, but already
working wonders over the vast stretch of country which spreads
away between the St. Lawrence and the Gulf of Mexico.
According to the official records of emigration from the "United
Kingdom," from 1815 to 1860 inclusive, we find that, in general,
the greater number emigrated to Canada up to 1839; from that
epoch, but chiefly after 1845, the greater number went directly
to the United States. Let us first look for a reason for this
change of destination, and afterward for its result.
Homer, wiser than many modern philosophers, tells us that "there
are beings which have a certain name among men and another quite
different among the gods." What is true of names, is true
likewise of what they represent, motives and things in general.
Men often assign to actions motives far different from those
known to God; and, in like manner, the motives of men, visibly
impelled by the Spirit of God, are often far beyond the
comprehension of "philosophers." We are far from presuming to
dive into the divine thoughts with the certainty of bringing to
the surface what lies hidden in their mysterious depths; but
every Christian should endeavor humbly to penetrate them, and
modestly set forth what he gathers from them.
What object can be assigned for the Irish emigrating in such
large numbers to Canada for a quarter of a century, from 1815 to
1840? It cannot be because Canada is, as it then was, a British
colony: the English Emigration Commissioners had the honesty to
confess, later on, that the rush to the United States was in
consequence of their desire to avoid dwelling under the English
flag. It was not because, in Canada, a greater facility opened
up for obtaining good land; for, in Lower Canada, where they
tarried for a long time, the land was already occupied by French-
Canadians, and, in that severe climate, the soil is not over-
productive. It cannot have been the facility for transportation--
during about six months of every year, the mouth of the St.
Lawrence is closed to ships, and travel through a frozen land is
not the most desirable thing, particularly to homeless and
moneyless immigrants. Last of all, it was not the similarity of
climate and language with those of their own island. What, then,
can it have been?
In our own opinion, the human motive of the Irish can have been
no other than a religious one; in the Divine mind, the motive
was of a still higher and more merciful character. The Irish had
heard, from the few of their countrymen who had already
emigrated to the United States, of the great difficulty they
experienced in practising their religion. On the other hand,
they knew that, throughout Lower Canada, there was not a village
without its Catholic church and priest, and that Quebec and
Montreal were important and entirely Catholic cities. This great
fact blinded them to the many disadvantages they would have to
undergo in emigrating to such a country; or, rather, they saw
the disadvantages, but the thought that their religion and that
of their children would be safe in Canada was enough for them.
It is the same people ever, in the nineteenth century as in
those which preceded it, and all noble minds must respect them
for thus first looking to the supernatural.
But, had the Almighty a design in directing them to the north of
the continent, and establishing so great a number of them
permanently in that country? We are fully persuaded that the
Irish race is now, and ever has been, predestined to fulfill a
high mission on this earth. What is now transpiring under our
eyes is too clear to be denied by any Christian; and admitting
the general fact that the race must be an instrument in the
hands of God to spread his Church throughout, in English-
speaking countries particularly, to correct, by their presence
and influence in every quarter of the globe, the evil effects of
the spread of what we call Japhetism among Oriental races--let
us endeavor to see how their coming to settle in Canada served
for that great end.
The Gospel of our Lord was first preached in those dreary
regions by religious of the Gallic race. The labors of Catholic
missionaries in Canada, of the members of the Society of Jesus
particularly, are now well known and appreciated. The French
colony in Canada was from the first a Catholic colony: It was
not a conquest; it was not a commercial enterprise; it was not a
transatlantic garden for luxurious Frenchmen: it was what Mr.
