AC: 'No, because "ye" is not an altered spelling, it's the standard spelling of a legitimate pronoun. In most places, the informal/dialect "ye" is pronounced differently from the formal/Biblical "ye", particularly when unstressed; compare "ye gods" and "ye damn fool".'

Okay, I take your point there. However, re: "Similarly, when we read "me" as dialect for "my", we intuitively reduce the vowel, even though as a direct object, "me" bears a long E, stressed or unstressed" - can I take it from this - and from the time of day you're writing - that you live in the UK, where perhaps you hear this dialect use of "me" more often than most do in North America? I don't believe North Americans in general - certainly not Canadians (among whom I count myself) - do make that intuitive reduction to which you refer, unless they happen to be quite familiar for some reason with the specific dialect being represented. Similarly, for that matter, Canadians would have to make a conscious effort to read the "ye" in "ye damn fool" as "y(schwa)" rather than as "yee", unless, again, they happened to have knowledge of the dialect in question. All of which is beside the point, of course, having nothing to do with how Burke would have understood the matter.

Although I'm still not convinced, I will concede that there is much more to your argument than I originally would have allowed. If I find out anything more, one way or the other, I'll pass it along here ...

DaveM (the one who started all this!) - Good point re: "ye" - but it would be interesting to know what Burke had in mind ...

"Cat's meat" as food for the cat makes perfect sense; the question of course is whether or not that meaning was familiar to Burke and company ...