On the death of George I. June 11, 1727, his son, George II. succeeded, on the 15th of June. The accession of the house of Hanover made no material alteration in the state of Ireland, or condition of the catholics. The persecution of the latter can in no manner be imputed to a family, bred in the principles of toleration established in Germany. They were borne down by the general torrent of national hatred and religious intolerance, raging in England, and impelled by the authority of parliament and the clamours of the people, to enforce and even augment the penal laws. These victims of persecution having heard it reported, that their neglect in addressing queen Anne, on her accession, occasioned the enaction of the severest of the penalties, resolved to petition George I. The clamours and suspicions, raised against them at that period, debarred them of all access to the throne, directly or indirectly. On the accession of George II. they resumed the design of addressing; and hoped the more favourable reception therefrom, as their irreproachable behaviour, and steady loyalty, might have somewhat abated the rancour of their enemies. An humble address was accordingly drawn up, and presented to the lords justices, by lord Delvin and other leading catholics; but so little was they or their address noticed, at that time, that they were never informed whether it was transmitted or not.

To redeem the interest and principal of the national debt, a fund had been provided. attempt to vest it in the crown for ever had failed.

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Administration now endeavoured to have this fund granted to his majesty, for twenty-one years. The numbers for and against were equal. The votes were on the point of being taken, when colonel Tottenham, who had ridden post, entered the house of commons. His vote frustrated the views of government; and Tottenham in his boots' was long the theme of public applause.

The rigorous execution of the popery laws was again renewed in 1734. Application having been made to his majesty, to reverse some of the outlawries, the commons stated to his majesty, that nothing could enable them to defend his right and title to his crown so effectually, as the enjoyment of those estates, which have been the forfeitures of the rebellious Irish, and were then in the possession of his protestant subjects; and therefore, that they were fully assured, that he would discourage all applications or attempts that should be made in favour of such traitors or their descendants, so dangerous to the protestant interest of this kingdom. Notwithstanding his majesty's favourable answer, that he would for the future discourage all such applications and attempts,' to prevent the possibility of such claims being renewed, an act was passed, disqualifying catholics from practising as solicitors; the only branch of the law they were then permitted to practise. During its progress through parliament, a subscription was commenced, and money collected, to defray the expence necessarily attendant on legally opposing the passing of this bill. Some clergy. men, in Munster, having been engaged in this

business, Hennessy, a parish priest, suspended by his superior for scandalous behaviour, to be revenged, gave information that the money was for the purpose of bringing in popery and the Pretender. After the strictest scrutiny, the sum collected was found not to exceed five pounds; yet the committee of the house of commons reported, that it appeared to them, that under colour of opposing heads of bills, great sums of money had been collected and raised, and a fund established by the popish inhabitants of the kingdom, through the influence of their clergy, highly detrimental to the protestant interest, and of imminent danger to the present happy establishment. The house resolved, that an humble address should be presented to the lord lieutenant, to issue his procla mation to all magistrates, to put the laws against popery in execution; and that it was the indispensible duty of all magistrates, and officers, to put the laws made to prevent the further growth of popery in Ireland, in due execution: and that the members of that house, in their respective counties and stations, would use their utmost endeavours to put the several laws against popery in due execution. The proclamation was issued, and the laws against popery were strictly executed by the magistrates in every part of the kingdom.

The frequent resolutions of the commons, aided by inflammatory anniversary sermons, and equally inflammatory pamphlets, occasionally preached and published, diffused such a spirit of rancour and animosity against catholics, among their protestant neighbours, as made the generality of them

VOL. IV.

believe, that the words popery, rebellion and massacre, really signified the same thing, and thereby excited such real terrors in these latter, as often brought the liberties, and sometimes the lives of he former, into imminent danger. The most shocking circumstances of the Irish insurrection in 1641, and of the English gun-powder treason in 1605, were studiously revived and aggravated in these sermons and pamphlets, with a degree of virulence and exaggeration, which, as it surpassed the most extravagant fictions of romance or poetry, so it possessed their uninformed, though often well-meaning hearers and readers, with lasting and general abhorrence of these people. The crimes, real or supposed, of catholics dead more than a century before, were imputed, intentionally, to all those who survived them, however innocent, of the same religious persuasion. By these means, an antient nobleman and privy-counsellor, of great power and influence, was so enthusiastically incensed against them, that, in the year 1743, on the threatened invasion of England by the French, under the command of mareschal Saxe, he openly declared in council, that as the papists had began the massacre on them, about an hundred years before, so he thought it both reasonable and lawful, on their parts, to prevent them, at that dangerous juncture, by first falling upon them. And although the barbarity of that suggestion was quickly over-ruled in that honourable assembly; yet so entirely were some of the lower northern dissenters possessed and influenced, by this prevailing prepossession and rancour against catho

lics, that in the same year, and for the same declared purpose of prevention, a conspiracy was actually formed by some of the inhabitants of Lurgan, to rise in the night-time, and destroy all their neighbours of that denomination in their beds. But this inhuman purpose was also frustrated, by an information of the honest protestant publican, in whose house the conspirators had met to settle the execution of their scheme, sworn before the Rev. Mr. Ford, a justice of the peace in that district, who with difficulty put a stop to the intended massacre.

On account of the Scottish rebellion in 1745, in favour of the pretender, in which it will presently appear, that not a single Irish catholic, lay or clerical, was any way engaged, the minds of the protestants all over the kingdom were so much irritated by the inflammatory means before-mentioned, together with the additional incentives of pastoral letters, of the like evil tendency, from all the bishops of the kingdom to their respective diocesans, that dreadful consequences, with regard to these inoffensive people, were justly apprehended; and probably would have ensued, had not the great wisdom and lenity of the then chief governor, the earl of Chesterfield, frequently and earnestly interposed. This nobleman, though pressed from all quarters by their powerful enemies, on a pretended knowledge of their disaffection, but really from the malignity of prejudice, to put the laws in force against them, always cluded their importunities, either by his own uncommon saga, city and resolution, or by some happy turn of