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Thus did the British minister in the most public manner declare his cordial and unequivocal wishes, that his majesty's Catholic subjects of Ireland should be relieved from what he admitted they complained of with justice: but it was to be effected by the Irish parliament, in which it is lamentable to say, bigotry and prejudice still held a sway, long since banished from the walls of St. Stephen's. The principle of toleration applied both to Great Britain and Ireland; but the political necessity of reducing that principle into action operated upon the two kingdoms in the inverse ratio of the respective dispositions of the two parliaments to effect it. In Great Britain scarcely one hundredth part of the population professed the Roman Catholic religion: and that body had long enjoyed a sort of tacit protection from the rigour of the penal laws. *Yet as Lord Ashburton observed on seconding the motion of Sir George Savile," the mildness of government had hitherto "softened the rigour of the law in the practice, but it was to be "considered, that the Roman Catholic priests were still left " at the mercy of the lowest and basest of mankind; for on the complaint of any informing constable, the magisterial and "judicial powers were bound to enforce all the shameful penal"ties of the act." On the 14th of May, 1778, Sir George Savile moved for leave to bring in a bill for the repeal of certain penalties and disabilities provided in an act of the 10th and 11th of William III. intituled," An Act to prevent the further growth "of popery." In proposing this repeal, the honourable baronet observed, that he meant to vindicate the honour and assert the principles of the Protestant religion, to which all persecution was foreign and adverse: that the penalties in question were disgraceful not only to religion, but to humanity: they were calculated to loosen all the bands of society, to dissolve all social, moral, and religious obligations and duties: to poison the sources of domestic felicity, and to annihilate every principle of honour. Such was the liberality of the house, that the motion was carried without a dissentient voice. Lord Ashburton, then Mr. Dunning, seconded the motion with his usual ability, and Mr. Thurlow, the attorney general, explained and strongly supported the bill. Lord Beauchamp, in expressing his extreme satisfaction at the motion, observed that it gave him the more pleasure at that time, as he thought the commercial advantages, which parliament then meant to bestow on Ireland

8 Eng. Deb. p. 228. Speech of Mr. Dunning. Some time before this period the penal laws had been enforced against two priests, a Mr. Malony, and Mr. Talbot, the brother of the Earl of Shrewsbury. But to the humanity of the British nation it must be recorded, that these proceedings had been resorted to by a solitary individual, one Pain, a carpenter, who having two daughters, little business, much bigotry, and more covetousness, had formed the singular speculation of acquiring 20,000l. apiece for his daughters fortunes by informations under the penal statutes against the Catholics.

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would be of very little use to that country, unless they were accompanied by a repeal of the penal laws, which had long depressed three fourths of the people there; and that bill he hoped would, when passed, be an example to the Irish parliament, in whose power it was to give that relief to their brethren; and he was sorry to say he thought, though their faith were in some degree pledged for the effect of some such measure, nothing had yet been done for that people. They had begged to have a test of loyalty and obedience to the government given them that test_was made, and taken by a large and respectable number of Roman Catholics; yet nothing had been granted them in return. Nay more; when a bill had been brought into the Irish parliament to allow Papists to take building leases in corporate towns, that most reasonable indulgence. was ungenerously refused them. Something, he said, might be suggested in excuse with relation to the late disturbances in the south west part of Ireland; but he assured the house, that he never knew a Roman Catholic of property in that country who did not express the greatest abhorrence of those violences; and he was convinced, that it was want of employment, want of industry, and want of reward for labour, that caused them; and he concluded with a declaration, that he did not think the little indulgence, which was then proposed to be given to the Roman Catholics of this kingdom, should be accompanied by any test, as he was sure, that any member, who read over the act of King William (which he then held in his hand) would think that in repealing it he was not so much employed in conferring favours on the Catholics as in rescuing the statutes from disgrace.

