petitions and grievances of the nation are most properly laid before the throne? The steadiness and resolution of the majority who attended the business of their country on this occasion, and particularly the firm zeal of Mr. John Ponsonby, the speaker, cannot be over-rated. Like true and sincere patriots, they immoveably supported the just prerogatives of the crown, the dignity and privileges of parliament, and the liberties and known rights of the people.

*Mr. John Bourke reported from the committee (appointed to inspect the public accounts of the nation) the resolutions, which the committee had directed him to report to the house, which he read in his place, and afterwards delivered in at the table, where the same were read, and are as follows:

Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, that the several pensions and salaries placed upon the civil establishment of this kingdom since the 23d of March, 1755, amount to the annual sum of twenty-eight thousand one hundred and three pounds.

Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, that several of the said pensions are pranted to persons who do not reside in this kingdom.

Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, that several of the said pensions are granted for long and unusual

terms.

Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, that the list of pensions returned as a charge upon this establishment (exclusive of the military pensions) for two years, from the 25th of March 1755, to the 25th of March 1757, exceed the whole charges of the rest of the civil list twenty-two thousand two hundred and fifty-eight pounds, four shillings and seven pence three farthings.

Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, that an improvident disposition of the revenue is an injury to the crown and public.

To which resolutions, the questions being severally put, the house did agree nemine contradicente.

Resolved, nemine contradicente, That the granting of pensions upon the civil establishment of this kingdom to persons who do not reside in it, is a prejudice to it.

Resolved, nemine contradicente, That the increase of civil pensions for many years past, is a grievance to the nation, and demands redress.

Resolved, nemine contradicente, That the granting of pensions for a long term of years, is an alienation for so much of the public revenue, and an injury to the crown and this kingdom.

* 6 Journ. Com. p. 21.

Resolved, nemine contradicente, That the granting of so much. of the public revenue in pensions, is an improvident disposition. of the revenue, an injury to the crown, and detrimental to thepublic.

Resolved, That the house, with its speaker, do attend his grace the lord lieutenant, with the said resolutions, and desire his grace will be pleased to lay the same before his majesty as the sense of this house.

On the 9th, application was made to know when his grace the lord lieutenant would be attended in order to give an answer, when he would transmit the resolutions to be laid before his majesty, pursuant to the desire of the house.

On the 11th, Mr. Secretary acquainted the house, that his grace would be attended the day following, at two of the clock. The 12th, the house with Mr. Speaker attended the lord lieutenant, who was pleased to give them the following answer, viz.

"The matter contained in those resolutions is of so high a "nature, that I cannot suddenly determine whether it be proper "for me to transmit them to his majesty." On the speaker's return, the answer being reported, Mr. Secretary moved, that the same should be entered in the journal of the house as explicit and satisfactory; and being debated, and the question put, Mr. Secretary apprehending the majority against the motion, desired leave to withdraw it, which prevented a division at that time.

On the 14th, the house being met, a motion was made, that all orders, not proceeded on, should be adjourned to the next day, the house not having received an answer from the lord lieutenant relative to transmitting the resolutions of the Commons on the 1st of November, in respect to pensioners.

Here the grand debate arose, as those who declared for the adjournment were for supporting the resolutions, to have them laid before his majesty, and those who were for suppressing the resolutions, and preventing national grievances being laid before the throne, were against the adjournment, the fate of which was, in fact, a determination of the main question, which was of no less importance in its consequences, than whether the people of Ireland were to be deprived of the parliamentary means of laying their grievances before the crown? and the question being put, upon a division, those for the adjournment carried it by a majority of twenty-one voices.

In consequence of the foregoing question, on the 15th Mr. Secretary Rigby informed the house, that he was commanded by his grace the lord lieutenant to acquaint the house, that their resolutions of the 1st of November should be forthwith transmitted to his majesty.

Had not this message been delivered to the house, serious indeed might have been the consequences; but the instant it was received the house proceeded to business; and the money bill, granting supplies to his majesty, passed unanimously on the same day. Happy would it have been for Ireland, had these resolutions of the commons been acted up to, with the effect they certainly merited.

