chising above four fifths of its population.* The great opposition to the English interest, which it was the pride and boast of this "for the ensuing parliament." He had three days before apprized Lord Carteret, then lord lieutenant, (p. 173,) "that the whole kingdom was in the ut"most ferment about the coming elections. I can safely appeal (said his “grace) to your excellency for my having to the best of my power served his "late majesty, and supported the English interest here: and I shall always "serve his present majesty as faithfully: but to be able to do it with the good "effect I desire, I hope I shall be as well supported as I have been. Your "excellency knows I have nothing to ask : and I believe princes have seldom "over many, that are disposed to serve them as faithfully on so easy terms. It "would put a good spirit into the king's friends here, and particularly the English, if they knew, by your excellency's means, what they had to depend up"on. There is another thing I cannot but suggest to your excellency, though "I am under no fear of the experiment being made, that any thing which looks "like bringing the Tories into power here, must cause the utmost uneasiness " in this kingdom, by raising the spirits of the Papists of this country, and ex"asperating the Whigs, who your lordship knows are vastly superior amongst "gentlemen of estates here." • "To an enquirer after the truth, history, since the year 1699, furnishes "very imperfect and often partial views of the affairs of Great Britain and "Ireland. The latter has no professed historian of its own since that era, "and it is so slightingly mentioned in the histories of the former kingdom, "that it seems to be introduced rather to shew the accuracy of the accountant, "than as an article to be read and examined. (The Commercial Restraints of "Ireland considered, 1780, p. 37, written by the Right Hon. Hely Hutchinson, late "Provost of Trinity College, Dublin.) Pamphlets (continues he) are often writ"ten to serve occasional purposes, and with an intention to misrepresent, and party writers are not worth any regard. We must then endeavour to find "some other guide, and look into the best materials for history, by considering "the facts as recorded in the journals of parliament." The dearth of historical documents for the last century has driven the author to make researches into all the speeches, that have been published upon the subject, to which those historical facts have reference. In general such speeches must rank with the party writers that are not worth any regard. It is painful to be under the necessity of guarding the reader against the misrepresentations (one hopes not wilful, still less malevolent,) of men of talent, information, and personal respectability. The Right Honourable John Foster, the speaker of the late Irish House of Commons, in his speech in the committee of the Roman Catholic bill, on the 27th of February, 1793, in his zeal for keeping the Catholics shut out of this constitutional right to the elective franchise, not only maintains the justice and equity of not admitting them to this participation of the constitution, but attempts to prove, that they had been excluded from it by law before the passing of the 1 George II. and ever since the Revolution. The right honourable gentleman says, "the preamble of the 2d of Ann shews clearly the in"tent of the legislature was to exclude them, and for preventing Papists hav "ing it in their power to breed dissensions, by voting at elections of members "of parliament, &c. Even the act of George the Second, which they say was "the first that excluded them, says in its preamble,-and for the better pre"venting Papists from voting, &c.-as if it were a known fact, that they were "before excluded, &c " (p. 11 and 12.) The first preamble, upon which he grounds his argument was to the particular section and not to the statute; and it is impossible to suppose that right honourable gentleman so ignorant of the general construction of statutes, as not to know that odiosa sunt restringenda; that the evil and remedy are to be commensurate: that the oath and abjuration were but a test of submission to the reigning families, and that none refused them but Jacobites, against whose attempts alone to breed dissensions among Protestants the intent of the act was to provide: that if as Papists they were prelate to support, was dreaded from those who assuming the title of patriots, now solemnly protested against any foreign ascendency over the native rights and interests of their country. It was not natural, that the body of the Irish people should be forward in supporting such foreign ascendency, whether English or Protestant. The Catholics having long been the unceasing object of calumny and persecution to both parties, as it served their several views, were palled with apathy, and had hitherto found neither in Whig or Tory any principle of relief to their degraded and suffering condition. In point of fact they had suffered less from the family of Brunswick than that of Stuart. Hence arose a dawn of hope that their miseries were on the wane, and they came forward to address their new sovereign. This step was not carried without a considerable division of the Catholic body;* of which the primate so dexterously availed himself in the then pending elections, that on the 24th of August, 1727, he assured the lord lieutenant, that the elections would generally go well.t before disabled to vote, it would have been nugatory to call upon them to give this test of their loyalty, which was not incompatible with their religion: that if it had been the intent of the legislature to exclude them from voting at elections, they would have required a subscription to the declaration or the oath of supremacy: he must well have known that the resolutions of one committee on a controverted election, was not even a precedent for another committee, much less the law of the land. * On the 20th of July, 1727, the primate wrote to Lord Carteret: "I hear "this day, that the address yesterday presented by some Roman Catholics, "occasions great heats and divisions among those of that religion here." (1 vol. p. 188.) 