Bancroft has well called it, "a mission." The desire of winning
souls to Christ had begun the work, had run all through it
almost to the end. The blood of martyrs had consecrated it; that
of Rasles, shed by heretics; of Lallemant, Brebeuf, and Jogues,
by pagans. But, after the surrender of the colony to England,
although the terms of the cession were as favorable to religion
as could be desired, and the British power could not introduce
there any of the penal laws still pressing so hard on English
and Irish Catholics, nevertheless, a great danger arose in
consequence, which is particularly visible now after more than a
century has passed away. Though Catholicity could not be
persecuted, and, for once, England faithfully observed the terms
of a capitulation which involved a religious side, as little
could heresy be excluded or denied some of the privileges which
it enjoys in the mother country. The government was to be
administered mostly by Protestant officials; the new-comers from
England would be composed, for the greater part, of Protestant
merchants and artisans. The Anglican Church would soon gain the
prestige of wealth and influence. The country in the east, it is
true, thickly settled by Catholic farmers, would long remain
Catholic; but in the large towns, Quebec and Montreal chiefly,
an influx of Protestants of every sect was to be expected; while
in the west, where the French had scarcely occupied the country,
the numerical majority would soon lean to the side of the new
arrivals from England and Scotland. The English tongue would
gradually supersede the French, and it might have been foreseen
from the beginning that, within a given time, notwithstanding
the rapid increase of French-Canadians by birth, Catholicity
would lose first its preeminence, and, perhaps, after a while,
occupy a very inferior rank.
The religion professed by the many millions connected with the
centre of unity has never shrunk from an equal contest, and is
sure of victory when left free and untrammelled; but in Canada
it should be observed that, had it not been for the coming of
the Irish, the whole of the Catholic population would have
spoken French, being surrounded and absorbed almost by
sectarians of every hue, all speaking English. The strange
spectacle would there have shown itself--a spectacle, perhaps,
never witnessed hitherto-- of a Catholic and Protestant language.
The separation of the two camps would have rested chiefly upon
this peculiar basis; and there can be no doubt that, with the
vigorous youth of the United States, developing so rapidly in
the South, and destined to carry with it the English tongue over
all the Northern continent, together with the spread of the
English and Scotch North and West, the French language was
destined to become circumscribed within narrower and narrower
limits, and its final disappearance in America would be probably
only a work of time.
If it is permitted us to study, love, and admire the designs of
Providence among men, who shall say that it is presumption to
assert that God's was the hand which directed the Irish exiles
and set them in their place, in order to prevent the sad
spectacle of a land settled by holy people, belonging almost
exclusively to God and to Christ, endeared to the true Church by
so many labors endured for the spread of truth, and memorable by
so many heroic virtues practised in those frozen wilds and
dreary forests, from falling sooner or later into the hands of
the most unrelenting enemies of the papacy?
It cannot be presumptuous to attribute it to the designs of
Providence, as otherwise it is impossible to discover any reason
whatever which might influence the Irish in selecting that
desolate spot for their place of exile. They came, therefore, in
great numbers, to set themselves under the spiritual control of
priests unable to understand either their native language or the
borrowed English they brought with them; they came, confident
that all the Catholic churches built prior to their coming would
be open to them, and that the pastors of those French
congregations would receive them, not as strangers, but as long-
lost children, at last let loose from a land of bondage, come to
share the freedom secured by the settlers.
The statistics of immigration having been accurately kept since
1815, it is easy to ascertain the number of Irish people who
landed in Canada during the precise period under investigation.
And, although a certain number, which increased with the years,
did not remain in the country where they first landed, but pushed
on immediately, or shortly after, south to the United States, still,
a large proportion settled permanently in the country.
Half a million English-speaking persons arrived in Canada
between the years 1815 and 1839. At that time there was no
distinction made between the three different classes coming
respectively from England, Scotland, and Ireland; but, when this
classification afterward came to be made, the Irish formed a
steady three-fourths of the whole. Applying this proportion to
the time under consideration, we have the large amount of three
hundred and seventy-five thousand. The number was afterward
considerably increased, although a greater number still went
directly to the United States; so that it is ascertained that
within ten years, from 1839 to 1849, four hundred and twenty-
eight thousand Irish people arrived in Canada; that is to say,
at a rate of fifty thousand a year.
The country in which they settled was certainly large, as it
comprised not only Canada proper, but also the British provinces
of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the large islands in the
vicinity. But, as the Irish, contrary to their former custom, now
prefer to dwell in large towns and assemble together rather than
find themselves, as it were, lost in a sparsely-peopled district,
the population of important cities, such as Quebec and Montreal,
and of the growing western towns of Toronto, Kingston, and others,
was very sensibly affected by their arrival. The English was no
longer to be an exclusively Protestant tongue; and, as the more
rapid increase of the Irish by birth would soon equalize numbers,
and give them eventually the preponderance, it was clear that the
country would ultimately remain Catholic, even supposing that the
French tongue should be finally forgotten.
