A.D. 1683.]

CONFISCATION OF THE PROPERTY OF PROTESTANTS.

21

One reason for James quitting the siege of Londonderry conscience I gave, which my enemies, both at home and in person was that the time for the assembling of his Irish parliament drew near. No sooner did he reach Dublin than he was met by the news that the English fleet under admiral Herbert had been beaten by the French at Bantry Bay. Herbert had been ordered to intercept the French fleet betwixt Brest and Ireland; but he had missed it, and James had safely landed. Whilst he was still beating about, a second squadron, under Château Renaud, had also made its way over, and anchored with the first in Bantry Bay. On Herbert discovering them there, confident in their superior numbers, they came out, and there was a sharp fight. In the evening Herbert sheered off towards the Scilly Isles, and the French with great exultation, as in a victory, returned into the bay. James found the French at Dublin in high spirits at the unusual circumstance of beating English sailors; but his English adherents were by no means pleased with this triumphing over their countrymen, hostile ones as they were; and James, who had always prided himself on the English navy, is said, when Avaux boasted how the French had beaten the English, to have replied gloomily, "It is the first time." Even the English exiles in France are said to have shown a similar mortification, though the French victory, such as it was, was in their cause. Both sides, however, claimed this victory: in England parliament voted thanks to Herbert; in Dublin James ordered bonfires and a Te Deum.

abroad, dreaded to have established by law in all my dominions, and made them set themselves up against it, though for different reasons, seeing that, if I had once settled it, my people, in the opinion of the one, would have been too happy, and, in the opinion of the other, too great." This was fine language, worthy of the noblest lawgiver that ever existed; but, unfortunately, James's English sub.. jects never could be persuaded of his sincerity, and that this happiness and greatness would arrive as the result of his indulgence. The very next act which he now passed decided that they had not mistrusted him without cause. Scarcely had he passed the act of toleration, when he followed it up by the repeal of the act of settlement, by which the protestants held all their estates, and all their rights and liberties in Ireland. This just and tolerant monarch thus, at one stroke, handed over the whole protestant body to the mercy of the Irish catholics, and to one universal doom of confiscation. The hill was received with a madness of exultation by this popish parliament which portended all the horrors which were to follow. It was nothing short of a proclamation of war to the knife to all protestants in Ireland, Scotch or English. "It was received," says a writer of the time, "with a huzza and a tumult which more resembled the behaviour of a crew of rapparees over a rich booty than of a senate assembled to rectify abuses, and restore the rights of their fellow-subjects."

the fatal act was passed, and troops of dragoons and other horse rode eagerly forth, followed from all sides by armed Irish, to turn out the protestants and seize on their estates.

On the 7th of May, the day after the Te Deum, James This was a splendid illustration of what James's regard for met his parliament. What sort of a parliament it was, and every man's "right and liberty" meant. It was in vain what it was likely to do in Ireland, may be surmised from that the handful of protestants in parliament lifted their the fact that there were only six protestants in the whole voices against this letting loose the hell-hounds of revenge, house of commons, consisting of two hundred and fifty murder, and desolation all over Ireland; in vain that the members. Only fourteen lords appeared to his summons, English royalists warned him, pointed out that he was comand of these only four were protestants. By new creations, mitting not only a wholesale annihilation of protestant life and and by reversal of attainders against catholic peers, he property in Ireland, but of his own interests in England. managed to add seventeen more members to the upper How was he ever to expect restoration there with this terrible house, all catholics, so that in the whole parliament there confirmation of all the fears and declarations of his English were only ten protestants! and four of these were the subjects before them? James hesitated a moment; but he bishops of Meath, Ossory, Cork, and Limerick. The majority was assailed so furiously by the reproaches of his supporters, of these members were not only catholic, rabid with a desire and especially by Avaux, who was as anxious for the extirof visiting upon the protestants all the miseries and spolia-pation of the protestants as if he had been an Irishman, tions which they had inflicted on them, but they were men totally unaccustomed to the business of legislation or government, from having been long excluded from all such functions, and condemned to pass their time on their estates in that half savage condition which qualified them rather for bandits than for considerate lawgivers and magistrates. James's first act was that of complete toleration of liberty of conscience to all Christian denominations. This sounded well, and was in perfect keeping with his declarations and endeavours in England for which he had been driven out, and England had now an opportunity of observing with what justice; of judging whether it had wrongfully suspected his real object in it. He reverted in his speech from the throne with great pride to these endeavours, and to his determination still to be the liberator of conscience. "I have always," he said, "been for liberty of conscience, and against invading any man's right or liberty; having still in mind that saying of holy writ, 'Do as you would be done to, for this is the law and the prophets.' It was this liberty of