The real policy of relaxing the penal code of the Irish had universally pervaded not only the British cabinet, but the British senate; not one morose, bigotted, or fanatical voice was heard in discord, to this truism advanced by Mr. Burke on Lord Nugent's first motion for a committee to consider the trade of Ireland, That Ireland was now the chief dependance of the British crown, and that it particularly behoved this country to admit the Irish nation to the privileges of British citizens.* For although a considerable opposition were afterwards made to the bill for opening the trade, the strongest opposers of that measure admitted the necessity of passing a bill for the relief of the Roman Catholics in Ireland. On the eleventh day after the British House of Commons had given the liberal example

8 Eng. Deb. p. 185. viz. 1 April, 1778.

†Thus Sir Cecil Wray, one of the most violent opposers of the extension of Irish trade said, he well knew the grievances of Ireland, and lamented them; amongst which were the Irish Pension Bill....the sinecure offices, the Roman Catholic Bills, the Absentees, and various others; and assured the house he would gladly join the house in redressing them.

of universal assent to Sir George Savile's motion in favour of the Roman Catholics of England, Mr. Gardiner on the 25th of May, 1778, made a motion in the Irish House of Commons, and the question being put, that leave be given to bring in heads of a bill for the relief of his majesty's Roman Catholic subjects of Ireland, and that Mr. Gardiner, the Hon. Barry Barry, and Mr. Yelverton, do prepare and bring in the same, and it was carried in the affirmative. At the same time the Presbyterians of Ireland bearing in mind, that the sacramental test had been imposed upon their ansestors by their lying by, when new severities were imposed upon their Roman Catholic brethren, came forward on this occasion to partake of the first symptoms of tolerancy in an Irish parliament. In order not to be excluded from the indulgences about to be dispensed to the Catholics, Sir Edward Newnham on the same day moved, that leave might be given to bring in heads of a bill for the relief of his majesty's subjects the Protestant Dissenters of that kingdom and Sir Edward Newnham and Sir Boyle Roche were ordered to prepare and bring in the same. But whether from a conviction, that the relief to the Dissenters was not of equal urgency with that proposed to be granted to the Roman Catholics, or that the British cabinet had hitherto expressed no opinion or inclination in their favour, the measure was remitted to another session.

The great object and important consequence, which the Catholics of Ireland obtained by this bill was the legislative avo wal contained in the preamble of it, of those facts and assertions, which some few years back, it would have been considered little short of treason to have advanced: namely, that the severities of the act of Anne ought to be relaxed, that the Roman Catholics of Ireland were excluded from and ought to be admitted to the blessings of our free constitution, and that it would promote the prosperity and strength of all his majesty's dominions, that the Catholics should be bounden to the Protestants by mutual interest and affection. The establishment of this principle gave them à footing to stand upon in every future application to

† Journ. Com. p. 475. The division is not given in the Journals.

17 and 18 Geo. III. c. 49. An act for the relief of his majesty's subjects of this kingdom professing the Popish religion. "Whereas by an act made "in this kingdom in the second year of her late Majesty Queen Anne, in"tituled, An Act to prevent the further Growth of Popery, and also by another "act made in the eighth year of her said reign for explaining and amending "the said act, the Roman Catholics of Ireland are made subject to several disabilities and incapacities therein particularly mentioned: and whereas from their uniform peaceable behaviour for a long series of years, it appears reasonable and expedient to relax the same, and it must tend not only to "the cultivation and improvement of this kingdom, but to the prosperity and "strength of all his majesty's dominions, that his subjects of all denomina"tions should enjoy the blessings of our free constitution, and should be bound "to each other by mutual interest and mutual affection :"&c.

the crown or parliament for a full participation of every blessing of our free constitution. The advantages granted by this act were, that any Roman Catholic taking and subscribing the oath of allegiance and declaration prescribed by the 13th and 14th of Geo. III. c. 35. might take, enjoy, and dispose of a lease for 999 years certain, or determinable on the dropping of five lives, and that the lands then seized by Catholics should in future be descendible, deviseable, or alienable as fully, as if they were in the seizin of any other subject of his majesty: and that it should no longer be in the power of a child to fly in the face of his parent by demanding a present maintenance out of the father's personal estate, or by depriving him totally of the inheritance of his real estate, as he before had been enabled to do by the 2d Anne, c. 6. This was a qualified admission over the threshold of property, and the more welcome to the Catholics, from their conviction, that a breach once made in that penal fortress, it was impossible it should hold out much longer.*