The first extensive emigration to the large cities of Canada was
also owing to the fact that, the eastern provinces not having
come under the stipulation of the capitulation treaty, the penal
laws were still unrepealed in that district. Toward the
beginning of this century we find Father Burke, wishing to open
a school for Catholic children at Halifax, Nova Scotia,
threatened with the enforcement of the law by the then governor
of the province, if he persevered in his attempt, a threat which
was only prevented from being carried into execution by the
liberal spirit of the Protestant inhabitants. The flow of
emigration to the colonies south and east of the St. Lawrence
was, consequently, of a much later, in fact, for the most part,
of quite recent date.
In Newfoundland the case was still worse. That region had been
ceded to Great Britain by France, in 1713, at the Treaty of
Utrecht; and, although that treaty stipulated that freedom of
worship should be guaranteed, nevertheless, the country remained
closed to Catholic clergymen, the stipulation being nullified by
the treacherous clause "as far as the laws of England permitted.
"Hence, the French Catholics with their clergy were soon
obliged to leave the colony, and as late as 1765, according to
Mr. Maguire ("Irish in America"), the governor of the island was
issuing orders worthy of the reign of Queen Anne. In the words
of Dr. Murdock, Bishop of St. John's, Newfoundland, "the Irish
had not the liberty of the birds of the air to build or repair
their nests; they had behind them the forest or the rocky soil,
which they were not allowed, without license difficultly
obtained, to reclaim and till. Their only resource was the
stormy ocean, and they saw the wealth they won from the deep
spent in other lands, leaving them only a scanty subsistence."
The Irish had therefore to fall back on the cities of Lower
Canada, where, moreover, they found numerous churches and
priests. Hence, Quebec was their first place of refuge, and they
soon formed a large percentage of the population. Montreal was
their choice from the first, where they arrived in crowds,
attracted by the intense pleasure they felt at the happy chance
of living and dying in a really Catholic city, where, turn in
what direction they would, their eyes were gladdened by the
sight of magnificent churches, colleges, convents, hospitals,
with the cross, the symbol of their faith, surmounting nearly
all the public edifices of the city.
Western Canada was as yet an uninviting field for the Irish. A
large number of Scotchmen and "Orangemen" had already settled
there, when the British Government, having adopted the scheme of
emigration for Ireland, offered them favorable conditions for
transport and settlement. It was on the west chiefly that an
invasion of English Protestantism threatened, and the Catholics
of Ireland were, in the dispensation of Providence, to meet that
danger. It is no surprise, then, to find the English Government
itself made subservient to designs very different from its own,
offering in 1825 to bear the whole expense of establishing large
bodes of Irishmen on these wilds--wilds then, but full of
promise for the future. Among other colonies transported bodily,
Mr. Maguire tells of four hundred and fifteen families,
comprising two thousand individuals, all from the south of
Ireland, genuine "Irish in birth and blood," transported from
Cork harbor to Western Canada, on board British ships, under the
auspices of the government. Their story will well repay the
reading, and above all their remonstrance to the governor of the
province, after they had surmounted the first difficulties of
their new position: "We labor under a heavy grievance, which, we
confidently hope, your Excellency will redress, and then we will
be completely happy, viz., the want of clergymen to administer
to us the comforts of our holy religion, and good schoolmasters
to instruct our children."
In spite, however, of the efforts made by British statesmen to
direct the flow of Irish emigration to the northern part of the
American Continent, the number of those who voluntarily crossed
the Atlantic to settle directly in the United States was
steadily increasing. Not only did they find there perfect
freedom of religion, but the absence of clergymen was being
gradually less felt, and each new bishopric created became a
centre of religious life and vigor.
Moreover, the new republic had turned out to be the most
energetic and enterprising nation which the world had yet seen.
A whole continent lay before it to subdue, and at once the young
giant prepared to grapple with the truly gigantic difficulty.
