cile the Presbyterians somewhat to their the number of Dissenters "-which in Dr. disabilities under the Test law. During Swift's eyes was as bad as increasing the all the rest of this reign, and the three number of Papists. Accordingly, he infollowing, no representations on the part dicates his opinion of the whole scheme of the Dissenters of the injustice of this a little lower down, where he says, "It law, and no protestations of their loyalty appeared manifestly, by the issue, that the to the English crown and House of Han- public was a loser by every individual over, availed in the least to procure a re- amongst them; and that a kingdom can laxation of the odious Test. Their efforts no more be the richer for such an importin this direction only drew upon them, a tation than a man can be fatter by a wen." few years later, the savage raillery of The law for naturalisation of Protestants Swift, who maintained that the very Pa- was in fact soon repealed; though no pists were quite as well entitled to relief measures were spared to drive the Cathoas they. lics away. And even such of the Roman Catholic natives as were afterwards willing to return, were not permitted; for in 1713 the Commons ordered that "an address should be made to her majesty, to desire that she would be pleased not to grant licenses to Papists to return into the kingdom." Papists that were or should presume to come into the galleries."* The Palatines, or their descendants, still remain in Ireland. They generally "conformed;" not having any particular objection against any religion; but caring little for the Ascendency, or the Whig or Tory politics of the country, at least for a generation or two. It was in this year, 1709, that the scheme originated, of inducing Protestant foreigners to come to Ireland, and of offering them naturalisation. Accordingly, on the request of certain lords, and others of the council, eight hundred and seventy-one Protestant Palatine families from Germany were brought over, and the sum of It was even dangerous for them to £24,850, 5s. 6d. appointed for their main- attempt, or endeavour to hear what passed tenance out of the revenue, on a resolu- in the House of Commons concerning tion of the Commons "that it would themselves. For in the same year, an much contribute to the security of the order was made there, "that the sergeantkingdom if the said Palatines were en-at-arms should take into custody all couraged and settled therein." The German families actually were settled as tenants and labourers in various parts of the country. The scheme of the framers of this measure "seems to have been," says Dr. Curry, "to drive the Roman Catholic natives out of the kingdom, which effect it certainly produced in great numbers;" but the plan was not found to answer so far as the Germans themselves were concerned. They were neither zealous for the queen's service nor for the ascendency of the Anglican Church. It seems that only four, out of this great body enlisted in her majesty's army, though she was then engaged in a war with France, the very power which had ravaged their Palatinate, and left them homeless. The lords, in an address to the queen in 1711, complain of "that load of debt which the bringing over numbers of useless and indigent Palatines had brought apon them." As for Dean Swift and the Tories, the way in which the German immigration was regarded by them is apparent from a passage in the Dean's "History of the Four Last Years of Queen Anne." He says, "By this Act, any foreigner who would take the oaths to the Government, and profess himself a Protestant, of whatsover denomination, was immediately naturalised, and had all the advantages of an English-born subject, at the expense of a shilling. Most Protestants abroad differ from us in the points of church government, so that all the acquisitions by this Act would increase The Duke of Shrewsbury was lord-lieutenant after Wharton. The duke had deserted the Catholic Church, and, like other converts, was more bitter against the communion he had left than those who were born Protestants. He was also a Tory. The Irish Parliament was dissolved; and on a new election, the majority of the members were found to be Whigs. The short remainder of this reign, so far as affairs of State in Ireland are concerned, is quite barren of interest, the great affair being a quarrel of the House of Commons against Sir Constantine Phipps, the lord chancellor, because he was a noted Tory and close friend of the celebrated Doctor Sacheverell, the clergyman who preached the divine right of kings, and was therefore held an enemy to the "glorious Revolution," and friend of the "Pretender." All these matters were quite unimportant to the great body of the nation. The Catholics were either emigrating to France, or else withdrawing themselves as much as possible from observation; some of them conforming and changing their names; others reduced to the most * Commons Journ., Vol. III. pitiful artifices