Pretended convened James. tlement re without resistance in that country. A parliament BOOK was convened by him to meet in Dublin on the 7th 169. of May (168)), by which the famous act of settle- Parliament ment, passed soon after the Restoration, was im- of Ireland mediately repealed with loud acclamations of tri- by King umph, and scarcely a shadow of opposition. B Act of Set this repeal, two-thirds of the protestants in the pealed, kingdom, who had now for near forty years held their estates in virtue of the arrangement made at the termination of the civil wars, and subsequently modified and confirmed by the authority of king and parliament, were deprived of them, without any exception or consideration whatever for those who had made purchases under the existing laws. Even the estate of sir Phelim O'Neill, the famous rebel, was unconditionally restored to his heirs. In the upper house, the bishop of Meath ventured to urge some objections against both the principle and the provisoes of the bill. This prelate observed, "that no penalty was enacted against such as should enter estates without injunctions-no consideration for improvements-no saving for remainders-no time given for the removal of the stock of cattle or corn-no provision for widows." "Either," said he, " my lords, there was a rebellion in this kingdom in 1641, or there was not. If there was none, Gon forbid that I should open my mouth in defence of the injustice of which we have been guilty! But what shall we in this case BOOK I say to the declaration of his majesty's royal fa1689. ther, the late king Charles I. who in his Icon Ba silike affirms positively that there was a rebellion; and passed an act to secure those who would advance money for the suppression of it? What indeed shall we say to the bill now before the house, which acknowledges a rebellion, though it extenuates its criminality? If then there was a rebellion, how can those concerned in it pretend a right to the restoration of their estates, except by an act of grace or pardon? But here is a bill which makes no distinction between the guilty and the innocent: one is to be put in as good a condition as the other. Can your lordships imagine it is reasonable to do this, when we all know that a court of claims has been instituted for the protection of those who were unjustly accused; that claims have been actually heard and adjudged in this court on a full hearing, without any impu-. tation of partiality?" The chief supporter of the bill in the house of lords was the lord chancellor Fitton; a wretch, if possible, more infamous than the English chancellor Jeffries, and who had been taken from prison, where he had lain several years a convicted felon under punishment for the crime of forgery, and placed by king James at the head of the law department in Ireland, with no other merit than that of an outrageous zeal for popery, com BOOK I. 1689. nary Act dei. bined with the most abject subserviency to the mandates of the court. Sitting in the capacity of judge, he over-ruled all rules of practice and pleas of law-declaring that the chancery was above all laws, and that no law should bind his conscience. Where any difficulty occurred, it was not a lawyer but a divine, as he affirmed, who must resolve it. Such was the advocate of the bill of repeal; which, passing with no farther opposition of consequence, received the royal assent-the king paying no sort of attention to the petition presented to him by the earl of Granard in behalf of the purchasers under the act of settlement. This was followed Extraordiby an act attainting all protestant absentees; of Attainthe attainder also reaching all such as from and after the 1st of August 1688 corresponded with any who were in actual rebellion, or who were any ways aiding, abetting, or assisting thereto; i. e. the whole body of Irish protestants, who were universally attached to the new revolution government, and who were thus condemned to suffer the penalties of death and forfeiture. The severity of this act has been said to exceed that of the famous proscription at Rome during the last triumvirate; and by a barbarous and bloody clause, inserted, if not at the express instance, at least with the previous approbation, of James, as no one without knowing his pleasure would have dared to attempt a limitation of his preroga BOOK I. tive*, the monarch was debarred the power of 1689. pardoning after the last day of the ensuing month of November 16S9-the pardon if not enrolled previous to that time being declared absolutely * We are informed by archbishop King, "that there were only four or five protestant lords temporal, and four spiritual lords, sitting in this parliament, and that the house of commons was filled in such a manner that only two protestants, such as deserved the name, were in it. By this means the parliament openly professed itself a slave to the king's will; and he was looked on as factiously and rebelliously inclined that would dare to move any thing after any favorite in the house had affirmed that it was contrary to the king's pleasure." State of Protestants in Ireland, p. 172. In the Memoirs of King James, written by that monarch, or under his immediate inspection, it is indeed affirmed, "that the fear of disgusting the Irish catholics, on whom he wholly depended, and the hopes of recompensing such protestants as suffered by the act for rescinding the acts of settlement, induced the king at last to give his royal assent, though he saw it was highly prejudicial to his interest. Nothing but the unwillingness to disgust his only friends could prevail with him to foreclose himself in the act of attainder from the power of pardoning those comprised in it." M'PHERSON'S State Papers. It does not however appear, from any authorised facts, that the least effort was made by James to counteract the barbarous and detestable proceedings of this pretended parliament. Nor is any other reason ever assigned by him throughout these Memoirs for his disapprobation of the most inhuman atrocities —of the acts of a Jeffries, a Rosen, or a Fitton-than the apprehension" that they would prove prejudicial to his interest." "It is remarkable," says sir John Dalrymple, " that in all the letters of James published by me, and in above a hundred more which are in king William's cabinet or Dr. Morton's null and void. Another act was passed, of a very BOOK L 1689. |