In a back garden along the Harbour Road in Ballyhalbert (between the graveyard and the Moat Road) was where the village's original Presbyterian meeting house once stood.
On 27 February 1778, Rev. William Steele-Dickson preached a sermon there, packed with Old Testament references, calling for peace in the American War of Independence. Best known as a future "United Irishman", he told his listeners:
"A few Generations lead us back to the Origin of American Colonization, when the Inhabitants of the British Isles first explored its pathless deserts, in Quest of that Liberty and Peace which their Country denied them: And every succeeding Year has transported Multitudes from every Corner of these Lands, so that there is scarcely a Protestant Family, of the middle and lower Classes among us, who does not reckon Kindred with the Inhabitants of that extensive Continent. How many Parents, in the narrow Circle of our own Acquaintance, are agitated with the most painful Anxiety for the uncertain Fate of favorite Children whose Habitations have become the Seat of War"
He described the War as a "civil war", he called France "the jealous enemies of our liberties and religion" and he said that Ireland's Presbyterians "are ready to approve ourselves the steady friends of the Constitution and the rights of our country".
• The full sermon, entitled "The Ruinous Effects of Civil War", is on GoogleBooks here.
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This extract from the same sermon is in Thomas Witherow's 1880 book Historical and Literary Memorials of Presbyterianism in Ireland (p. 236; online here).
"... From all these things taken together, it appears that in whatever point of view we consider the present civil war, we have cause to reprobate it. If we consider it as trampling humanity under foot and violating the ties of blood, it is unnatural and barbarous; and if we consider it as dissolving the bonds of Protestantism, wounding the interests of Britain through the sides of America, or exposing us to the inroads of a jealous enemy, it is foolish, impolitic, and wicked. Can we, therefore, hesitate what were best and safest to be done? Is not the way of peace in all respects to be preferred? And while faction roars for blood and upstart loyalty beats to arms, doth not every real friend to his country look forward with earnest desire to the happy day when the sword shall cease to devour? Is it not the first prayer of his heart that the wisdom of Britain may yet stretch forth the peaceful olive to the "Western world, and the second that she may not stretch it forth in vain ?
Yet such is the rage of ambition, that even this measure, for which humanity, religion, policy, and precedent jointly plead, is loudly declaimed against as humiliating and dishonourable, and many circumstances of guilt are alleged against the Colonists to justify the continuance of war in order to reduce them. "Prerogative has been infringed, allegiance withdrawn, the omnipotence of Parliament insulted, and an independent state erected in contempt of its authority." Now let all this be granted, without raking up provocations, injuries, or anything which may tend to irritate, and what will be the consequence? Though these offences are great, are we to sacrifice our all to a point of honour? Or, to use a favourite mode of expression, does authority require that a parent should risk his own perdition in an attempt to chastise the ingratitude of a child, when experience shows that he is unequal to the task ? Surely no. Such pleas for war are lighter than dust in the balance when opposed to the weighty considerations which call for peace.
While peace is thus the object of our desire, we must receive a peculiar satisfaction from a review of the conduct of Irish Presbyterians on this trying occasion. Our enemies, if any such we have, can scarcely deny that as a body we have been guided by the spirit of moderation. We have neither attempted to clog the wheels of Government by frantic opposition, nor to encourage measures of violence by sanguinary addresses. If we have in any instance censured the principle or conduct of the war, our censures have been justified by the general feelings of humanity and a zealous interest for the common concern of Britain and America. And should necessity call us forth to oppose the jealous enemies of our liberties and religion*, we are ready to approve ourselves the steady friends of the Constitution and the rights of our country.
* Witherow's footnote says: He means the French, who, it was feared, might invade Ireland while England was engaged in the American war.
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