44 It long has been, and probably long will be a complaint, that the cause of the king and constitution are frequently identified with the corrupt measures of the king's servants. At this time the real interest of his majesty, was the welfare and prosperity of Ireland; not the maintenance of an English ascendeney there, which had in view to keep down the native influence of Ireland. "I "shall leave it to your excellency, what change you will think proper to make "in the list of privy counsellors here. Your excellency knows as well as any body, who of the present list are enemies to England, and oppose the king's "business on all occasions. I shall submit it to your excellency, whether it I may be proper for the strengthening of the English interest here, to have the present archbishop of Cashell inserted in the new list." The whole tenor of this prelate's correspondence proves the same; and his editor assures us, that these letters will ever remain the most authentic history of Ireland, for the space of time in which they were written; viz. between 1724 and 1742, during which his grace was thirteen times one of the lords justices. It is at length fitting to unmask our prejudices, and pay the just tribute to truth; we can no longer dissemble, that the system of maintaining a foreign ascendency in Ireland, was a system in no shape conducive to the prosperity and welfare of that kingdom. We cannot doubt of the existence of such a system, when we find this prelate acklowledging his obligations to Lord Carteret for the early care he took of the English in Ireland (1 vol. p. 186.), and giving him a solemn pledge of his past and future fidelity in this honourable service." I am sensible of your "goodness in acquainting his present majesty, that the supporting of me here "will be for his interest, and I desire the continuance of your good offices with Multifarious and extensive were the grounds of national discontent at this time in Ireland. The nation laboured under grievances that restrained commerce, damped agriculture, and checked every incitement to industry. The public mind still rankled at the attempt of government to father Wood's base copper upon them: the odium of that measure long survived its failure: the wretchedness of the poor, (that infallible test of bad government) which the Duke of Grafton had in 1723 recommended to parliament to relieve, had been daily encreasing: in the same year 1723 a petition was presented from the woollen-drapers, weavers and clothiers of Dublin on behalf of themselves and the other drapers, weavers and clothiers of that kingdom, praying relief in relation to the great decay of trade in the woollen manufacture, since which time no relief had been afforded: frequent speeches from the throne and resolutions of the House of Commons had noticed the encreasing poverty of the nation by the accumulation of the national debt: and Lord Carteret in his speech from the throne in 1727 virtually acknowledged the melancholy and disastrous situation of the nation by recommending to the consideration of the parliament such laws as might be necessary for the encouragement of manufactures, the employment of the poor, and the general good of the country.† Already that scarcity began to be felt, which in the years 1728 and 1729 nearly amounted to a famine. Indicative of the national embarrassments of Ireland at this period were the indecisive resolutions of the commons, and the institution of a commission under the "the king.” (Ibid.) And "while the same measures are pursued as in the "last reign, we shall be all easy here: and it must be left to his majesty to judge "what persons are most proper to be employed in his service." And "I must "request of your grace (i. e. Newcastle) as I have of his lordship (i. e. Car"teret), that you would both use your interest to have none but Englishmen put into the great places here for the future." (1 vol. p. 23.) Their petition contains these words, "The woollen manufacture of this "kingdom, which is confined to our consumption, has of late been so consider"ably lessened, that several thousand families have been forced to beg alms "and charity of good Christians, and a collection lately made throughout the whole city to relieve them from starving." 3 Journ. Commons, p. 349. † 3 Journ. Commons, p. 464. On the 7th of March 1727, Primate Boulter wrote to his grace of Newcastle (p. 226.) "Since I came here in the year 1725, there was almost a fa"mine among the poor: last year the dearness of corn was such, that thou. "sands of families quitted their habitations to seek bread elsewhere, and many "hundreds perished. This year the poor had consumed their potatoes, which "is their winter subsistence, near two months sooner than ordinary, and are "already through the dearness of corn in that want, that in some places they "begin to quit their habitations," In the space of six months, ending on the 29th of September, 1729, it appears from the report of the House of Commons, that the import of corn amounted to 274,000/. an enormous sum when referred to the fiscal powers of the kingdom at that time. great seal for receiving voluntary subscriptions in order to establish a national bank for throwing into circulation a quantity of paper, without money, trade or manufactures to support it: and in the same session of parliament, the further resolutions of the same commoners and their address to the throne, that such an establishment would be greatly prejudicial to his majesty's service and of most dangerous and pernicious consequence to the welfare and prosperity of the nation.