The Duke of Bedford was appointed to be lord lieutenant of Ireland in the year 1757: and it is fitting to remark, that he was the first chief governor of Ireland, since the revolution, who ventured to profess a favourable disposition to the body of Catholics:† under his government did the first dawn of toleration break in upon that suffering people: to his administration must be allowed the credit of having restored suspended animation to the members of that paralyzed body, which has since acquired such health, vigour, and strength of constitution under the benign reign of his present majesty. Several Roman Catholic gentlemen had about that time devoted their thoughts to the most effectual means of removing from their shoulders some part at least of the oppression, under which they laboured. Heads of a registery bill, prepared under the late administration of Ireland, which, had it passed, would have operated as a new and very severe penal law upon the Catholics, were handed about and created much alarm in that body. Their fears drove them to consultation, and consultation animated them to action: a common sense of the existing and fear of additional severities taught them, that the surest means of preventing fresh laws from being enacted would be to make some vigorous exertion for the repeal of those, by which they were most galled. They held frequent meetings, in which there was much diversity of opinion. It was natural, that long habits of suffering and the exclusion from all public concerns, should disqualify such a body from acting in concert. They formed into two parties: one was headed by Lord Trimbleston, the other by Doctor Fitzsimon. Although neither party could for a considerable time bring themselves to

As matter of historical curiosity a list of the gentlemen who divided upon these resolutions is given in the Appendix, No. LIX.

He was appointed lord lieutenant on the 25th of September, and had so early intimated this humane disposition of government towards the Catholics, that within ten days, viz. on the 2d of October 1757, a form of exhortation was read from the altar by the Catholic clergy of Dublin, which noticed that some very honourable personages had encouraged them to hope for a mitigation of the penal laws. The whole is short, but appropriate to the situation of their congregations, and is to be seen in the Appendix, No. LX.

Mr. Charles O'Connor of Ballenegare, the celebrated Irish scholar and antiquarian, was one of the most active of the Catholics. His letter to Dr. Curry on this occasion, which is to be seen in the Appendix, No. LXI, will let the reader into the spirit of the sense and feeling of the gentlemen of that persuasion at that period of time.

agree to the expediency of addresses or appeals, they were both unanimous in adhering to their ancient principles. Doctor O'Keefe, the titular bishop of Kildare, proposed to Lord Trimbleston's meeting a declaration of the principles of their church, as far as they could bear upon their civil duties, to be signed by the chief of their body, and published as an answer to the misrepresentations and calumnies they had laboured under since the reformation of the national religion: the declaration was unanimously adopted; it was signed by many clergymen and gentlemen of rank and property, and sent to Rome as the act and deed of the Catholics of his diocese.* This was the first public act of the Catholics for obtaining some relaxation from the penal laws. In this same year, however, Mr. O'Connor, Dr. Curry, and Mr. Wyse of Waterford first thought of establishing a Roman Catholic committee in Dublin, in order to be able to conduct the political concerns of the body with more order and effect near the seat of government; and their first meeting, at which only seven gentlemen attended, was holden at the Globe Tavern in Essex Street; and there Mr. Wyse delivered in a written plan for their future proceedings.† These movements of the Catholics awakened the vigilance of government, and occasioned a more rigorous execution of the penal laws, which

This declaration is to be seen in the Appendix, No. LXI. And it will be hereafter remembered that it was the same as that of the Catholic committee of 1793, which Mr. George Ponsonby so highly commended in his speech upon the Catholic question.

