Читать книгу The Story of a Peninsular Veteran. Sergeant in the Forty-Third Light Infantry, during the Peninsular War онлайн

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Without going into the history of the Irish Rebellion, which is foreign from my present purpose, the fact is sufficiently evident, that the whole of that sanguinary struggle from first to last may be ascribed to the crafty domination of the Roman Catholic clergy. It is not a little singular, that three of the most daring military leaders, those I mean who were principally signalised in the wholesale butchery of their Protestant fellow subjects, were priests in that persecuting Church. One of these, named Roche, assumed the power of working miracles. Indeed, each of them, as occasion required, did a little business in that line. Roche declared that in battle his person was invulnerable, that no shot could hit or hurt him; and having picked up several bullets after an engagement at Ross, he assured his dupes that he caught them in his hand during the fight. The wily ecclesiastic, true worshipper as he was at the shrine of Mammon, conceived the idea of turning the thing to good account by the alternate practice of hypocrisy and theft, for either of which his hand was ready. He succeeded; and I hardly know which to admire most, the consummate impudence of the holy father, or the folly of his disciples. Roche procured slips of paper, each of which he termed a ‘protection, or gospel.’ In the centre was a figure of the Cross, with an inscription underneath, stating: ‘In the name of God and of the blessed Virgin, no gun, pistol, sword, or any other offensive weapon can hurt or otherwise injure the person who has this paper in his possession; and it is earnestly recommended to all women to carry it, as it will be found an infallible preservation against the fatality of child-bed.’ Anxious to secure customers in every rank, the price of these tickets to the better sort of people was half-a-crown. As the poor might haggle at parting with a coin so large, the vendor discreetly condescended to open a retail trade at sixpence each. The circulation of this trumpery, the value of which was equal to every other product of the Catholic Church, was immense; customers were to be computed by thousands.