With the arrival of every "packet-boat," Europe was astonished
to hear of the amazing vitality displayed by a nation of
yesterday, composed of a few millions of individuals, who had
already spread their frontiers as far north as the whole line of
the great lakes, as far west as the Pacific coast, and southward
to the Gulf of Mexico. Louisiana fell in, and, from a state of
torpidity in which it had slumbered, the vast territory which
then went by that name waked suddenly into a prodigiously active
life. At the very beginning of the century, the Missouri had
been navigated to its source, and Lewis and Clarke, crossing the
high ridge of the Rocky Mountains, had descended the Columbia to
its mouth, and settled the boundary of the United States along
the far-spreading Pacific. The mighty Mississippi, in the midst
of that splendid domain, belonged from source to mouth to the
republic, and, with its tributaries, was already alive with
numerous steamboats, passing up and down, bearing their life and
all its belongings with them, and the (at that time more
numerous still) flatboats, carried down the stream, to reach, in
due time, New Orleans.
There was small thought of hindering "foreigners" from coming to
take a share in the giant enterprise. All the inhabitants were
in fact foreigners to the soil; and the new-comers, no matter
from what country they came, had just as good a right to sit at
the common board as the first-landed. It was felt and wisely
acknowledged to be the real interest of the young nation to
welcome as great a number as Europe could send.
Thus have we already seen large numbers of Irishmen laboring
along the Erie Canal. There was not a public work undertaken at
the time in which they did not bear a welcome hand. And what
race of men could be found better fitted for such work? It would
indeed be interesting to show from good statistical tables what
share Irishmen have really had in building up the prosperity of
the Union by their labor, skilled and unskilled.
At the period we have now come to, they were already crowding in
at the harbors of the Atlantic, so astonishing to the newly-
arrived European by the extraordinary activity which
characterizes them; they were numerous in the factories just
starting into life, from the desire of not depending on England
for all manufactured goods; they were multiplying in large
hotels, in private families, in the fields outside the large
cities. Above all, the buildings erected at the time, in such
great numbers, employed many of them as mechanics and laborers;
and whenever some grand undertaking, which looked to the future
welfare of the country, demanded a large draft of men, there
were they to be seen as they had never been seen before, even in
their own country, where all labor was reduced to the individual
efforts of each, just sufficient to eke out a miserable life.
At this time, about 1820, the Irish immigrants settled, for the
most part, on the Atlantic seaboard; few had yet crossed even
the ridge of the Alleghanies. In the Eastern States they found
occupation enough, and the steady growth of the country required
their willing aid. From that time the North formed their chief
point of attraction, and the States of Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
and New York, were their great resorts. Even New England was no
longer forbidden ground to them, and they began to spread
themselves over its rocky and unpromising surface, to effect
there a greater moral change than probably anywhere else in the
country. In 1827, during the first pastoral visitation of Bishop
Fenwick, when he erected, on the spot made memorable by the
apostolic labors of Father Rasles, a monument to the memory of
that saintly man, we read that "he then went in search of some
Irish Catholics living at Belfast, Maine, whom he found
suffering both for the necessaries of life and for the
sustenance of the soul. He relieved both their temporal and
spiritual wants, and imparted them his blessing, and some
wholesome advice."
He was enabled to do more for them in the following year at
Charlestown, Massachusetts. On the 15th of October, 1828,
according to the Boston Gazette, "he laid the corner-stone of a
Catholic church near Craigie's Point, designed to accommodate
the Catholics of that place and of Charlestown, who were said to
be already numerous." There is no doubt that the several
churches built about that time in Maine, New Hampshire,
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, were filled rather
by Irish immigrants than by American converts, although not a
few consoling examples of this latter method of the Church's
increase took place about this period.
But New York was taking the lead as the landing of predilection
for the desolate children of Ireland. Thus, at the installation
of Bishop Dubois, in St. Patrick's Cathedral, November 9, 1826,
he addressed himself particularly to the Irish portion of his
congregation, observing that "he entertained for them the
liveliest feelings of affection. He reminded them of the
persecutions they had undergone in defence of their religion, of
the sacrifices many of them had made on leaving their native
country, and conjured them always to manifest that attachment to
the religion of their forefathers which had hitherto so
prominently distinguished them among their brother Catholics."
The whole State was beginning to swarm with new arrivals from
the Green Isle. This detachment, however, only formed the
scarcely perceptible head of the great army which was to follow.
We shall soon return to see its masses steadily treading their
way on toward the West, and never halting till they reached the
Pacific coast; we will see for what purpose.