in order to preserve the bitterly displeased at the "Protestant suclittle patrimony that was left in their cession," now secured by law to the House hands; but most of them sinking into the of Hanover. It is needless here to enter condition of tenants or labourers in the, into the controversy as to whether she was country (all profitable industry in the altogether a stranger to the plots for towns being prohibited to them); and it is setting aside that succession, and bringing from this time forward that thousands of in her Catholic brother. She was known the ancient gentry of the country, and to be deeply grieved and provoked by the even chiefs of powerful clans, stripped of zeal of politicians, both in England and their dignities and possessions, and too Ireland, who, desirous of gaining favour poor, or too old to emigrate, had to with the coming dynasty, endeavoured to descend to the position of cotters and get an act of attainder passed against serfs under the new possessors of the land," the Pretender;" and a bill for that purwho hated and oppressed them, both as despoiled Irish and as proscribed Catholics; and who hate them quite as bitterly to the present hour. In the mean time, the war of the Allies against France had been attended with many brilliant successes under the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene. Some of the most signal defeats ever sustained by the arms of France were inflicted by the duke, particularly Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet. But on the Court revolution which displaced the Whigs, Marlborough was deprived of his command and the Duke of Ormond sent out in his place. Shortly afterwards the Peace of Utrecht was signed (11th April, 1713), by which treaty France recognized the Protestant succession in England, and the "Pretender" was com pose in Ireland, which also offered a large reward for his apprehension, was only defeated by a hasty prorogation. Yet "the queen hated and despised the Pretender, to my knowledge," is the assertion of Swift in his Remarks on Burnet's History." Perhaps she did: most sovereigns hate their heirs-apparent, even when these are their own sons; but there is abundant evidence that she hated the Elector of Hanover and his mother very much worse. CHAPTER VII. 1714-1723. pelled to depart from that kingdom; the George I.-James III.-Perils of Dean Swift. union of the two monarchies of France and Spain was provided against, though a French Bourbon remained on the throne of Spain; and to the great loss and humiliation of France, it was agreed that the harbour of Dunkirk should be demolished. This treaty gave repose for a time to the Irish soldiers abroad. The last year of Anne, therefore, was a year of peace abroad, but of violent party strife and political conspiracy at home. All the world expected a struggle for the succession at the moment of the Queen's death; and King James the Third, called in England "Pretender," was known to have a large party both in that country and in Scotland, ready to assert his hereditary right. The agitation extended to Ireland; but did not reach the Catholic population, which was quite indifferent to Stuart or Hanoverian. The queen died on the 1st of August, 1714, the last of the house of Stuart recognized as sovereign of England, and leaving behind her, as to her Irish administration, so black a record that it would have been strange indeed if the Irish nation had ever desired to see the face of a Stuart again. Yet it is probable that she was secretly a Catholic, like all her family and it is certain that she was : Tories dismissed.-Ormond, Oxford, and Bolingbroke impeached.-Insurrection in Scotland.Calm in Ireland.-Arrests.-Irish Parliament.— "Loyalty" of the Catholics.--" No Catholics existin Ireland."-Priest-catchers.-Bolton lord-lieutenant.-Cause of Sherlock and Annesley.-Conflict of jurisdiction. Declaratory Act establishing dependence of the Irish Parliament,-Swift's Pamphlet.-State of the country.-Grafton lord-lieutenant.-Courage of the priests.-Atrocious Bill. THE succession of the Elector of Hanover had been in no real danger, notwithstanding the plotting of a few Jacobites in England; although the Whig party anxiously endeavoured to represent the Tories as desirous of "bringing in the Pretender." The distinction, however, between Tories and Jacobites is important to be borne in mind; and a wellknown letter of Dean Swift, who, being a Tory, had been accused of Jacobitism, is conclusive upon this point. In fact, although the English people and the English colony of Ireland were at that time nearly equally divided into Whigs and Tories, there were but few Jacobites save in Scotland and the Northern counties of England. Accordingly, on the death of Anne, the Elector of Hanover was duly proclaimed in both islands by the title of King George the First. In Ireland, the proclamation was made by torchlight, and English Parliament met, articles of imat midnight; and great efforts were made