The death of the Marquis of Rockingham occasions a change in The lord lieutenant's speech from the throne The 6th of Geo. I. repealed in the British parliament-Provin- The province of Connaught addresses also-Munster was silent, Address of the first company of Belfast volunteers 333 333 334 A volunteer encampment-An address moved to the reviewing APPENDIX TO THE SECOND VOLUME. LVIII. The memorial of the Earl of Kildare 8 to 10 LIX. The gentlemen who voted in support of the reso- LXV. The humble address of the Roman Catholic gen- tlemen, merchants, and citizens of the city of Dublin to his Grace John Duke of Bedford- His Grace the Duke of Bedford's answer to the address of the Roman Catholics of Dublin in LXIIa. Protest of sixteen lords against the entry of the lord lieutenant's protest on the journals 38 to 40 LXIIIa. The Catholics' test of allegiance prescribed by the 13th and 14th George III. chap. xxxv. 40 to 41 LXIVa. From the debates in the British House of Com- LXVIIa. Addresses and resolutions of different corps of volunteers-The address published by the com- mittee of the Ulster volunteers-The resolu- tions agreed to at a meeting of the high sheriff LXVIIIa. From the debates in the British House of Com- AN HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE STATE OF IRELAND. CHAPTER IV. THE REIGN OF GEORGE THE SECOND. UPON the demise of George the First, his son ascended the throne without disturbance or opposition. Now for the first time since the Revolution did the Roman Catholics of Ireland venture to approach the throne by a public act of their body. The penal laws had been somewhat multiplied, and rigorously executed during the late reign. It was still fresh in the minds of the Catholics, that the severe laws of Queen Ann were said to have been passed against them as a punishment for their having neglected to address her on her accession to the throne. The extreme virulence with which they had been recently calumniated from the press, the pulpit, and the senate, on account of the rebellion of 1715, deterred them from offering any address upon the accession of the Hanover family. At this juncture, however, they drew up an address of congratulation, which in a dignified manner expressed loyalty to their sovereign, and pledged them to a continuance of their peaceful and quiet demea nour. It was presented to the lords justices, by Lord Delvin and several respectable Catholic gentlemen; but it was received with silent contempt. The lords justices, who were humbly intreated to transmit it to his majesty, never condescended to make an answer to those who presented it; nor has it been known to this day, whether it reached the hands of the sovereign, or were strangled in its birth by the heads of the English interest, who dreaded nothing so much as the united loyalty of the people of Ireland. The severe ordeal, which Catholic loyalty had passed during the reign of George the First, had it seems so far blunted the edge of calumny, that public vituperation was considered no longer prudent. The great engine, patron, and supporter of the English interest in Ireland, was Primate Boulter; who well knew that the opposite party, hitherto known by the distinction of Tories, which he affected to call the disaffected, and the king's enemies, were acquiring daily strength by the accession of all those who, as patriots, preferred an Irish to an English interest in their native country; and sensible that the means of supporting the English interest would not bear the light, his Grace effected, by a coup de main, a bold measure, which would probably have failed, had it been previously canvassed and openly debated in the then prevailing temper of the public mind. However grievous were the penal laws imposed upon the Catholics during the reigns of Elizabeth and Ann, it is but justice to allow, that none of them had deprived them of the elective franchise, that essential and firm armour of a free constitution. By the 24th section of the most vexatious and oppressive of all those acts, 2 Ann, c. 6. An Act to prevent the further Growth of Popery, it was indeed enacted, "that from and after the 24th day "of March, 1703, no freeholder, burgess, freeman, or inhabitant "of that kingdom being a Papist, or professing the Popish "religion, should at any time thereafter be capable of giving his "or their vote for electing of knights of any shires or counties "within that kingdom, or citizens or burgesses to serve in any "succeeding parliament, without first repairing to the general quarter session of the peace to be holden for the counties, cities "or boroughs wherein such Papists did inhabit and dwell, and "there voluntarily taking the oath of allegiance, and also the oath "of abjuration, and obtaining a certificate thereof from the clerk "of the peace." Now as it was well known from the tried loyalty and attachment of the Catholics to the family on the throne, that they were generally ready to take these oaths, the harsh plan was formed to shut them out of this only participation of the constitution. The attention, which the nation now began to pay to their civil rights, and the part which the Catholics took in the elections, being the only occasion on which they could exercise any civil right that had weight in the state, awakened the primate's jealousy and alarm, and drove him to the desperate resolution of upholding the English interest* in Ireland by disfran As much of Primate Boulter's letters as the editor has favoured us with, openly avows this prelate's principles upon the subject. Within three weeks after the death of the king, he writes to the Duke of Newcastle, (1 vol. page 177.) "every thing here is very quiet :" and on the same day he informs Lord Townsend (p. 176,) "we have no other bustle amongst us than what arises "from the warm canvass going on in all parts about the election of members |