Meanwhile, it is fitting to look at another wing of this army
taking its position directly south of Asia, the great continent
which holds the first dwelling of man on earth, and toward which
all the tendencies of modern civilization seem to turn.
An immense island, to which geographers have now given the name
of the fifth continent, from the dawn of creation lay sleeping
between the seas known as the Indian and Pacific Oceans. A few
thousand savages, said to be the lowest type of the human family,
roamed aimlessly over its extensive wilds. Out of the ordinary
route of circumnavigating explorers, few European ships had
reached its coast, when the Dutch attempted to form
establishments on its southern and western sides, giving it the
name of New Holland. At the end of last century the English
Captain Cook formed the first successful European settlement--
Botany Bay--in what he called New South Wales, at the south-
eastern extremity of the island. The French surveyed a
considerable portion of the western coast at the beginning of
this century. But finally, as has so far generally been the case
with other colonies, the English remained in possession of the
whole, and, though their first thought was to use it merely as a
penal settlement, they soon saw the importance of removing their
convicts to Van Diemen's Island, and now no less than four or
five distinct British colonies embrace the entire coast-line of
the continent, the interior still remaining an unknown desert.
Immigration, other than the transport of criminals, began only
in 1825; and the white population of New South Wales, which in
1810 was only eight thousand three hundred, in 1821 only thirty
thousand, increased rapidly after the discovery of the gold-
fields in 1851, so that in 1861 more than seven hundred thousand
free colonists had been landed from British ships on the
continent and large islands of Van Diemen and New Zealand,
notwithstanding their enormous distance from Great Britain.
The importance of this vast colony, or, rather, of this
agglomeration of colonies, should not be estimated from their
extent and productions alone, but chiefly from their proximity
to Asia toward the north, and to America toward the east.
Already lines of steamers connect the new continent with China
on the one side and San Francisco on the other; and when we
reflect that the English tongue is the only one spoken
throughout that vast territory; that English political
institutions, with all their attendant machinery of parliaments,
elections, municipal governments, and liberties, toleration, a
free press and free discussion, are day by day becoming more
deeply rooted in the habits of the people, it is easy to
perceive how soon the peculiarities of Japhetism, starting from
that centre, will invade the whole line of Southern and Eastern
Asia and the countless island-groups of Polynesia. The Catholic
reader will at once perceive how the true religion must have
been left to struggle, hopelessly almost, in its mission of
enlightenment and mercy, surrounded as it was by so many adverse
circumstances, had not the Irish element been at hand to fall
back on.
Our information on this important branch of the subject is
unfortunately not extensive; nor is this to be wondered at,
since it is only from 1851 that Irish immigration really began
to show itself in Australia, and take an active part in the
European rush toward that quarter of the world, or, rather, to
use the phrase of Holy Writ, "to dwell in the tents of Sem."
When Great Britain sent out her first cargoes of convicts to
Australia, it never entered into the ideas of that enlightened
power that such an attendant as a minister of religion might be
wanted, and, as Mr. Marshall says in his book on "Christian
Missions:" "The first ship which bore away its freight of
despair, of bruised hearts, and woful memories, and fearful
expectations, would have left the shores of England without even
a solitary minister of religion, but for the timely remonstrance
of a private individual. The civil authorities had deemed their
work complete, when they had given the signal to raise the
anchor and unloose the sails; the rest was no concern of theirs.
"He adds something more extraordinary and more to our purpose
still:
"Among the emigrants to the new continent, soon some of those
children of Ireland, whom Providence seems to have dispersed
through all the homes of the Saxon race, that they might one day
rekindle among them the light of faith, which their own long
misfortunes have never been able to quench, were carried as the
first fruitful seeds of the ever-blooming tree of the Church."
To these exiles it was necessary to convey the succors of
religion. The first Catholic priest who arrived in Australia on
his mission of charity, and whom the policy of self-interest, at
least, might have prompted the authorities to greet with eager
welcome, was treated with derision, and "was directed," as one
of his most energetic successors relates, "to produce his
permission," or "hold himself in readiness for departure by the
next ship." He was alone, and consequently a safe victim; and
though, as the latest historian of the colony observes, "his
ministrations would have been not less valuable in a social than
in a religious point of view," he was seized, put in prison, and
finally sent back to England, because his presence was irksome
to men who seem to have felt instinctively that his proffered
ministry was the keenest rebuke to their own cruelty and
profaneness.