But there were other parties whose estates were not derived from the act of settlement, but from purchase, and another act was passed to include them. It was a bill confiscating the property of all who had aided or abetted the prince of Orange in his attempt on the crown, or who were absent and did not return to their homes before the 5th of October. The number of persons included in this great act of attainder, as it was called, amounted to betwixt two and three thousand names, including men of all ranks, from the highest noble to the simplest freeholder. All the property of absentees above seventeen years of age was transferred to the king. The most unbounded lust of robbery and revenge was thus kindled in the public mind. Every one who wanted his neighbour's property, or had a grudge against him, hurried to give in his name to the clerk of the house of

To make the separation of England and Ireland complete, and to set up the most effectual barrier against his own authority, should he again regain the throne of England, James permitted his rabble of a parliament to pass an act declaring that the parliament of England had no power or authority over Ireland, and that contrary to the provisions of Poyning's act, which gave the initiative power to the English council, and made every Irish act invalid unless first submitted to the king and council of England.

Having transferred the property of the laity back to the Irish, another act made as sweeping a conveyance of that of the church from the protestant to the catholic clergy. Little regard had been had to catholic rights in piling property on the protestant hierarchy, and as little was shown in plucking it back again. The Anglican clergy were left in a condition of utter destitution; and, more than this, they were not safe if they appeared in public. They were hooted, pelted, and sometimes fired at. All colleges and schools from which the protestants had excluded the catholics were now seized and employed as popish seminaries or monasteries. The college of Dublin was turned into a barrack and a prison. No protestants were allowed to appear together in numbers more than three, on pain of death. That was James's notion of the liberty of conscience and a tender regard for "every man's rights and liberties." It was a fine lesson, too, for the clergy and gentry who had welcomed him to Ireland as the friends of passive obedience. They had now enough of that doctrine, and went over pretty rapidly to a different notion. The protestants everywhere were overrun by soldiers and [rapparees. Their estates were seized, their houses plundered, their persons insulted and abused, and a more fearful state of things never existed in any country at any time. The officers of the army sold the protestants protections, which were no longer regarded, when fresh marauders wanted more money.

