mal protest against it was entered by a number of the ancient nobility, and even by some Anglican bishops. The protest was signed by the lords Duncannon, Londonderry and Tyrone, the barons of Limerick, Howth, Ossory, Killaloe, Kerry, Strabane and Kingston, and also by the bishops of Derry, Elphin, Clonfert, Kildare and Killala. It gave these reasons for the protest :

"1. Because the title did not agree with the body of the bill; the title being an act for the confirmation of the Irish articles, whereas no one of said articles was therein fully confirmed. 2. Because the articles were to be confirmed to them to whom they were granted; but the confirmation of them by that bill was such, that it put them in a worse condition than they were in before. 3. Because the bill omitted the material words, and all such as are under their protection in the said counties,' which were by his Majesty's titles patent, declared to be part of the second article; and several persons had been adjudged within said articles who would, if the bill passed into law, be entirely barred and excluded, so that the words omitted being so very material, and confirmed by his Majesty after a solemn debate in council, some express reason ought to be assigned in the bill, in order to satisfy the world of that omission. 4. Because several words were inserted in the bill which were not in the articles, and others omitted, which altered both the sense and the meaning thereof. Lastly, because they apprehended that many Protestants might and would suffer by the bill in their just rights and pretensions, by reason of their having purchased, and lent money, upon the faith of said article."

Of the proceedings of this parliament, it is only necessary to add one further detail:

profoundly occupied about the destinies of Europe. He seems to have definitely given up Ireland, to be dealt with by the Ascendency at its pleasure. Yet he had received the benefit of the capitulation of Limerick :-he had engaged his royal faith to its observance ;-he had further engaged that he would endeavour to procure said Roman Catholics such further security as might preserve them from any disturbance upon the account of their said religion. And he not only did not endeavour to procure any such further security, but he gave his royal assent, without the least objection, to every one of these acts of Parliament, carefully depriving them of such securities as they had, and imposing new and grievous oppressions" upon the account of their said religion." It is expressly on account of this shameful breach of faith on the part of the King that Orange squires and gentlemen, from that day to this, have been enthusiastically toasting "the glorious, pious, and immortal memory of the great and good King William.”

The war was still raging all over Europe; and multitudes of young Irishmen were quitting a land where they were henceforth strangers and outlaws on their own soil, to find under the banners of France an opportunity for such distinction as exiles may hope to win. Brilliant reports of the achievements of the old regiments of Limerick on many a field, came to Ireland by stray travellers from the continent, and inspired the high-spirited youth of the country with an ambition to enrol themselves in the ranks of the Irish brigade. They had heard, for example, of the great victories of Steinkirk and of Landen; and how at Marsiglia, on the Italian slope of the Alps, the French marshal, Catinat, obtained a splendid victory over the army of the Duke of Savoy -a victory, says Voltaire, "so much the more glorious as the Prince Eugene was one of the adverse generals ;" and how the conduct of the Irish troops, who served under Catinat on that occasion, gained the applause of Europe and the thanks of King Louis. It is no wonder, therefore, seeing the depressing and humiliating condition to which they were reduced a home, that there was a large and continual emigration of the best blood of Ireland, at this time, and for a great part of the following century. These exiles were not confined to the people of the Celtic Irish clans; for all the English settlers in Ireland, down to the time of King William was all this while busily Henry the Eighth, had of course been engaged in carrying on the war against Catholic, and these families generally adLouis the Fourteenth, and his mind washered to the old religion. Thus these old

"A petition of Robert Cusack, gentleman, Captain Francis Segrave and Captain Maurice Eustace, in behalf of themselves and others, comprised under the Articles of Limerick, setting forth, that in the said bill [act to confirm, &c.] there were several clauses that would frustrate the petitioners of the benefit of the same, and if passed into a law would turn to the ruin of some, and the prejudice of all persons entitled to the benefit of the said articles, and praying to be heard by counsel to said matters, having been presented and read, it was unanimously resolved that said petition should be rejected."

