CHAP. which these grants were made, had been faithfully XXXVII. executed, the benefit to the public, beside the useful

2

circulation of the money, would have been very great. All grants, however, were not equally abused. The sums of twenty thousand and ten thousand pounds, conceded to the college of Dublin for buildings, in two successive sessions, the latter of which was in 1757, were expended for the purposes professed, by which the structure of that noble seminary was rendered a beautiful object, to the no small embellish¬ -ment of the capital.

An erroneous opinion of the kingdom's wealth, caused by the surplus in the royal coffers and a temporary rise of revenue, continued, even after the decline of the revenue, to be entertained by the English government, and in some degree by the Irish parliament. The grants of the latter were bountiful beyond national ability. The former augmented the military expences and pensions on the civil establishment. A new national debt rose with rapidity, the origin of the funded stock of Ireland, In one year, 1759, votes of credit were given for four hundred and fifty thousand pounds. The supply of these loans, in a country so poor, inevitably drained the bankers of their cash. The three principal banks in Dublin stopped payment; and in the rest no paper was discounted, nor any business of moment transacted. To obviate the evil consequences of a total fall of credit both public and private, the house of commons, in 1760, pledged its faith for fifty thousand pounds in favour of each of the banks

1

then

XXXVII.

then subsisting in Dublin, till the first of May 1762; CHAP. and bankers notes were ordered to be received as cash from the subscribers to the loan, and in all payments made into the treasury. A law, which essentially contributed to save the country from complete ruin, had been enacted in 1758, for promotion of agriculture by bounties on the land-carriage of corn and flour to the capital. The true principle of this law, which was afterwards amended, was to bring the market of Dublin to the door of the farmer, by paying for the carriage at the public expence; an expence amounting, on the completion of the plan some years after, to about seventy thousand pounds annually.

a mob.

The public discontent, whose real source was na-violence of tional poverty, received from artful men a wrong 1759. direction. An address, expressive of their loyalty, from three hundred catholics of Dublin of the mercantile class, was 'transmitted through the medium of John Ponsonby, the speaker, in the December of 1759, to the lord lieutenant, who returned a 'most gracious answer, which might seem as a pre'lude to the re-admission of the catholics to the privileges of the political constitution. In consequence of this encouragement addresses of the same import were poured on the castle from the catholles in all parts of the kingdom, that a scheme of an union of Ireland with Great-Britain was entertained by ministers, and that a condescension to the catholics was intended as a part of the plan, seems to have 'been suspected by men of influence hostile to the

*measure,

XXXVII.

CHAP. measure, who resolved to stifle the business in its conception. Inflamed by reports dexterously propagated, that Ireland was to be deprived of its parliament, and subjected to the same taxes as England, a prodigious mob forced their way into the house of lords; seated an old woman on the throne; searched, fortunately in vain, for the journals, which they would have burned; forced the members of either house, whom they found, to swear that they would never consent to such a union, nor give a vote contrary to the interest of Ireland; destroyed the coaches, and killed the horses, of some obnoxious persons; and erected a gibbet for one gentleman, who providentially escaped their fury. The garrison was under arms to overawe the rioters, who dispersed spontaneously at night; and resolutions were passed next day by both houses with thanks to the chief governor for his exertions. A committee was also appointed for the discovery and punishment of the instigators and leaders of the tumult. As the gracious answer of the viceroy to the address of the catholics of Dublin was posterior to the riot, it was a virtuál declaration of acquittal from him to that body of any guilt in this affair.

Threats of

1759.

The warm professions of loyalty made by the cainvasion. tholics was seasonable at this time, when the kingdom was threatened with a formidable invasion from France, between whose monarch and the king of Great-Britain a war had commenced in 1755, on account of disputes between the French and English colonies in North America. In this plan of attack three

XXXVII.

three squadrons were to co-operate; the smallest from CHẢP. Dunkirk, under Thurot, to cause a diversion by alarming the northern coasts; a much greater, under De la Clue, from Toulon; and the grand armament from Brest, under Conflans, with eighteen thousand land forces. De la Clue, with twelve great ships of war and three frigates, was defeated, with the loss of four of the former, by admiral Boscawen, in August, near the coast of Portugal. The fleet from Brest, of twenty-one ships of the line and four frigates, was totally disabled by a defeat sustained from that of admiral Sir Edward Hawke, in November, near the coast of Bretagne, in a desperate conflict, where the horrors of a storm, amid rocks and shoals, were combined with those of war. The little squa

dron alone of Thurot reached the Irish coast: but its condition was feeble, and its fortune disastrous.

Thurot's ex

1760.

Superlatively enterprizing, brave in combat, and dexterous in eluding his pursuers, this man had be-pedition. come truly formidable, as a captain of a privateer, to the commercial class in Britain; and, for his merit, was promoted by the French government to the command of a squadron of five frigates. Escaping from Dunkirk in the October of 1759, and pursued by the British squadron of commodore Boys, by which he had been blockaded, and, which, from a scarcity on board, was obliged to suspend the pursuit for the procurement of provisions at Leith in Scotland, Thurot effected a voyage to Gottenburg in Sweden, and thence to Bergen in Norway. He

XXXVII.

CHAP. came in sight of the northern coast of Ireland at the end of the following January, but was prevented in his design of making a descent near Derry by tempestuous weather, by which also his fleet was reduced to three vessels, as the other two were driven into different courses. Pressed by famine, his officers urged him to return to France; but he declared his resolution to strike previously some blow; and, having procured some refreshments at the Hebride island of Ila, he landed with six hundred men at Carrickfergus on the twenty-first of February.

Transmitting speedily to Belfast a body of French prisoners, confined in Carrickfergus, lieutenant-colonel Jennings, with four new-raised companies, defended the entrances of the town, destitute of fortifications, till, from a failure of ammunition, he retired into the castle. The conduct of an individual in this attack was extremely honourable to the nation to which he belonged. A French soldier observing a child who had run playfully into one of the streets amid the fire of the contending parties, grounded his musket, carried the infant to a place of safety, and, returning to his comrades, resumed the combat: The Irish troops, destitute of ammunition, repulsed with stones and sticks an assault on the castle, even after the gates had been forced open; but this fortress, in a state of ruin, was untenable, and a capitulation necessary. The safety of the town, castle, and garrison, was granted by the French, on condition that their ships should be furnished with provisions, and that a number of French