LX.

some catholic universities abroad, which had been CHAP. given in answer to queries proposed from England, when indulgence to catholics in that country had been a subject of consideration. Such doctrines had been actually reduced to practice by catholics, as appears from indubitable records, but had been reprobated by others of the same communion, and probably those of Ireland were at this time sincere in their disavowal. They abjured as detestable and impious the opinions that princes excommunicated by the Pope, or any ecclesiastical authority whatsoever, may be murdered or deposed; that men may be lawfully murdered on account of their being heretics; that actions immoral in their own nature can be justified under pretence of their being committed for the good of the church, or in obedience to any ecclesiastical power; and that no faith is to be kept with heretics, or that oaths made to persons not belonging to the catholic communion are less binding than those made to catholics. They also declared their disbelief of the competency of any power to absolve them from their oaths of allegiance, or from any just oaths or contracts; of any right of temporal jurisdiction within this realm directly or indirectly, belonging to the Pope or any other foreign power; of the infallibility of the Pope; and of any power on earth to forgive sins without sincere and complete repentance. They finally made a solemn renunciation of all claims of lands forfeited from their ancestors, and all designs of subvert

ing

CHAP. ing the present eclesiastical establishment in Ire XL. land.

to catholics.

Opposition While the catholic leaders, encouraged and aided 1792. by many protestants, especially those of the presbyterian communion, and those who had entered into the society of United Irishmen, were labouring to influence the legislature in their favour, measures to produce a contrary influence were actively taken by other protestants, who apprehended the loss of a monopoly of power, or feared that, from the unparalleled spirit of intolerance assiduously nourished in the Romish religion, the catholics, if once admitted into a participation of political authority, would, with the peculiar zeal of their sect, avail themselves of their superiority of number, and every other possible advantage, to gain the exclusive possession of the state, and ultimately to persecute and exterminate the heretics. Resolutions hostile to the claims of the catholics, and to their plan of a convention, as of a seditious nature, were voted by grand juries, conventions of the freeholders in counties, and the corporation of Dublin. Observations on these were published in return, and the press teemed with controversial writings of the catholics and their protestant friends on one side, and of their opponents on the other, to the unhappy revival of religious animosity, which every true christian would wish to be buried in oblivion.

Parliamen

tary transactions.

1792.

In the session of parliament which commenced on the nineteenth of January 1792, some new indulgences, on a motion made by Sir Hercules Lan

XL.

grishe on the twenty-fifth of that month, had been CHAP. granted to the catholics, such as their admission to the practice of the law, intermarriage with protestants, and an unrestrained education: but a mass of disabilities still remained, as was clearly shewn in a digest of the popery laws, made by the honourable Simon Butler, chairman of the United Irish, and published by order of that society. Among the subjects of debate brought into parliament by the oppositionists was the demand for permission to the merchants of Ireland to open a direct unrestricted commerce with India and other countries eastward of the Cape of Good-Hope. As this trade would have materially interfered with the chartered monopoly of the East-India company of British merchants, the motions for its permission were negatived by the influence of the crown. In the session of 1793, which began on the tenth of January, and ended on the sixteenth of August, the transactions of parliament were much more important.

As Edmund Burke had assumed the office of lite- 1793. rary champion for monarchy, with a violence much more calculated for his private advantage than for that of the cause which he espoused, the catholics of Ireland, to obviate the imputation of revolutionary designs on the principles of the French republicans, had chosen for their agent, and brought to Dublin for the purpose of negociation with parliament, in 1792, a son of this furious declaimer. This plan was not successful; but to the influence of Burke in the British cabinet might in great measure

be

CHAP. be attributed the favourable disposition of the king XL. to the Irish catholics, signified to the parliament by

his chief-governor. In consequence of this interference an act was passed in 1793, much against the inclination of many even of those members who voted for it, by which the catholics were brought nearly into the same political situation with the protestants, except that they still remained excluded from sitting in parliament, from being members of the privy-council,. from holding the office of sheriff, and some other offices under the crown, about thirty in number, specified in the act; and that their voluntary contributions constituted the sole maintenance of their clergy. Some other bills of a popular and conciliatory nature, for which oppositionists had before in vain contended, were with the concur→ rence of administration, much to its honour, passed into laws. By one of these, all who should hold newly-created places under government, after the date of the bill, or other places specified, particu larly those of officers of the revenue whose duty required their absence from the metropolis; and all who should hold pensions for years, or during the king's pleasure, should be excluded from sitting in the commons' house of parliament; and the annual sum of the pensions, which then amounted nearly to a hundred and twenty thousand pounds, was reduced to eighty thousand: and by another, the bill of responsibility, no warrant from the king, for the disposal of public money, was legal without the signature, and consequent responsibility to parliament, of the

proper

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proper officers in the Irish administration. By this CHAP. act the hereditary revenue became confounded with the additional supplies which were voted annually by parliament.

Some other popular bills also received the sanction of laws, by which a trade to India was permitted under specified restrictions, encouragement was given for the improvement of barren land, and an explanation was offered for the removal of doubts in juries in cases of libel. The sum of two hundred thousand pounds was also voted for the security of a loan to that amount, engaged by the bank, at five per cent interest, to some mercantile houses, for the restoration of commercial credit, which had received a rude shock in both the British kingdoms, since the commencement of the war against the French commonwealth, particularly in Dublin, where the streets were crowded with starving weavers. The ministry, whose conciliatory conduct appears to have mollified in some degree the force of opposition, procured without difficulty the enaction of two bills of a coercive nature; one "To prevent the importation of arms, gunpowder and ammunition into this kingdom, and the removing and keeping of gunpowder, arms, and ammunition, without licence;" that those who might entertain rebellious designs should be barred from supplies of warlike stores: the other "To prevent the election, or other appointment, of conventions or other unlawful assemblies, under pretence of preparing or presenting public petitions, or other addresses, as to

his