English found themselves included in all the severities of the penal laws, along with the primeval Scotic people, and they had now their full proportion in the ranks of the military adventurers who sought serIvice on the continent. Accordingly, among the distinguished names of the Irish brigades, by the side of the Milesian Sarsfields, O'Briens, and O'Donnells, we find the Norman-descended Dillons, Roches, and Fitzgeralds. Of the amount of that great emigration it is difficult to procure any very exact idea; but on this subject there is no better authority than the learned Abbé MacGeoghegan, who was chaplain in the brigade, and who devoted himself to the task of recording the history of his country. He affirms that researches in the office of the French War Department show that from the arrival of the Irish troops in France, in 1691, to the year 1745 (the year of Fontenoy), more than four hundred and fifty thousand Irishmen died in the service of France. The statement may seem almost incredible; especially as Spain and Austria had also their share of our military exiles; but, certain it is, the expatriation of the very best and choicest of the Irish people was now on a very large scale; and the remaining population, deprived of their natural chiefs, became still more helpless in the hands of their enemies. Baron Macaulay, whose language is never too courteous in speaking of the Irish, takes evident delight in dwelling on the abject condition of the great body of the nation at this time. He calls them "Pariahs;" compares their position, in the disputes between the English and the Irish parliament, with that of "the Red Indians in the dispute between Old England and New England about the Stamp Act;" mentions with complacency, that Dean Swift "no more considered himself as an Irishman than an Englishman born at Calcutta considers himself as a Hindoo ;" and says very truly, though coarsely, that none of the "patriots" of the seventeenth century "ever thought of appealing to the native population-they would as soon have thought of appealing to the swine." The truth is, that most of the choicest intellect and energy of the Irish race were now to be looked for at the courts of Versailles, Madrid, and Vienna, or under the standards of France on every battle-field of Europe. The Catholics of Ireland may be said, at this date, to disappear from political history, and so remained till the era of the volunteering.

Obscure and despised as they were, however, they were not too humble to

escape the curious eye of the lawyers and legislators of the "Ascendency." In fact we have not yet advanced far beyond the threshold of the Penal Laws.

CHAPTER IV.

1698-1702.

Predominance of the English Parliament.-Molyneux. Decisive action of the English Parliament. -Court and country parties.-Suppression of woollen manufacture.-Commission of confiscated estates. Its revelations. - Vexation of King William.-Peace of Ryswick.-Act for establishing the Protestant succession. Death of William.

WHILE the ancient Irish nation lay in this miserable condition of utter nullity, the Protestant colony continued its efforts to vindicate its independence of the Imperial Parliament, but without much success. Not only was its parliament compelled to send over to London the "heads" of its bills to be ratified there, but the British Parliament still persisted in exercising an original jurisdiction in Ireland, and to bind that kingdom by laws made in England, without any concurrence asked or obtained from the colonial legislature. It was always the firm resolve, both of the king and of the people of England, to deny and trample upon these assumed pretensions of their colony in Ireland to be an independent kingdom.

The reader will suppose that the English government should not have been very jealous of any power with which the Protestant Ascendency might be armed, when they so faithfully turned those arms against the civil and religious liberties of their Catholic countrymen. The Irish Parliament, however, presumed rather too much on its past services to England. Though they were so obedient as to forge chains for the Catholics, they should not flatter themselves with the liberty of making their own laws or regulating their own slaves. They were, for the future, to consider themselves as the humbled agents of an English Government, prompt at every call which national jealousy would give to inflict or to suspend the torture.

