The Protestant Deputation to England
(Extract from the 'testimony' given by Mr. Boyton, one of the
two deputies sent by The Conservative Society 'to state the
case of their fellow-Protestants to the people of England.'
'The deputies arrived in Liverpool
on Thursday, the 20th of November,
and the first great meeting was held
on the following day, at the
Amphitheatre, Great Charlotte-street...
Upon the subject of emigration, Mr Boyton produced some
striking returns. In 1828, before the passing of the relief
bill, the number of emigrants was..........9,572
In 1829.................11,343
1830.................22,321
1831, up to July.....37,175
These returns speak for themselves: they are
trumpet-tongued in proclaiming the effects of the
emancipation measure and of the reform bill. When it is
considered that the emigrants are the best of the Roman
Catholic, and the flower of the Protestant population - those
who would be good subjects, if we only had a good government,
and those whom even a bad government could not pervert into
bad subjects - and that these all carry with them some little
property, and leave behind them wretched objects, who become
a burden upon the community, the evils of Irish emigration
may be more readily conceived; and if something be not done
to arrest it, by giving greater security to life and
property, and by repressing turbulence and agitation, Ireland
will be convulsed, the Union will be repealed, and the empire
will be dismembered.'
