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"It is now ascertained that, doubtful of the king's success in the struggle for restoring popery in England, he had made secret overtures to some of the French agents, for casting off all connection with that kingdom in case of James's death, and, with the aid of Louis, placing the crown of Ireland on his own head. M. Mazure has brought this remarkable fact to light. Bonrepos, a French emissary in England, was authorised by his court to proceed in a negociation with Tyrconnell for the separation of the two islands, in case that a Protestant should succeed to the crown of England. He had accordingly a private interview with a confidential agent of the Lord Lieutenant at Chester in the month of October, 1687. Tyrconnell undertook that in less than a year everything should be prepared."[23]

Tyrconnell was made Baron Talbotstown, Viscount Baltinglass, and Earl of Tyrconnell in 1686, and Duke and Marquis, 30th March, 1689.

From his coming to Ireland, he worked hard for his master and his countrymen. He gradually substituted Jacobite soldiers for the Oliverians, who till then filled the ranks. He increased the army largely, and lent the king 3,000 men in '88. Mischief was done to James's cause by this employment of Irish troops in England. He was active in calling in the corporation charters, and was exposed to much calumny on account of it. The means, doubtless, were indefensible (for the change should have been effected by act of Parliament, as it has at length been in our times), but the end was to put the corporations into the hands of the Irish people. And even in those new corporations, one-third of the burgesses were of English descent and Protestant faith; but this moderation is attempted to be shaved away by the Williamites, who insist that most of these Protestants were Quakers, whom they describe as a savage rabble, originally founded by the Jesuits[24]—with what injustice we need hardly say. James describes him "as a man of good abilities and clear courage, and one who for many years had a true attachment to his majesty's person and interest."[25]

Lord Clanrickarde represented the Mac William Uachdar, one of the two great branches of the De Burgos, who usurped the chieftaincy on the death of the Earl of Ulster in the year 1333. His father was the great Lord Clanrickarde, who held Connaught in peace and loyalty, from 1641 to 1650; when the troops for which he had negotiated with the Duke of Lorraine not arriving, he too yielded to the storm.

Mac Donnel Lord Antrim, also the representative of a great house (the Lord of the Isles), was equally dependant on his predecessor for notoriety. His elder brother, the Marquis and Earl of Antrim, played a notorious and powerful part on the Irish side, in the war, from 1642 up to 1650. This Earl Alexander also commanded an Irish regiment during the same war. He was within the treaty of Limerick, and saved his rank and fortune.

Lords Longford and Granard were Williamites in fact. This does not follow from their having acted so vigorously in the opposition in 1689, but from their having joined William openly the year after. Lord Granard had been offered the command of the Williamites of Ulster in 1688, and on his refusal, Lord Mount Alexander was appointed.

Among the earls, one naturally looks for the two famous names of Taaffe and Lucan. But Taaffe was then on an embassy to the emperor, and Patrick Sarsfield was not made Earl of Lucan till after. Indeed his patent is not entered in the rolls, from which 'tis probable he was not titled till after the battle of the Boyne.

Viscount Iveagh held Drogheda at the battle of the Boyne, and was induced to surrender it by William's ruffianly and unmilitary threat of "no quarter."

Lord Clare was father to the famous Lord Clare, whose regiment was the glory of the Irish Brigade, and who was killed at Ramillies in 1706. He was descended from Connor O'Brian, third earl of Thomond.

Lord Mountcashel, by his rapidity and skill, completely broke the Munster insurgents, and made that province, till then considered the stronghold of the English, James's best help. To him was intrusted the Bill repealing the Settlement in the Commons, where he sat as member for the county of Cork till that Bill passed the Commons, when he was called to the Upper House as Lord Mountcashel.

Lord Kinsale represented the famous John De Courcy, Earl of Ulster, and had the blood of Charlemagne in his veins. He served as Lieutenant-Colonel to Lord Lucan. His attainder under William was reversed, and he appeared at court, where he enforced the privilege peculiar to his family of remaining covered in the king's presence.

CHAPTER III.

THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

The number of members in the Commons, as the complement was made up under the monstrous charters of James I., Charles I., and Charles II., far outdoing in their unconstitutional nature any of the stretchings of prerogative in the reign of James II., amounted to 300. The number actually returned was 224. Of the deficiencies, no less than 28 were caused by the places being the seats of the war.

The character of this assembly must be chiefly judged by its acts, and we shall presently resume the consideration of them; but there are some things in the composition of the Commons whereby their character has been judged.

They have been denounced by King: but before we examine his statements, let us inquire who he was, lest we underrate or overrate his testimony; lest we unjustly require proof, in addition to the witness of a thoroughly pure and wise man; or, what is more dangerous, lest we remain content with the unconfirmed statements of a bigot or knave.

William King was the son of James King, a miller, who, in order to avoid taking the Solemn League and Covenant, removed from the North of Scotland, and settled in Antrim, where William was born, 1st of May, 1650. (See Harris's "Ware," Bishops of Derry.) He was educated at Dungannon, was a sizar, "native," and schoolmaster in T.C.D., and was ordained in 1673. Parker, archbishop of Tuam, gave him a heap of livings, and on being translated to Dublin, procured the Chancellorship of St. Patrick's for King in 1679. This he held during the Revolution. He was imprisoned in 1689 on suspicion, but after some months was released, through the influence of Herbert and Tyrconnell, and notwithstanding C. J. Nugent's opposition. Immediately on his release he wrote his "State of the Protestants of Ireland," printed in London, cum privilegio, at the chief Williamite printer's. It was written and published while the war in Ireland was at its height, and when it was sought at any price to check the Jacobite feeling then beginning to revive in England, by running down the conduct of the Irish, James's most formidable supporters. Moreover, King had been imprisoned (justly or unjustly) by James's council, and he obtained the bishopric of Derry from William, on the 25th of January, 1690 (old style), namely, within thirty-eight weeks before the publication of his book, which was printed, cum privilegio, 15th of October, 1691. Whether the bishopric was the wages of the book, or the book revenge for the imprisonment, we shall not say; but surely King must have had marvellous virtue to write impartially, in excited and reckless times, for so demoralized a party as the English Whigs, when he wrote of transactions yet incomplete, of which there was a perilous stake not only for him but for his friends, and when, of the parties at issue, one gave him a gaol and the other a mitre.

There is scarcely a section in his book that does not abound with the most superlative charges, put in the coarsest language. All the calumnies as to 1641, which are now confessed to be false, are gospel truths in his book. He never gives an exact authority for any of his graver charges, and his appendix is a valuable reply to his text.

When, in addition to these external probabilites and intrinsic evidences of falsehood, we add that, immediately on its publication, Lesley wrote an answer to it, denying its main statements as mere lies, and that his book was never replied to, we will not be in a hurry to adopt any statement of King's.

But in order to see the force of this last objection to King's credibility, something must be known of Lesley.

Charles Lesley, son of the bishop of Clogher, is chiefly known for his very able controversial writings against Deists, Catholics, and Dissenters. He was a law-student till 1680, when he took orders; and in 1687 became chancellor of Connor. When, in 1688, James appointed a Roman Catholic sheriff for Monaghan, Mr. Lesley, being then sick with gout, had himself carried to the courthouse, and induced the magistrates to commit the sheriff. In fact, it appears from Harris ("Life of William," p. 216, and "Writers of Ireland," pp. 282–6), that Lesley was notorious for his conversions of Roman Catholics, and his stern hostility to Tyrconnell's government. Lesley refused to take the oath of supremacy after the Revolution, and thereby lost all chance of promotion in the Church. He was looked on as the head of the nonjurors, and died in March, 1721–2, at Glaslough, universally respected.

Such being Mr. Lesley's character, so able, so upright, so zealously Protestant, he, in 1692, wrote an answer to King's "State," in which he accuses King of the basest personal hypocrisy and charges him with having in his book written gross, abominable, and notorious falsehoods, and this he proves in several instances, and in many more renders it highly probable. King died 8th May, 1729, leaving Lesley's book altogether unreplied to.