peachment were quickly found against the to produce the impression that there was Duke of Ormond, and the Lords Oxford imminent danger of a Jacobite insurrection and Bolingbroke, for high treason, in "to bring in the Pretender." This affec- having contributed to bring about the tation of alarm seems to have been in- Peace of Utrecht by traitorous means, tended to bring odium, not so much on and with a view of changing the Prothe Catholics, as on the Tories: some testant succession. Bolingbroke and Orarrests were made, and it was alleged that mond avoided the trial on the impeachon one of the parties arrested letters were ment by going to the continent, where found written by Dr. Swift. The popu- they both offered their services to King lace of Dublin must at that period have James III. (or the Pretender), then been violently Hanoverian; for Lord holding a kind of court in Lorrain, Orrey tells us that on the dean's return | having been exiled from France at the to Ireland after the proclamation of the peace. The party which adhered to the new king, he dared hardly venture forth, exiled prince was, in fact, making urgent and was pelted by mobs when he made his appearance. The bitterness and fury of party spirit at that day is curiously illustrated by the story of the outrages and insults which the dean had to encounter, even at the hands of persons of rank and title. Lord Blaney attempted to drive over him on the public road; and Swift petitioned the legislature for protection to his life. He was advised by his physician, he said, to go often on horseback, on account of his health; "and there being no place in winter so convenient for riding as the strand towards Howth, your petitioner takes all opportunities that his business or the weather will permit to take that road." Here he details the scene of Lord Blaney's attempting to overturn him and his horse, at the same time threatening his life with a loaded pistol, and prays protection accordingly. There is no doubt, however (without questioning the sincerity of the dean's zeal for the House of Hanover), that several of his most intimate friends, especially Lord Bolingbroke and Bishop Atterbury, were engaged in the plot, along with the Duke of Ormond, to prevent the succession of King George; and that the suspicions as to Swift's Jacobitism were at least plausible. Swift was excessively mortified, or rather irritated, by the popular manifes-exiled Prince may truly be termed, not tations against him. He was very covetous of influence and popularity, and his high, fierce spirit could ill brook the least demonstration of public reproach. He denounced the people of Dublin as a vile, abandoned race; but we hear no more of his Jacobitism, and not much of his Toryism, except that to the last hour of his life he hated and lampooned Dis senters. Immediately after the accession of George I., all Tories were instantly dismissed from office, and the Government placed entirely in the hands of Whigs; which had been the very object of denouncing Tories as Jacobites. When the D preparations for a rising both in Scotland and in England; and on the 15th of September, 1715, the Earl of Mar set up the standard of insurrection, proclaimed King James the Third at Castletown in Scotland, and quickly collected an army of ten thousand men. These forces were gathered from both Highlands and Lowlands, and consisted both of Catholics and Protestants. The Duke of Argyle, with his powerful clan of Campbells, was zealous for King George, and with other Highland tribes and some regular troops met the Earl of Mar at Sheriffmuir, where a bloody but indecisive battle took place. A portion of the Jacobite force, marched southward into England, were encountered at Preston, in Lancashire, by the King's troops, and, after a short fight, obliged to surrender at discretion. Mar still kept his banner displayed until King James the Third in person landed at Peterhead, on the east coast of Scotland, in December; but very soon afterwards, on the approach of Argyle with a superior force, the enterprise was abandoned. The Prince and the Earl of Mar escaped by sea; the other leaders of the insurrection, both in England and in Scotland, were arrested, tried, and some of them executed. The rebellion was at an end, and from that day the James the Third, but the "Pretender." This Scottish insurrection is of small moment to Irish history, save in so far as it furnished a pretext for fresh atrocities upon the unresisting people. There was no insurrection or disturbance whatever during all these events. We do not even hear of any Irish officer of distinction who came from the continent to join the Pretender's cause in Scotland; and the Earl of Mar, who afterwards published a narration in Paris, affirms that the Duke of Berwick, who was very popular with the Irish troops in France, had been urged to take the chief command of the move. ment, probably in order to draw some £50,000 for his apprehension. The Commons also