This first Catholic priest was the Rev. Mr. Flynn, on whom the
Holy See had conferred the title of archpriest, with power to
administer confirmation. Arrived at Sydney in 1818, he did much
good there in a short time. Mr. Marshall has told us how the
colonial authorities treated him.
But a circumstance, not mentioned in this clever author's work
on "Missions," shows who and what were those Irish exiles whom
the priest had come to serve and direct in his spiritual
capacity. When suddenly carried off to prison, he left the
Blessed Sacrament in their little church at Sydney. There the
faithful frequently assembled during the two years which
followed his departure, as large a number as could muster, to
offer up their prayers to God, and look for consolation in their
affliction. The visible priest had been violently snatched away
from them; the Archpriest of souls, Christ, remained.
The Rev. W. Ullathorne, now Bishop of Birmingham, England, was
afterward made Vicar-General Apostolic of that desolate mission
by the Holy See. He informs us, in a letter published among the
"Annals of the Propagation of the Faith," how these poor Irish
people were treated by their "masters" in Australia.
"It was forbidden them to speak Irish, under pain of fifty
strokes of the whip; and the magistrates, who for the most part
belonged to the 'Protestant clergy,' sentenced also to the whip and
to close confinement those who refused to go hear their sermons,
and to assist at a service which their consciences disavowed."
In 1820 two fresh missionaries replaced Mr. Flynn. They found
the little church where their predecessor had left our Lord two
years before still in the same state; and soon the insignificant
flock, which ever multiplies under persecution, began to
increase wonderfully, so that twelve years later, out of the
whole population of the colony--one hundred thousand--there were
from twenty to thirty thousand Catholics.
Meanwhile, their emancipation in England had secured their
rights in the British colonies. There was no longer the threat
of the whip hanging over those who refused to hear Protestant
sermons; there was no longer fear of their missionary being sent
back by the first ship to England. Hence the Holy See immediately
established the hierarchy of the Church, on a regular and permanent
basis, there, Dr. Polding being the first bishop.
This may be called an era in the history of the Catholic Church.
A hierarchy, independent of the state in heretic and even
infidel countries, is a modern thought inspired by the Holy
Spirit to the rulers of the flock of Christ to meet modern
requirements. By this new system the long list of so-called
Protestant countries was at once swept away. For no country can
be called Protestant which has its regularly-established bishops
of Holy Church, with their authority permanently secured. Their
dioceses cover the land, and the land consequently belongs to
the Church, however great may be the number of heretics or
infidels, and however powerful the organizations antagonistic to
Catholicity. The "people of God" is there, to multiply with the
years, and finally absorb all heterogeneous bodies. The Church,
as we saw, is a growth; other bodies are crystallized and do not
grow; more, they become materially and necessarily disintegrated
by the action of time and the friction of surrounding bodies, of
spreading roots and living organisms.
This plain, unmistakable, eventual truth was the real cause
which brought about the violent explosion of fear and hatred
following directly the reestablishing of the Catholic hierarchy
in England. The opposing forces felt that their hour was come,
and they could not but shiver at their approaching annihilation,
small as was the body of the English Catholics at the time. But
it is not for us to enter here on these considerations, which
would call for long developments, and which belong more
fittingly to the general history of the Church than to Irish
emigration to Australia.
The few facts glanced at above afford ample grounds for
picturing the state of the first Irish exiles who set foot on
that broad island of the Antipodes. It was only a repetition of
the scenes witnessed at the same time wherever the Irish strove
to propagate the true faith. Later on it will be our pleasure to
come back to this field and wonder at the growth of a blooming
garden which has replaced the old sterility.
Of the other British colonies wherein a certain number of
Irishmen began to settle at the time of the present
investigation, no details can yet be furnished. It is easy to
suppose, however, without fear of mistake, that the spiritual
destitution and state of more or less open persecution which we
have found existing in America and Australia, prevailed also at
the Cape Colony, at Natal, in Guiana, Labuan, Ceylon, etc. A
very different spectacle is about to be unfolded before our eyes,
and we hasten on to behold its wondrous development and
splendor--a splendor, however, ushered in by scenes of extreme
woe.