Here then was that man—bishop of Derry for eleven years and archbishop of Dublin for twenty-seven years—remaining silent under a charge of deliberate and interested falsehood, and that charge made by no unworthy man, but by one of his own country, neighbourhood, and creed—by one of acknowledged virtue, high position, and vast abilities.

Nor is this all; Lesley's book was not only unanswered; it was watched and attempted to be stopped, and when published, was instantly ordered to be suppressed, as were all other publications in favour of the Irish or of King James.

The reader is now in a position to judge of the credibility of any assertion of King's, when unsupported by other authority.

King's gravest charges are in the following passage:—

"These members of the House of Commons are elected either by freeholders of counties, or the freemen of the corporations; and I have already showed how king James wrested these out of the hands of Protestants, and put them into Popish hands in the new constitution of corporations, by which the freemen and freeholders of cities or boroughs, to whom the election of burgesses originally belongs, are excluded, and the election put into the hands of a small number of men named by the king, and removable at his pleasure. The Protestant freeholders, if they had been in the kingdom, were much more than the papist freeholders, but now being gone, though many counties could not make a jury, as appeared at the intended trial of Mr. Price and other Protestants at Wicklow, who could not be tried for want of freeholders—yet, notwithstanding the paucity of these, they made a shift to return knights of the shire. The common way of election was thus:—The Earl of Tyrconnell, together with the writ for election, commonly sent a letter, recommending the persons he designed should be chosen; the sheriff or mayor being his creature, on receipt of this, called so many of the freeholders of a county or burgesses of a corporation together, as he thought fit, and without making any noise, made the return. It was easier to do this in boroughs—because, by their new charters, the electors were not above twelve or thirteen, and in the greatest cities but twenty-four; and commonly, not half of these in the place. The method of the Sheriff's proceeding was the same; the number of Popish freeholders being very small, sometimes not a dozen in a county, it was easier to give notice to them to appear, so that the Protestants either did not know of the election or durst not appear at it."

First let us see about the boroughs. King, in his section on the corporations, states in terms that "they" (the Protestants) "thought it reasonable to keep these (corporate towns) in their own hands, as being the foundation of the legislative power, and therefore secluded papists," etc. The purport, therefore, of King's objection to the new constitution under King James's charters was the admission of Roman Catholics. Religious equality was sinful in his eyes.

The means used by James to change the corporations, namely bringing quo warrantos in the Exchequer against them, and employing all the niceties of a confused law to quash them, we have before condemned. In doing so, he had the precedents of the reigns called most constitutional by English historians, and those not old, but during his brother's reign; nor can anyone who has looked into Brady's treatise on Boroughs doubt that there was plenty of "law" in favour of James's conduct.[26] But still public policy and public opinion in England were against these quo warrantos, and in Ireland they were only approved of by those who were to be benefited by them.

But the means being thus improper, the use made by James of this power can hardly be complained of. The Roman Catholics were then about 900,000, the Protestants, over 300,000. James, it is confessed, allowed one-third of the corporations to be Protestant, though they were little, if at all, more than one-fourth of the population. This will appear no great injustice in our times, although some of these Protestants may, as it has been alleged, have been "Quakers."

It must also be remembered that those proceedings were begun not by James but by Charles; that the corporations were, with some show of law, conceived to have been forfeited during the Irish war, or the Cromwellian rule; and that being offered renewals on terms, they refused; whereupon the quo warrantos were brought and decided before the regular tribunals during the earlier and middle part of James's reign. On the 24th September, 1687, James issued his Royal Letter (to be found in Harris's Appendix, pp. 4 to 6), commanding the renewal of the charters. By these renewals, the first members of the corporations were to be named by the lord lieutenant, but they were afterwards to be elected by the corporations themselves. There certainly are non-obstante and non-resistance clauses ordered to be inserted, in the prerogative spirit of that day, which were justly complained of.