commons, and, without any or much inquiry, it was inserted England. It was as by a special providence that he was in the bill. permitted thus to exhibit his talents for rendering a people free and happy after he had been expelled from England; for this specimen of his rule completely satisfied those who expelled him, that they had done right, and it completely silenced all the complaints of his partisans of the hardship and injustice with which he had been treated. His victims were continually escaping over into England with their stories of horrors, and his own courtiers were in a condition of mutual discord and hatred which made his court as complete a Pandemonium as the country was. Melfort and Avaux detested each other. Melfort and Tyrconnel were just as violent against each other. The French appeared to have no notion of anything but securing Ireland for their own king; they despised the Irish, and the Irish cursed them. James was compelled to dismiss Melfort, and send him on a mission to the pope, to take him out of the way of Tyrconnel. But this did not restore peace to his court, where every element of envy, hatred, rapacity, and incapacity were in full and direful activity. James saw the scene continually darkening,, and was at a loss what course to pursue. At one time he thought of going over into Scotland and uniting with Dundee; the death of Dundee put an end to that scheme. At another he was urged by his evil counsellors to throw himself into England, where, they assured him, he had plenty of adherents, already tired of the Dutch king, who would fly to his standard, and quickly reinstate him. But Avaux, who not only wished to keep him in Ireland, but was also well assured that James was more unpopular in England than ever, exerted all his power to detain him where he was. James himself was restless and miserable; surrounded by perpetual quarrels, and with nothing but disaster to his arms, he grew petulant and morose. When the parliament thwarted him in some measure, he declared angrily that "all parliaments were alike;" and when his Irish friends compelled him to dismiss Melfort, he protested that, if he could have foreseen their unkindness to him, he would never have come amongst them. Such was the state of Ireland and of James's court when Schomberg landed with his army at Carrickfergus on the 23rd of August, and roused both James, his court, and the whole country to a sense of their danger, and of the necessity for one great and universal effort. The Irish felt that the time was come when they must rise as a man to repel the hated Saxons, or that a few months would see them again laid at their feet. All that they had just wrested from them would be resumed with a fierce and retributive arm, and their brief triumph would be succeeded by a deeper and more intolerable slavery. The priests from the pulpits over the whole island painted to them the horrors of their subjection if they failed to expel the foe; and the people flew to arms with a wonderful enthusiasm. They flocked to the standard of James by thousands. A spirit of new life seemed to animate them, and James, receiving fresh hope from the sight, marched from Dublin at the head of his troops to encounter Schomberg.

This model parliament voted twenty thousand pounds a year to Tyrconnel for bringing this state of things about, and twenty thousand pounds a month to the king. But the country was so completely desolated, and its trade so completely destroyed by this reign of terror and of licence, that James did not find the taxes come in very copiously; and he resorted to a means of making money plentiful worthy of himself. He collected all the old pots, pans, brass knockers, old cannon, and metal in almost any shape, and coined clumsy money out of them, on which he put about a hundred times their intrinsic value. The consequence was that shopkeepers refused to receive this base coin. All men to whom debts were due, or who had mortgages on other men's property, were opposed to having this discharged by a heap of metal which in a few weeks might be worth only a few pence a pound. Those who refused such payment were arrested, and menaced with being hung up at their own doors. Many were thrown into prison, and all trade and intercourse were plunged into a condition of the wildest anarchy. The whole of Ireland was one frightful scene of violence, robbery, confusion, and distress. Such was the liberty and right which James conferred upon it in a few months, and which he had before designed to confer on

During the summer the court of William had not been an enviable place. In the spring the parliament had proceeded to reverse the judgments which had been passed in the lasi reign against lord Russell, Algernon Sidney, the earl of

A.D. 1689.]

THE BILL OF RIGHTS PASSED.

23

On the 19th of October the second session of William's first parliament met. The commons were liberal in voting supplies; they granted at once two million pounds, and declared that they would support the king to the utmost of their ability in reducing Ireland to his authority, and in prosecuting the war with France. Part of the required sum was to be levied partly by a poll-tax, partly by new duties on tea, coffee, and chocolate, partly by an assessment of one hun