presented an address to the new king, entreating his majesty, for the security of the Government and for the Protestant interest, to remove the Earl of Anglesea from all offices of honour and trust. Lord Anglesea was a member of the Council, and one of the vice-treasurersof the kingdom: he was a Tory, was suspected of being a Jacobite; and the reasons assigned in the address for removing him were, that he had caused or procured the disbanding of great part of the army in Ireland; and that he had connived at the enrolment of Irish Catholics for foreign Irish regiments into it, but that "the Cahir, and Dillon, with a great number of Duke of Berwick positively refused to re- untitled gentlemen, were suddenly seized pair to Scotland," though he was half-upon and shut up in Dublin Castle," on brother to the Pretender. The insurrection suspicion." They were released when the of 1715 was therefore exclusively a Scot- insurrection was over. tish and English affair. Some writers on In the mean time the Irish Parliament this period of Irish history, who are en- met, and was opened by lords-justices. titled to respect,* have given the Irish The Houses, especially the Commons, were Catholics the very doubtful praise of filled with the most fiery zeal for the Proloyalty, for their extreme quietness and testant succession, and most desirous of passiveness at this time. It is true that ingratiating themselves with the new they cared not for the Stuart family; yet, dynasty. They passed acts for recognizconsidering the excessive and abject op-ing the king's title-for the security of pression under which they were then his person and government-for attainting groaning, and the slender prospect they the Pretender, and offering a reward of had of any mitigation of it, we may assume that any revolution which would overturn the actual order of things, and give them a chance of redeeming their nationality would have been desirable. But they were disarmed, impoverished, and discouraged; could not own a musket, nor a sabre, nor a horse over five guineas' value; had no leaders at home, nor any possibility of organizing a combined movement; so closely were they watched, and held down with so iron a hand. If they took no part, therefore, in the insurrections of 1715 and of 1745, it may be said (in their favour not to their dishonour) that it was on account of exhaus-service. "They had information," they tion and impotence, not on account of said, "that many Irish Papists had been, loyalty. If they had been capable, at that and continued to be, shipped off from time, of attachment to the Protestant Dublin and other ports for the service of succession, and of "loyalty" to the House the Pretender." As usual, the main busiof Hanover, they would have been even ness of the Parliament was taking further more degraded than they actually were. precautions against the "common enemy," However, as the Pretender was a for which the Pretender's insurrection in Catholic, and as the Irish Government Scotland served as a false pretence. The knew that the oppressed Catholics of that lords-justices, in their speech to this Parcountry, if not always ready for insur-liament, bear complacent testimony to the rection, ought to have been so, numerous calmness and tranquility in which Ireland arrests were made during the Scottish had remained during the troubles, which insurrection. There were still some for- Mr. Plowden, with great simplicity, takes lorn Catholic peers dwelling in their as a compliment to the "loyalty" of the dismal country-seats, debarred from at- Catholics-instead of being (what it was) tending Parliament, endeavouring to at- a congratulation upon the Catholics being tract no remark, and too happy if they could secretly keep in their stables a few horses for hunting. There were also still some landed gentlemen, though sadly stripped of their possessions, who tried to keep one another in countenance, and drank in private the health of King Louis, and the mole whose mole-hill killed William of Orange. It was desirable for the Government to take precautions against these sad relics of the once proud nation. Accordingly, the Earls of Antrim and Westmeath, Lords Netterville, * Mr. Plowden and Doctor Curry. They both wrote at a much later period; and both with a view of pointing out the folly of the Penal Code, as Irish Catholics had always, they said, been "loyal" to the House of Hanover. so effectually crushed and trodden down that they could not rise. This amiable writer cannot conceal his surprise at what he terms "the inconsistency of rendering solemn homage to the exemplary loyalty of the Irish nation in the most perilous crisis, and punishing them, at the sametime, for a disposition to treachery, turbulence, and treason." Nay, he is still more astonished at finding that "this very speech, which bore such honourable testimony to the tried loyalty of the Irish Catholics, bespoke the disgraceful policy of keeping and treating them, notwithstanding, as