In short, the Irish Protestant Ascendency was soon to be taught that it was the mere agent of English empire, and must aspire to no other freedom than the freedom to oppress and trample upon the ancient Irish nation. "Your ancestors," said Mr. Curran to the Irish Parliament a

hundred years after "Your ancestors dependence." The king promptly replied thought themselves the oppressors of "that he would take care that what was their fellow-subjects-but they were only complained of might be prevented and retheir gaolers; and the justice of Provi- dressed as the Commons desired." Such dence would have been frustrated if their was the extreme political depression of own slavery had not been the punishment Ireland, that this haughty procedure ocof their vice and of their folly." This casioned no visible resentment in her parappeared very plainly when Mr. William liament, although the leaven of the docMolyneux, one of the members for Dublin trines of Molyneux was still working in University, published, in 1698, his work men's minds; was afterwards improved entitled "The case of Ireland being bound by Swift and Lucas, and at length became by Acts of Parliament in England stated," irresistible, and ripened into an indepena production which owes its fame rather dent Irish Parliament in 1782. Meanto the indignant sensation it made in time the proscribed Catholics took no inEngland, than to any peculiar merits of terest in the controversy at all, and seemed its own. It professed to discuss the insensible to its progress. As the exprinciples of government and of human cellent Charles O'Conor, of Belanagar, society, and was, in fact, more abstrate afterwards in the midst of the commotions and metaphysical than legal. It is said excited by Lucas, wrote to a friend: “I that Mr. Molyneux, who was an intimate am by no means interested, nor is any of friend of John Locke, had found his our unfortunate population, in this affair principles in the writings of that philoso- of Lucas. A true patriot would not have pher, and had even submitted his manu- betrayed such malice towards such unscript to Mr. Locke's approval. The es- fortunate slaves as we." And he truly sential part of the book, however, and the adds, "These boasters, the Whigs, wish only practical part, was the distinct asser- to have liberty all to themselves." In tion of the independent power of the Irish short, the two parties then existing in Parliament, as the legislature of a so- Ireland, and termed the court and country vereign state; and consequent denial of parties, were divided mainly upon this the right claimed and exercised by the question: Is the conquered nation to be English Parliament to bind Ireland by its governed and exploited for the sole benefit own enactments. The book at once at- of the colonial interest? or, Are all intracted much attention, and was speedily terests in Ireland, both colonial and nareplied to by two writers, named Carey tive, both Protestant and Catholic, to be and Atwood. A committee of the Eng- subservient and tributary to England? lish Parliament was then appointed to Candour requires it to be stated that of examine the obnoxious pamphlet, and on these two parties, the court and the counthe report of that committee, it was un- try, the former was rather more favourable animously resolved "that the said book to the down-trodden Catholics; a fact of was of dangerous consequence to the which several examples will soon have to crown, and to the people of England," etc. be related. At that moment the court The House, in a body, presented an ad- party held the sway, and the English dress to the king, setting forth what they Parliament ruled all. called the bold and pernicious assertions contained in the aforesaid publication, which they declared to have been "more fully and authentically affirmed by the votes and proceedings of the House of Commons in Ireland, during their late sessions, and more particularly by a bill transmitted under the great seal of Ireland, entitled 'An act for the better security of his majesty's person and government;' whereby an act of parliament made in England was pretended to be re-enacted, and divers alterations therein made; and they assured his majesty of their ready concurrence and assistance to preserve and maintain the dependence and subordination of Ireland to the imperial crown of this realm; and they humbly besought his majesty that he would discourage all things which might in any degree lessen or impair that

The English were not disposed to let their predominance remain without practical fruits, as appeared in the proceedings touching the woollen trade of Ireland. During the few first years of William's reign, there being then abundance of sheep in Ireland, and also much cheap labour, considerable progress was made in the manufacture of woollen cloths; these fabrics were exported in some quantity to foreign countries, and in many cases the Irish manufacturer was enabled to undersell the English. But England was then using great exertions to obtain the entire control of this gainful trade; and the competition of Ireland gave great umbrage. It is true that the woollen-trade in Ireland, and all the profits of its export and sale, were in the hands of the English colonists, and that the colonial parliament in Dublin would fain have extended

loaded there. The object of these laws, of course, was to secure to English merchants and shipowners a monopoly of all such trade, and they had the desired effect, so that a few years afterwards, the Dean of St. Patrick's could truly write: "The conveniency of ports and harbours, which nature had bestowed so liberally upon this kingdom, is of no more use to us than a beautiful prospect to a man shut up in a dungeon."

