mable economical boon to a country where a large proportion of the population were often reduced to the verge of starvation. It would have exercised a moral influence of a kind peculiarly beneficial to the national character, and by identifying Irish Catholic names with great English triumphs, would have reacted very favourably on the political situation. The remarkable military capacities of the Irish people were already well known on the Continent, and Irish Protestants occupied a considerable position in the British army. The cavalry regiment of Lord Ligonier consisted almost entirely of them, and the brilliant part which it played in the battle of Dettingen was employed by the advocates of the Charter Schools as an argument in favour of proselytism.' Archbishop Boulter, however, who then directed the affairs of Ireland, while urging on the Duke of Newcastle in 1726 the propriety of making Ireland a recruiting ground, did so only on the condition that the permission should be restricted to those who could bring certificates of their being Protestants and children of Protestants.2 The officers

1 Harris's Description of Down (1744), p. 19. Madden complained that this kingdom has been terribly exhausted by sending the flower of our people, and our Protestant people too, into the army, to the loss of many thousand heads and families.'-Reflections and Resolutions, p. 198.

2 Boulter's Letters, i. 148. There is, however, one very curious instance about this time of the Government authorising the enlistment of a few Irish Catholics. On Aug. 6, 1720, Horace Walpole wrote to James Belcher: My Lord Stanhope having recommended it to my Lord Lieutenant to cause twenty

VOL. I.

or thirty men to be raised in Ireland at his Majesty's charge, either Protestants or Papists, provided they be of an extraordinary size, to be presented by his Majesty to the King of Prussia; his Grace has thought fit to entrust the execution of this service to Col. Ramsay.... Papists as well as Protestants may be equally useful if duly qualified by their stature.' In Oct. 1722, another order came from the King to enlist more men in Ireland for the King of Prussia's life-guards. Departmental Correspondence (Irish State Paper Office).

E E

were accustomed to make severe inquiries in their regiments, lest any doubtful Protestant should have found his way into the ranks, and several persons were expelled on a bare suspicion of Catholicism.1

During the long period of their proscription,2 the stream of recruits for foreign armies never ceased. The Grand Jury of Dublin in 1713 complained bitterly

of the accounts received from many parts of the country of daily enlistments, and year after year the same story was told in numerous informations and complaints that were laid before the provincial magistrates. In 1721 the Duke of Grafton wrote to the Lords Justices that information had arrived at the Admiralty that no less than 2,000 men were lurking in the mountains of Dungarvan waiting for ships to carry them to Spain.1 In the same year the Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer wrote from Cork' to acquaint the Lord Lieutenant and Council that the Papists who have of late been enlisted for some foreign service have appeared in such great numbers and in so public a manner that,' as they say, 'we are apprehensive the civil power alone will hardly be able to disperse them.' They ask for troops to be sent especially towards the sea-coast, from whence we have reason to believe at least 20,000 men have been of late or are now ready to be shipped off.' 2

6

Yet it is probable that only a small part of the movement was known to the Government. The vast extent of coast fringed by barren and gloomy mountains, inhabited almost exclusively by Catholics, indented by deep bays and shady creeks, and infested by smugglers and privateers, rendered enlistment peculiarly easy, and the flights of the 'wild geese,' as they were called, were for many years almost unimpeded. Very often the corpse of an old woman was followed by a long train of apparently decorous mourners, to one of the many secluded churchyards that were scattered through the mountains, and there, unwatched and unsuspected, the recruiting agent chose his men and told

1 Departmental Correspondence. These papers, as well as the Presentments of Grand Juries, and the Civil and Miscellaneous Correspondence in the Irish Re

cord Office, contain numerous allusions to the enlistments.

2 Letter from St. John Broderick and others. Irish Record Office.

There were a few

them off for the service of France. prosecutions, and in 1726 a man named Nowland was condemned to death, with all the horrid circumstances of butchery usual in cases of high treason, for having enlisted men for the service of the Pretender.2 Two others, named Mooney and Maguirk, were executed in Dublin for foreign enlistments in 1732; 3 but for some time the Government appear to have been so glad to get rid of the more energetic Catholics, that they connived at the movement, provided the emigrants did not direct their course to a country with which England was actually at war. The confidential letters of Primate Boulter supply clear evidence of this fact. In May 1726 we find him writing to the Duke of Newcastle, 'There seems likewise to be more listing in several parts, but whether for France or Spain is uncertain, though they pretend the former.' In the same year and month he wrote to Lord Carteret,' Every day fresh accounts come to us that there are great numbers listing here for foreign service.' In March 1727 he writes to Newcastle, Everything here is quiet, except that, in spite of all our precautions, recruits are still going off for Spain as well as for France.' In 1730 we find traces of a very curious episode illustrating the friendship which at that time subsisted between the Governments of England and France. An officer in the French service named Hennesy came to Ireland to raise recruits, and he actually had a letter of recommendation from the Duke of Newcastle to Primate Boulter. It was necessary to observe much secrecy so as to escape the notice of the Opposition in England. The difficulty was enhanced by the fact that every justice of the peace was competent to arrest and commit a recruiting agent,

Information of Gilbert Fitz

patrick (county Cork).

2 Madden's Hist. of Irish

Periodical Literature, i. 259,260. 3 Dublin Gazette, Feb. 13-17, 1732.

who could then only be released in due course of law, or by a formal pardon; and it was feared that the zeal of many magistrates would be stimulated if they knew that the levies were secretly countenanced by a Government with whose politics they disagreed. Boulter urged these difficulties strongly upon the ministers. He assured them that as many recruits as they proposed to allow the French agent to levy had been clandestinely enrolled annually for several years; that all recruits raised here for France or Spain are generally considered as persons that may some time or other pay a visit to this country as enemies,' and that the Lords Justices apprehended serious difficulties from the intervention of the Government; and he added, 'What has happened to several of them formerly when they were raising recruits here in a clandestine way (though as we knew his Majesty's intentions, we slighted and, as far as we could, discouraged complaints on that head), your Grace very well knows from the several applications made to your Lordship by the French ambassador.'.

The predictions of the primate were verified by the event. The proceedings of the Government became known. They were attacked in the Craftsman,' and created so violent an explosion of hostile opinion in England as well as in Ireland, that it was thought necessary to recall Hennesy as speedily as possible.1

1 Boulter's Letters, i. 72, 151– 174; ii. 30-38. Bishop Nicholson writes to Archbishop Wake, Jan. 20, 1721-22: Your Grace will observe that the Lord Lieutenant takes no notice in his speech to Parliament of the late enlisting of soldiers for foreign service, notwithstanding the great noise that has been lately made against us on that head both in proclamations and the debates of both houses; which inclines me

to hope that the levies are truly intended for Spanish service against the Moors, and are made here by (at least) his Majesty's connivance. If this be the case, we have reason to wish that whatever the numbers may be that are already sent over, they might be doubly increased, since all that have hitherto been shipped off are bigoted Papists.'-British Museum Add. MSS. 6116.