With reference to the number of burgesses, King's statement that the number of electors was usually twelve or thirteen, and in the greatest cities but twenty-four, is untrue. Most of the Irish boroughs were certainly reduced to these numbers under the liberal Hanoverian government, but not so under James. The members' names are given in full in Harris's Appendix, and from those it appears that no corporation had so few as twelve electors. Only five, viz.—Dungannon, Ennis, St. Johnstown (in Longford), Belturbet, and Athboy, were as low as thirteen; twenty-three, viz.—Tuam, Kildare, Cavan, Galway, Callan, Newborough, Carlingford, Gowran, Carysfort, Boyle, Roscommon, Athy, Strabane, Middletown, Newry, Philipstown, Banagher, Castlebar, Fethard, Blessington, Charleville, Thomastown, and Baltimore, varied from fourteen to twenty-four; most of the rest varied from thirty to forty. Dublin had seventy-three; Cork, sixty-one; Clonmel, forty-six; Cashel, forty-two; Drogheda, fifty-seven; Kilkenny, sixty-one; Limerick, sixty-five; Waterford, forty-nine; Youghal, forty-six; Wexford, fifty-three, and Derry, sixty-four. This is a striking proof of the little reliance to be placed on King's positive statements.

Harris, a hostile authority, gives the names and generally the additions of the members of each corporation, and the majority are merchants, respectable traders, engineers, or gentlemen. Moreover, in such towns as our local knowledge extends to, the names are those of the best families, not being zealous Williamites. As to the counties, King relies upon a pamphlet published in London in 1689, setting out great grievances in the title page, and disproving them in the body of the tract.

If many Protestant freeholders had fled to England, who was to blame?—Most assuredly, my Lord Mount Alexander and the rest of the right noble and honourable suborners, devisers, and propagators of forged letters and infamous reports, whereby they frightened the Protestants, in order to take advantage of their terror for their own selfish ends. The exposure of these devices by the publication of "Speke's Memoirs," by the confessed forgery of the Dromore letter, etc., have thrown the chief blame of the Protestant desertion off the shoulders of those Protestants, off the shoulders, too, of the Irish government, and have brought it crushingly upon the aristocratic cabal, who alone profited by the revolution, as they alone caused it.

In the absence of other testimony, we must take, with similar allowances, the story of Tyrconnell "commonly" sending an unconstitutional letter to influence the election. But how very good these Jacobite sheriffs and mayors were to let King into the secret, in 1691, when their destiny was uncertain! That such gossip was current is likely, but for a historian to assert on such authority is scandalous.

King asserts that the unrepresented boroughs were "about twenty-nine." Now, there were but eighteen boroughs unrestored; but King helps out the falsehood by inserting places—Thurles, Tipperary, Arklow, and Birr—which never had members before or since, by creating a second town of Kells, by transferring St. Johnstown in Longford which returned members, to St. Johnstown in Donegal, which was a seat of war, and by other tricks equally discreditable to his honesty and intelligence.

The towns unrestored could not have sent members to James's parliament, and it was apparently doubted whether they ought to have done so to William's in '92.

Against the Commons actually elected the charge is that only six Protestants were elected. In the very section containing the charge it is much qualified by other statements. "Thus," he says, "one Gerard Dillon, Sergeant-at-Law, a most furious Papist, was Recorder of Dublin, and he stood to be chosen one of the burgesses for the city, but could not prevail, because he had purchased a considerable estate under the Act of Settlement, and they feared lest this might engage him to defend it;" and therefore they chose Sir Michael Creagh and Terence Dermot, their Senior Aldermen, showing pretty clearly that the good citizens of Dublin set little value on the "furious Popery" of Prime Sergeant Dillon, in comparison with their property plundered by the Act of Settlement.

The election for Trinity College is worthy of notice. We have it set out in flaming paragraphs how horribly the College was used, worse than any other borough, "Popish Fellows" being intruded. "In the house they placed a Popish garrison, turned the chapel into a magazine, and many of the chambers into prisons for Protestants." (King, p. 220, Ed. 1744.) Yet, miraculous to say, in the heart of this "Popish garrison," the "turned-out Vice-Provost, Fellows, and Scholars" met, and elected two most bold, notable, and Protestant Williamites.

If this election could take place in Dublin, under the very nose of the Government, and in a corporation in which the king had unquestioned control, one will hesitate about the compulsion or exclusion in other places.