and protected it if they had been per- to Ireland until after it should have first mitted. But here, again, the English entered an English port, and been unpower stepped in, and controlled every thing according to its own interest. The two Houses of Lords and Commons addressed King William, urging that some immediate remedy must be found against the obnoxious trade in Ireland. The Lords, after detailing the intolerable oppression which was inflicted upon deserving industrious people in England, expressed themselves thus: "Wherefore, we most humbly beseech your most sacred majesty, that your majesty would be It is noticeable that these navigation pleased, in the most public and effectual acts were not new; they had existed beway that may be, to declare to all your fore the last Revolution, and had been subjects of Ireland, that the growth and repealed by the excellent parliament of increase of the woollen manufacture that 1689, under King James, consisting inhath long been, and will be ever, looked differently of Catholics and Protestants, upon with great jealousy by all your sub- and really representing an Irish nationjects of this kingdom, and if not timely that same parliament which had also remedied, may occasion very strict laws enacted perfect liberty for all religions, totally to prohibit and suppress the same.' ." and had swept away a most foul mass of Probably no more shameless avowal of penal laws from the statute-book; but on British greediness was ever made, even by the failure of the cause of the Stuarts, all the parliament of England. But the king the enactments of that parliament were replied at once that "he would do all that ignored, and the penal laws and restricin him lay to discourage the woollen tions on trade re-appeared in full force. manufacture of Ireland;" in other words, to ruin his subjects of that island. The Irish Parliament was now also assembled in Dublin. The Earl of Galway and two others were lords-justices; and they, pursuant to their instructions, recommended to parliament to adopt means for putting a stop to the woollen manufacture, and to encourage the linen. The Commons, in their address, meekly replied, that "they shall heartily endeavour " to encourage the linen trade; and as to the woollen, they tamely express their hope to find such a temperament that the same may not be injurious to England. The temperament they found was in the acts which were passed in the following year, 1699, which minutely regulated everything relating to wool. In the first place, all export of Irish woollen cloths was prohibited, except to England and Wales. The exception was delusive, because heavy duties, amounting to a prohibition, prevented Irish cloth from being imported into England or Wales. Irish wool, thereafter, had to be sent to England in a raw state, to be woven in Yorkshire; and even this export was cramped by appointing one single English port, Barnstable, as the only point where it could legally enter. All attempts at foreign commerce in Ireland were at this time impeded, also, by the "Navigation Laws," which had long prohibited all direct trade between Ireland and the colonies; no colonial produce. under those laws, could be carried

The

With such a deliberate system in full operation, not only to put down the political pretensions, but to destroy the trade of Ireland, and all enforced directly by English statutes, it will be seen that the country party, which so proudly claimed national independence, had but very slender chances at that time. Another event still further illustrated this fact. English Parliament, which was continually importuned by the king for grants of money to carry on his darling war against Louis XIV., found that the immense amount of confiscated lands, forfeited by the "rebellion" (as the national war was called), had been squandered upon King William's favourites, or leased at insufficient rents, also a small portion of it restored to its owners who had satisfied the government that they were innocent. That parliament therefore resolved, before making any more grants of money, to inquire how the forfeitures had been made available for the public service. A commission was appointed by a vote of parliament for this purpose, and at the same time to provide for a grant of a million and a half sterling, for military and naval expenses. The form of this commission was itself an intimation that nothing less was contemplated than re sumption of all the lands granted by special favour of the king. This was very hard upon his majesty, and he regarded the proceeding with sour and silent displeasure; for, in fact, he had granted out