At this meeting were present Mr. O'Connor, Mr. Wyse, Dr. Jennings, Mr. Anthony Macdermott, Mr. James Reynolds of Ashe street, and one more. This proposal which is still in existence in the hand writing of Mr. Wyse is to be seen in the Appendix, No. LXII. The original is in the possession of Mr. O'Connor's grandson, together with a large collection of letters and papers relating to the affairs of the Roman Catholics of Ireland. The representatives thus appointed adopted the measure proposed to them by Dr. Curry and Mr. O'Connor, of employing the most leading literary men of the day to write in favour of Catholic claims, and among others, the celebrated Dr. Johnson, who, as appears from G. Faulkner's letters, often spoke of the Roman Catholics as an oppressed and degraded people, for whom humanity loudly demanded that something should be done to elevate them to the dignity of human nature..... There is a letter in the same collection from Faulkner to Dr. Jennings engaging him to write pressingly to Mr. O'Connor to collect fifty guineas among his friends to send as a douceur to Dr. Johnson, with an abstract of the penal laws, and Mr. O'Connor's own writings on the subject. "I send the doctor "my last javelin, (says Mr. O'Connor, speaking of his maxims in reply to Jen"nings) but I fear I have thrown it in vain; men in power will not be convinced, there is an obstinacy yoked with pride in this case, and a phantom of hatred stalks behind to cement the league between them. I am glad howe"ver that I threw it, as Dr. Johnson will see, that a negative on the plan relative to our waste lands, will render our task-masters inexcusable; it will "shew that they persecute merely for the sake of persecution, and that the injury they do us in not granting us leases of the red bogs of Ireland falls "ultimately on themselves." Why Doctor Johnson did not undertake the ask proposed in favour of the claims of the Irish Catholics, after having spoken so favourably of them, does not appear.

terrified the Catholics more, by how much more mildly they had lately been executed. A private occurrence in the next year gave rise to much public menace, and some additional severity in executing the laws. A young lady of the name of Toole, who was strongly importuned by her friends to conform to the established religion, had taken refuge in the house of a Mr. Saul, a merchant in Dublin, in order to get rid of their importunities. The affair was taken up with a high hand; Mr. Saul was prosecuted; and he was publicly assured from the bench, that the laws did not presume a Papist to exist in the kingdom, nor could they breathe without the connivance of government. The publication of Dr. Curry's Historical Memoirs of the Irish rebellion of 1641† though anonymously, in the year 1759, still further awakened the attention of all, and the rigour of many towards the Catholics. So little at that time was the public accustomed to publications favourable to the Catholics, that the book created a considerable ferment in the nation, and gave great offence to most of the Protestants: it appeared at first to counteract its own object by irritating rather than reconciling the minds of

men.

On the 29th day of October, 1759, the Duke of Bedford delivered a message to the parliament to the following effect:.... That by a letter from Mr. Secretary Pitt, written by his majes ty's express command, it appeared that France, far from resigning her plan of invasion, on account of the disaster that befel her Toulon squadron, was more and more confirmed in her purpose, and even instigated by despair itself to attempt at all hazards the only resource she seemed to have left for thwarting, by a diversion at home, the measures of England abroad, in prosecuting a war, which hitherto opened in all parts of the world so unfavourable a prospect to the views of French ambition: that in case the body of French troops, amounting to eighteen thousand men, under the command of the Duke d'Aiguillon, assembled at Vannes, where also a sufficient number of trans

* Mr. Saul's letter to Mr. O'Connor upon this subject, dated November the 15th, 1759, gives an interesting account of this transaction, and of its consequences to Mr. Saul, whom it drove out of the kingdom His family has been ever since settled in France. Vide Appendix, No. LXIII. The original is in Mr. O'Connor's collection.

†The Memoirs were published with the utmost secrecy and caution. The motives and reasons for their publication will best appear from the correspondence between Dr. Curry and Mr. O'Connor upon the subject, in the Appendix, No. LXIV. The original letters being in the before mentioned collection. Although these memoirs were no more than a mere compilation of original and authentic documents, all from Protestant authors, yet the compiler of them, when he came to be known, was exposed to a torrent of the most virulent abuse and invective. The probability or even certainty that truth will be ill received, is no just excuse for suppressing it; especially when its publication becomes an act of justice to an individual and much more so to a nation.