Although less were in fact granted by Mr. Gardener's bill to the Irish, than by Sir George Savile's bill to the English Roman Catholics, yet widely different was the progress of each through the houses. The former was contested in every stage through the Irish House of Commons: on the 5th of June, 1778, five divisions took place upon it, though each were carried in the affirmative: and on the 15th of the same month three divisions in like manner were had.† On the 16th M Dillon, who took a very active part in the bill, reported progre from the committee, where it was warmly debated, and up the motion for the house's resolving itself into a committee of the whole house to take the said heads of the bill into further con sideration, on the 18th of June the house divided, 56 against 47 Mr. Tottenham and Mr. William Handcock were promin eat in their opposition to the bill. On the 18th the hose in commit. tee sat in debate till three o'clock in the morning, and on the

Among other warm supporters of this bill was Sir Hercules 4 she, whom Mr. Burke thus wrote with reference to it (p. 87) "It is a thing nuri "liating enough, that we are doubtful of the effect of the medicines we cou "pound. We are sure of our poisons. My opinion ever was (in which I "heartily agreed with those, that admired the old code) that it was so con"structed, that if there was once a breach in any essential part of it, the ruin " of the whole, or nearly of the whole, was, at some time or other, a certainty. "For that reason I honour, and shall for ever honour and love you, who first "caused it to stagger, crack, and gape. Others may finish, the beginners` have the glory; and, take what part you please at this hour, (I think you "will take the best) your first service will never be forgotten by a grateful "country."

†9 Com. Journ. p. 493. One of these was upon admitting a clause for repealing that part of the statute of Queen Anne, which requires the sacra mental test as a necessary qualification for holding offices and places of trust and profit under the crown. On this day also a petition from the mavor, sheriffs, common council, freemen, freeholders, and other Protestant inhe tants of the city of Cork, was presented against the b

19th till four o'clock in the morning upon these heads of a bill; and on the 20th Mr. Gardner was ordered to attend his excellency the lord lieutenant with the said heads of a bill, and desire the same might be transmitted into Great Britain in due form. Thus after the severest contest, with the full and unequivocal approbation of government, the general support of the patriots, and the unanimous accord of the British legislature in a similar indulgence to the Roman Catholics of England, were these heads of a bill carried through the Irish House of Commons by the small majority of nine. Upon the third reading of this bill in the House of Lords, the contents with their proxies were 36, and the not contents were 12. On the 14th of August the lord lieutenant put an end to the session. After having compli mented both houses upon their long and faithful attendance, he assured the commons, that their grants should be faithfully applied, and that it should be his endeavour, that the welfare and security of the people might amply compensate for those charges, which the exigency of public affairs had unavoidably occasioned.* He then addressed himself to both houses, and said, he flattered himself that the regulations, which had taken place that session, would prove essentially serviceable to that valuable branch of commerce, the fisheries of Ireland. It was with pleasure, that he saw an act passed for establishing a militia, which by enabling his majesty, when he should think proper, to call forth that part of the national strength, might materially contribute to the protection and defence of the kingdom. The law for relieving the Roman Catholics from some of those disabilities, under which they had hitherto laboured, would, he hoped, attain the desirable end of promoting and establishing good will and mutual confidence among his majes ty's subjects, and by rendering them more united at home, make them more formidable to their enemies abroad. He congratulated with them on the late extension of the trade and commerce of that kingdom; it was a circumstance peculiarly fortunate to them, that an event which promised such advantages to Ireland should have taken place during his administration. While they justly enjoyed the approbation and gratitude of their country, for having promoted so many useful laws, he was persuaded, they would not forget what was due to the paternal care of an affectionate sovereign, and the kind disposition of Great Britain towards that country; they would cultivate jointly, as in sound policy they were inseparable, the true interests of both kingdoms.

We have seen, that the alarming distresses of Ireland had roused the British House of Commons to afford them some commercial relief. When the bills to this effect were to be read a second time, several members for trading towns violently opposed them, and the table of the house of commons was covered with petitions against any extension of commercial 9 Journ. Com. p. 520. да

VOL. II.

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