Besides Sir John Meade and Mr. Joseph Coghlan, the members for the College, there "were four more Protestants returned, of whose behaviour I can give no account," says King. Pity he does not give the names.

If we were to allow a similar error in King's account of the creed of the elected, that we have proved in his lists of the borough electors, it would raise the number of Protestants in the house to about fourteen.

Allowing then for the Protestants in arms against the Government—out of the country, or within the seat of war—the disproportion between their representatives and the Roman Catholics will lessen greatly.

One thing more is worth noticing in the Commons, and that is a sort of sept representation. Thus we see O'Neills in Antrim, Tyrone, and Armagh; Magennises in Down; O'Reillys in Cavan; Martins, Blakes, Kirwans, Dalys, Bourkes for Connaught; MacCarthys, O'Briens, O'Donovans for Cork and Clare; Farrells for Longford; Graces, Purcells, Butlers, Welshs, Fitzgeralds for Tipperary, Kilkenny, Kildare, etc.; O'Tooles, Byrnes, and Eustaces for Wicklow; MacMahons for Monaghan; Nugents, Bellews, Talbots, etc., for North Leinster.

Sir Richard Nagle, the Speaker, was the descendant of an old Norman family (said to be the same as the Nangles) settled in Cork. His paternal castle, Carrignancurra, is on the edge of a steep rock, over the meadows of the Blackwater, half-a-dozen miles below Mallow. It is now the property of the Foot family, and here may still be seen the mouldering ruin where that subtle lawyer first learned to plan. Peacefully now look the long oak-clad cliffs on the happy river.

Nagle had obtained a splendid reputation at the Irish Bar. "He had been educated among the Jesuits, and designed for a clergyman," says King, "but afterwards betook himself to the study of the law, in which he arrived to a good perfection." Harris, likewise, calls him "an artful lawyer of great parts." Tyrconnell valued him rightly, and brought him to England with him in the autumn of 1686. His reputation seems to have been great, for it seems the lords interested in the Settlement Act, "on being informed of Nagle's arrival, were so transported with rage that they would have had him immediately sent out of London."

He was knighted, and made attorney-general in 1687; and on James's arrival, March, 1688–9, he was made secretary of state. He is said, we know not how truly, to have drafted the Commons' bill for the repeal of the Settlement.

Let us mention some of the members.—Nagle's colleague in Cork was Colonel MacCarty, afterwards Lord Mountcashel. Miles de Courcy, afterwards Lord Kinsale, MacCarty Reagh, who finally settled in France. His descendant, Count MacCarty Reagh, was notable for having one of the finest libraries in Europe, which was sold after the Revolution.

The Rt. Hon. Simon Lutteral raised a dragoon regiment for James, and afterwards commanded the Queen's regiment of infantry in the Brigade. He was father to Colonel Henry Lutteral, accused of having betrayed the passage of the Shannon at Limerick; and though Harris throws doubt on this particular act of treason, his correspondence and rewards from William seem sufficient proof and confirmation of his guilt.

Lally of Tullendaly, member for Tuam, was the representative of the O'Lallys, an old Irish sept. His brother, John Gerard Lally, settled in France, and married a sister to Dillon, "colonel propriétaire" in the Brigade, and was Colonel commanding in this illustrious regiment. Sir Gerard was father to the famous Count Thomas Lally Tollendal, who, after having served from the age of twelve to sixty-four in every quarter of the globe, from Barcelona to Dettingen, and from Fontenoy to Pondicherry, was beheaded on the 9th of May, 1766. The Marquis De Lally Tollendal, a distinguished lawyer and statesman of the Bourbonist party, and writer of the life of Strafford, and many other works, was a grand-nephew to James Lally, the member for Tuam in '89.

Colonel Roger Mac Elligot, who commanded Lord Clancarty's regiment (the 12th infantry) in the Brigade, was member for Ardfert.

Limerick.—Sir John Fitzgerald was "col. propr." of the regiment of Limerick (8th infantry) in the Brigade.

Oliver O'Gara, member for Tulske, was Lieutenant-Colonel of the guards under Colonel Dorrington.