a separate people- We must recommend to you,' said the lords-justices, in the present conjuncture, such una- nimity in your resolutions as may once more put an end to all other distinctions in Ireland than that of Protestant and Papist."" remarked, that the description of miscreants usually termed priest-catchers were generally Jews who pretended to be converts to the Christian religion, and some It may here be observed, once for all, to of them assumed even the character of the put an end to this delusion about Catholic priesthood, for the purpose of insinuating loyalty in Ireland, that the Catholics themselves more readily into the confiwould not have been permitted to be loyal, dence of the clergy. The most notorious even if they had been base enough to among them was a Portuguese Jew, desire it—that some abject attempts by named Gorzia (or Garcia). By means of some of them to testify their loyalty were this wretch seven priests had been aprepulsed, as will be hereafter seen-that prehended in Dublin, and banished the when a viceroy or lord-justice speaks of kingdom. Of this number, two were "the nation" at the period in question, he Jesuits, one was a Dominican, one a Franmeans the Protestant nation exclusively- ciscan, and three were secular priests." nay, that the law was, that no Catholics These last were probably "unregistered" existed in Ireland at all. It was long a priests; or else had not taken the abjurafavourite fiction of Irish law,*"that all the tion oath, which was then legally obligaeffectiveinhabitants of Ireland are to be pre-tory upon them all, under cruel penalties. sumed to be Protestants-and that, there- Indeed, by means of the various statutes fore, the Catholics, their clergy, worship, made against them, it may be affirmed &c., are not to be supposed to exist, save generally that every priest in Ireland, for reprehension and punishment." In- whether regular or secular, was deed, in the time of George II., Lord- liable to transportation and to death; Chancellor Bowes declared from the because out of one thousand and eighty bench, "that the law does not suppose "registered" priests, only thirty-three any such person to exist as an Irish Ro- ever took the oath of abjuration. The reman Catholic;" and Chief-Justice Robin-mainder stood firm, and set at defiance son made a similar declaration.† It ap- the terrors which surrounded them.* pears plain, then, that the "loyalty" of the Catholics towards the House of Hanover, if indeed there has ever been any such loyalty, could not have sprung up in their hearts in the reign of George I., or of George II. No new enactments were made in this session of Parliament in aggravation of the Penal Code; but a resolution was passed recommending to magistrates the indispensable duty to put the existing laws into immediate and rigorous execution, and denouncing those who neglected to do so as "enemies of the Constitution;" no slight nor harmless imputation at that period, nor one which any magistrate would willingly incur. In fact, the penal laws against Catholics were put in force at this time, and during all the remainder of the reign of George I., with even more than the customary ferocity, as a design to bring in the Pretender was supposed to lurk in every Mass. In many places chapels were shut up, priests were dragged from their hiding-places, sometimes from the very altars, in the midst of divine service, hurried into the most loathsome dungeons, and from thence banished for ever from their native country. "To the credit of those times," however, observes Brenan, the ecclesiastical historian, "it must be • See "Scully's State of the Penal Laws," p. 333. now Although the rebellion of the Presbyterians in Scotland was the sole pretence for this severity, and the very same law which banishes Popish priests prohibits also Dissenters to accept of or act by a commission in the militia or array, yet so partial were the resolutions of that parliament, that, at the same time that they ordered the former to be rigorously prosecuted, they resolved, unanimously, "that any person who should commence a prosecution against any of the latter who had accepted, or should accept of a commission in the array or militia, was an enemy to King George and the Protestant interest." Thus, of the only two main objects of the same law, its execution as to one of them was judged highly meritorious, and it was deemed equally culpable even to attempt it against the other; though the law itself makes no difference between them. Such was the justice and consistency of our legislators of that period. In the year 1719, the Duke of Bolton being lord-lieutenent, occurred the famous case of Sherlock against Annesley, which provoked the Irish House of Lords into a faint and impotent assertion of their privileges, opened up once more the whole question between English dominion and Irish national pretensions, and ended in settling that question in favour of Eng Hibernia Dominicana |