Devonshire, Cornish, Alice Lisle, and Samuel Johnson.macy, and the jurors, or those who complied, were little less Some of the surviving whigs who had suffered obtained bitter than the non-jurors, for they had many of them sworn pecuniary compensation, but Johnson obtained none. He was with very ill-will, and some with not very easy consciences. deemed by the whigs to be too violent-in fact, he was a He had proposed a scheme of comprehension, which, if radical of that day. The scoundrel Titus Oates crawled carried, would admit a numerous body of nonconformists to again from his obscurity, and, by help of his old friends the the livings of the church. They were mortified that he had whigs, managed to obtain a pension of three hundred pounds allowed the Scotch to abolish episcopacy, and they saw with a year. This done, there was an attempt to convert the alarm the work of the commission which he had appointed declaration of rights into a bill of rights-thus giving it all to prepare a plan of alterations in the church service to be the authority of parliamentary law; and in this bill it was laid before the convocation, which was to meet simultaneously proposed, in case of William, Mary, and Anne all dying with- with the next session of parliament. out issue, to settle the succession on the duchess Sophia of Brunswick Lunenburg, the daughter of the queen of Bohemia, and granddaughter of James I.; but it failed for the time. A bill of indemnity was also brought in as an act of oblivion of all past offences; but that too was rejected. The triumphant whigs, so far from being willing to forgive the tories who had supported James, and had been their successful opponents during the previous attempts through Titus Oates and company to exclude James from the succes-dred thousand pounds on the Jews, but chiefly by a tax on real sion, that they were now clamorous for their blood and ruin. William refused to comply with their truculent desires, and became, in consequence, the object of their undisguised hatred. They declared that he was a true scion of the Stuart house; that he had acted in Holland more like an absolute monarch than a republican stadtholder, and that now he meant to make himself as despotic as the prince whom he had deposed, though he was his own father-in-law; that this was what made him so tender of the tories who had abetted James in all his violations of the constitution. They endeavoured to annoy him to the utmost of their power. Ireland was in a critical state, James was still there; France was preparing to give him strenuous support; and they persuaded themselves that William's seat was uncertain, After thus demonstrating their zeal for maintaining the and that he must yield to their wishes. They particularly throne in affluence and power, the commons next proceeded directed their combined efforts against Danby, now earl of to display it in a careful scrutiny of the mode in which the Caermarthen, and Halifax. They demanded that Caermar-last supplies had been spent. The conduct of both army and then should be dismissed from the office of president of the council, and Halifax from holding the privy seal, and being speaker of the house of lords. But William steadfastly resisted their demands, and declared that he had done enough for them and their friends, and would do no more, especially in the direction of vengeance against such as were disposed to live quietly and serve the state faithfully.

property. The Jews, however, protested that they would sooner quit the kingdom than submit to the imposition, and that source was abandoned. They next took up the bill of rights, and passed it, omitting the clause respecting the succession of the house of Brunswick, which measure was not brought forward again for eleven years. They however took care, at the suggestion of Burnet, to insert a clause that no person who should marry a papist should be capable of ascending the throne; and if any one on the throne so married, the subjects should be absolved from their allegiance. This clause, however, has become inoperative in our time, or George IV., who married a catholic, Mrs. Fitzherbert, would have been deposed.

navy had not been such as to satisfy the public. The commons had, indeed, not only excused the defeat of Herbert at Bantry Bay, but even thanked him for it as though it had been a victory. But neither had Schomberg effected anything in Ireland; and he loudly complained that it was impossible to fight with an army that was neither supplied with necessary food, clothing, nor ammunition. This led to The clergy were as disaffected to William as his old friends a searching scrutiny into the commissariat department, the whigs. William was a presbyterian in principle, and William himself being the foremost in the inquiry, and the they looked on his disregard of their rites and ceremonies as most frightful peculation and abuses were brought to light. flat heresy. He at once put a stop to the singing of the Though enormous sums had been voted, the army was found service in his private chapel. He refused to touch for the in as destitute a condition as that in the Crimea in our own scrofula, treating the practice as a gross superstition. This day; the same villany in defrauding the unhappy soldiers of was a severe reproof to those high churchmen who applauded shoes, clothes, ammunition, and even tents. Whole cargoes of the profligate Charles for a parade of the practice-as if the these had been paid for by government, but had never been miraculous powers of the church were likely to be permitted delivered, and could nowhere be found. The muskets and to pass through so unclean a vessel. Charles is said to have other arms, like those in the Crimea, fell to pieces in the touched no less than a hundred thousand persons in his soldiers' hands; and, when fever and pestilence were deci reign, and James quite as many in proportion to the length mating the camp, there was not a drug to be found, though of his. On one single occasion he had touched no fewer one thousand seven hundred pounds had been charged than eight hundred persons in Chester cathedral. William government for medicines. What baggage and supplies had given mortal offence to a large section of the clergy by there were could not be got to the army for want of horses requiring them to take the oaths of allegiance and supre-to draw the wagons; and the very cavalry went afoot,