of these forfeitures immense estates to | Levinge to be the author of certain William Bentinck, whom he created Lord groundless and scandalous aspersions resWoodstock, to Ginkell, Lord Athlone, and pecting the commissioners who had signed others of his Dutch friends;-especially, the report, and to commit him, thereupon, he had bestowed over 95,600 acres on Mrs. prisoner to the Tower. There were long Elizabeth Villiers, Countess of Orkney, a lady who, in the words of Lord Macaulay, "had inspired William with a passion which had caused much scandal and unhappiness in the little court of the Hague" —where, in fact, his lawful wife resided. If the consideration of the grant was of the kind here intimated, it must be allowed that William paid the lady royally, out of others' estates. The commissioners further report great corruption and bribery in the matter of procuring pardons, and astonishing waste and destruction, especially of the fine woods, which had covered wide regions of the island. The drift of their report is, that the whole of the dealings with those confiscated lands were one foul and monstrous job.

and acrimonious debates upon this question; a sharp address to the king, in pursuance of the sense of the majority, and a submissive answer from his majesty, declaring that he was not led by inclination, but thought himself obliged, in justice, to reward those who had served well, and particularly in the reduction of Ireland, out of the estates forfeited to him by the rebellion there. And the House resolved, in reply, "that whoever advised his majesty's answer to the Address of the House has used his utmost endeavour to create a misunderstanding and jealousy between the king and his people." The "Bill of Resumption" of the forfeited estates finally passed, after vehement opposition, and received the reluctant royal assent on the 11th of April, 1700, on which day his majesty prorogued the Houses, without any speech, thinking there was no room for the usual expressions of satisfaction and gratitude; and not choosing to give any public proof of discontent or resentment. In all these parliamentary disputes there was not the least question of the rights or claims of any Irish Catholic; nor does it appear that there would have been the slightest opposition to any scheme which concerned merely the resumption of lands restored to them. The biographer of William remarks, "that no transaction during the reign of this monarch so pressed upon his spirits, or so humbled his pride, as the resumption of the grants of the forfeited

Here, it is to be remarked that this inquiry and report were by no means in the interest of the plundered Catholics, the right owners of all those estates; on the contrary, one of the points dwelt on most bitterly by the commissioners was the restoration of a small portion of them to Catholic proprietors, under what the commissioners considered delusive pretences; and the resumption which they contemplated was to have the effect of again taking away those wrecks and remnants of the property of Catholics which had been redeemed out of the general ruin. The English House of Commons, in a violent ferment, immediately resolved "that a bill be brought in to apply all the forfeited estates and interests in Ireland, and all grants thereof, and of the rents and re-estates in Ireland by the English Parliavenues belonging to the crown within that kingdom since the 13th February, 1689, to the use of the public." Then a "Court of Delegates" was appointed to determine claims; and it was resolved by the House "that they would not receive any petitions whatever against the provisions of this bill." The report of the commission had been signed only by four commissioners out of seven, namely, by Annesley, Trenchard, Hamilton, and Langford, the other three having dissented. The House, therefore, came to the resolution, "that Francis Annesley, John Trenchard, James Hamilton, and Henry Langford, Esqs., had acquitted themselves with understanding, courage, and integrity; which was an implied censure on the Earl of Drogheda, Sir Francis Brewster, and Sir Richard Levinge, the three dissentient commissioners; and the House went so far as to vote Sir Richard

ment." This may be easily believed; but it is to be remarked, that we find no such opinion from King William's enthusiastic biographer when he was called on to set his seal to the legislative violations of the Treaty of Limerick. He could ill bear to deprive his Dutch courtiers of their Irish estates; but it was of small moment to him to beggar and oppress millions of Irishmen, in violation of his own plighted faith.

In his private despatches to Lord Galway, shortly after the rising of parliament, the king says: "You may judge what vexation all their extraordinary proceedings gave me; and I assure you, your being deprived of what I gave you with so much pleasure is not the least of my griefs. I never had more occasion than at present for persons of your capacity and fidelity. I hope I shall find opportunities to give you marks of my esteem and friendship."