Hugh Mac Mahon, Gordon O'Nials Lieutenant-Colonel, was member for Monaghan.

The Right Hon. Nicholas Purcell, member for Tipperary, was a Privy Councillor early in James's reign. His family were Barons of Loughmoe, and of great consideration in those parts.

The first bill introduced into the Lords was on the 8th of May—that for the recognition of the king—and the same day committees of grievance were appointed.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SESSION.

It is needless for us to track the parliament through the debates of the session, which lasted till the 20th July. The few acts (thirty-five), passed in two months, received full and earnest discussion; committees and counsel were heard on many of them (the Acts for repealing the Settlement in particular), and this parliament refused even to adjourn during any holiday.

We trust our readers will deal like searchers for truth, not like polemics, with these documents, and with the history of these times. But, above all, let them not approach the subject unless it be in a spirit enlightened by philosophy and warmed by charity. Thus studied, this time, which has been the armoury of faction, may become the temple of reconciliation. The descendant of the Williamite ought to sympathise with the urgent patriotism and loyalty of the parliament, rather than dwell on its errors, or on the sufferings which civil war inflicted on his forefathers. The heir of the Jacobite may well be proud of such countrymen as the Inniskilliners and the 'Prentice Boys of Derry. Both must deplore that the falsehoods, corruption, and forgeries of English aristocrats, the imprudence of an English king, and the fickleness of the English people placed the noble cavalry which slew Schomberg, and all but beat William's immense masses at the Boyne, in opposition to the stout men of Butler's-bridge and Cavan. What had not the defenders of Derry and Limerick, the heroes of Athlone, Inniskillen, and Aughrim done, had they cordially joined against the alien? Let the Roman Catholics, crushed by the Penal Code, let the Protestants, impoverished and insulted by England, till, musket in hand and with banners displayed, they forced their rights from her in '82—let both look narrowly at the causes of those intestine feuds, which have prostrated both in turn before the stranger, and see whether much may not be said for both sides, and whether half of what each calls crime in the other is not his own distrust or his neighbour's ignorance. Knowledge, Charity, and Patriotism are the only powers which can loose this Prometheus-land. Let us seek them daily in our own hearts and conversation.

The Acts and other official documents of James's Parliament were ordered by William's Parliament to be burned, and became extremely scarce. In 1740 they were printed in Dublin by Ebenezer Rider, and from that collection we propose to reprint the most important of them, as the best and most solid answer to misrepresentation.

The Parliament which passed those Acts was the first and the last which ever sat in Ireland since the English invasion, possessed of national authority, and complete in all its parts. The king, by law and in fact—the king who, by his Scottish descent, his creed, and his misfortunes, was dear (mistakenly or not) to the majority of the then people of Ireland—presided in person over that Parliament. The peerage consisted of the best blood, Milesian and Norman, of great wealth and of various creeds. The Commons represented the Irish septs, the Danish towns, and the Anglo-Irish counties and boroughs. No Parliament of equal rank, from King to Commons, sat here since; none sat here before or since so national in composition and conduct.

Standing between two dynasties—endangering the one, and almost rescuing the other—acting for a nation entirely unchained then for the first time in 500 years—this Parliament and its Acts ought to possess the very greatest interest for the historian and the patriot.

This was the speech with which his Majesty opened the Session:—

My Lords and Gentlemen,

The Exemplary Loyalty which this Nation hath expressed to me, at a time when others of my Subjects undutifully misbehaved themselves to me, or so basely deserted me: And your seconding my Deputy, as you did, in His Firm and Resolute asserting my Right, in preserving this Kingdom for me, and putting it in a Posture of Defence; made me resolve to come to you, and to venture my life with you, in the defence of your Liberties and my Own Right. And to my great Satisfaction I have not only found you ready to serve me, but that your Courage has equalled your Zeal.

I have always been for Liberty of Conscience, and against invading any Man's Property; having still in my Mind that Saying in Holy Writ, Do as you would be done to, for that is the Law and the Prophets.