* Under the like impression of remediless calamity did the commons resolve, though they never acted up to their resolution, that public granaries would greatly contribute to the encreasing of tillage and providing against such wants, as had frequently befallen the people of that kingdom, unless proper precautions should be taken against so great a calamity. Lord Carteret's administration lasted from 1725 to 1731, and some have extolled his leniency to the indigent Catholics during this period, in discountenancing the rigorous execution of the penal laws against them. In that excess of national calamity, he may have had the policy not publicly to aggravate their evils by religious persecution. A real friend to Ireland could not have coalesced with Primate Boulter in that systematic support of the English interest; for that was a system of dividing Ireland within. itself. Fearful of an effectual opposition to a measure of such unjust severity, though of the highest political import, not a syllable in the speech from the throne could bear an allusion to it: no heads of any bill transmitted imported any new penal law against the Catholics: on the contrary, the lord lieutenant's speech recommended expressly the consideration of such laws as might be necessary to be made for the encouragement of manufactures and the employment of the poor; but the enforcing the execution of those for preventing Popish priests and regulars from coming into the kingdom; from which the nation must evidently have been convinced, that no new penal law was intended to be passed in that session against the great body of the Irish people: and the more especially, as now for the first time the lord lieutenant spoke of "the gracious instances of his majesty's concern "for the happiness of his people, and the good opinion he had * 3 Journ. Com. p. 289. This is verified by the primate's words in his letter to the Duke of Newcastle on the 19th of January, 1724: "I find by my own and others' enquiries, "that the people of every religion, country, and party here are alike set against "Wood's halfpence, and that their agreement in this has had a very unhappy "influence on the state of this nation by bringing on intimacies between Papists "and Jacobites, and the Whigs, who before had no correspondence with them: so that 'tis questioned whether (if there were occasion) justices of the peace "could be found, who would be strict in disarming Papists." 3 Journ. Com. p. 463. "always had of the loyalty and affection of his subjects of "Ireland;" without the invidious restriction of his majesty's protection, grace and favour to his Protestant subjects. The division, which the Roman Catholics' address occasioned in that body, was by no means into the old party-distinction of Whig and Tory; it was formed upon entirely new principles arising out of the then peculiar circumstances of their country.* A great part of that body began then to consider themselves Irish-men, as well as Irish Catholics; though deprived of most of the civil rights, which their Protestant brethren enjoyed, they sympathized with them in their efforts to preserve the rights of Ireland, and in defiance of religious differences they now began to make civil liberty a common cause with their Protestant brethren. This novel coalition between Protestants and Catholics, in support and defence of the interest of Ireland, became formidably alarming to that party, whose sole mission was to keep up an English interest in that kingdom. Government foresaw the necessary progress of this native coalition against the English interest, and at one blow put an end to the political existence of at least four fifths of the nation by depriving them of the noblest birthright and invaluable privilege of the subject. Thus without any annunciation of such intention, without any notice to any of the parties interested, without even a charge or accusation of guilt, by the unexpected introduction of a clause into a bill, the title of which denounced no further severity against the Roman Catholics, was a vital stab given to the constitutional rights of the bulk of the people of Ireland. Sect. VII. "And for the better preventing Papists from voting in elections, be it further enact"ed by the authority aforesaid, that no Papist, though not con"vict, shall be entitled or admitted to vote at the election of any "member to serve in parliament as knight, citizen, or burgess, "or the election of any magistrate for any city or other town 66 corporate; any law, statute or usage to the contrary notwith"standing." This truly sweeping clause at once brushed off four fifths of the people of Ireland from any representation in parliament: it was inserted by way of amendment without notice, without debate, without council; thus did the commons sign 66 Of these principles, Primate Boulter appears to have been fearfully apprehensive, when he said, "There wants no accident here to furnish a bottom "of popularity, every one having it always in his power to grow popular by "setting up for the Irish in opposition to the English interest." (Letter to the Duke of Newcastle, 1 vol. p. 54.) †Thus did Lord Chief Justice Holt usually call the elective franchise. I have adhered to this proportion of Protestants and Catholics, because Primate Boulter in this very year avowed to the Archbishop of Canterbury (1 vol. p. 210.) "There are probably in this kingdom fire Papists at least to one Protest ant." |