It was this Liberty of Conscience I gave, which my Enemies both Abroad and at Home dreaded; especially when they saw that I was resolved to have it Established by Law in all my Dominions, and made them set themselves up against me, 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 I (in the Opinion of the Other) too great.

This Argument was made use of, to persuade their own People to joyn with them, and to many of my Subjects to use me as they have done. But nothing shall ever persuade me to change my Mind as to that; and wheresoever I am the Master, I design (God willing) to Establish it by Law; and have no other Test or Distinction but that of Loyalty.

I expect your Concurrence in so Christian a Work, and in making Laws against Prophaneness and all Sorts of Debauchery.

I shall also most readily consent to the making such Good and Wholesome Laws as may be for the general Good of the Nation, the Improvement of Trade, and the relieving of such as have been injured by the late Acts of Settlement, as far forth as may be consistent with Reason, Justice, and the Publick Good of my People.

And as I shall do my Part to make you Happy and Rich, I make no Doubt of your Assistance; by enabling me to oppose the unjust Designs of my Enemies, and to make this Nation flourish.

And to encourage you the more to it, you know with what Ardour and Generosity and Kindness the Most Christian King gave a secure retreat to the Queen, my Son, and Myself, when we were forced out of England, and came to seek for Protection and Safety in his Dominions; how he embraced my Interest, and gave me such Supplies of all Sorts as enabled me to come to you; which, without his obliging Assistance, I could not have done: This he did at a Time when he had so many and so considerable Enemies to deal with: and you see still continues to do.

I shall conclude as I have begun, and assure you I am as sensible as you can desire of the signal Loyalty you have expressed to me; and shall make it my chief study (as it always has been) to make you and all my Subjects happy.

These were the Acts of that memorable parliament.

Chapter I.

An Act of Recognition.

Chapter II.

An Act for Annulling and making Void all Patents of Officers for Life, or during good Behaviour.

Chapter III.

An Act declaring, That the Parliament of England cannot bind Ireland [and] against Writs of Error and Appeals, to be brought for Removing Judgments, Decrees, and Sentences given in Ireland, into England.

Chapter IV.

An Act for Repealing the Acts of Settlement, and Explanation, Resolution of Doubts and all Grants, Patents and Certificates, pursuant to them or any of them. [This Act will be dealt with separately in the next chapter.]

Chapter V.

An Act for punishing of persons who bring in counterfeit Coin of foreign Realms being current in this Realm, or counterfeit the same within this Realm, or wash, clip, file, or lighten the same.

Chapter VI.

An Act for taking off all Incapacities on the Natives of this Kingdom.

Chapter VII.

An Act for taking away the Benefits of the Clergy in certain Cases of Felony in this Kingdom for two Years.

Chapter VIII.

An Act to continue two Acts made to prevent Delays in Execution; and to prevent Arrests of Judgments and Superseding Executions.

Chapter IX.

An Act for Repealing a Statute, Entituled, An Act for Provision of Ministers in Cities and Corporate Towns, and making the Church of St. Andrews in the Suburbs of [the city of] Dublin Presentative for ever.

Chapter X.

An Act of Supply for his Majesty for the Support of his Army.

[The Act of Supply begins by giving good reasons for the making of it; namely, that the army cost far more than the king's revenue, and that that army was rendered necessary from the invasion of Ireland by the English rebels. It next grants the king £20,000 a month, to be raised by a land-tax, and this sum it distributes on the different counties and counties of towns, according to their abilities. The rebellious counties of Fermanagh and Derry are taxed just as lightly as if they were loyal. The names of the commissioners are, beyond doubt, those of the first men in their respective counties. The rank of the country was as palpably on James's side as was the populace.

The clauses regarding the tenants are remarkably clear and liberal: "For as much," it says, "as it would be hard that the tenants should bear any proportion of the said sum, considering that it is very difficult for the tenant to pay his rent in these distracted times," it goes on to provide that the tax shall, in the first instance, be paid by the occupier, but that, where land is let at its value, he shall be allowed the whole of the tax out of his rent, notwithstanding any contract to the contrary; and that where the land was let at half its value or less, then, and then only, should the tenant pay a share (half) of the tax. Thus not only rack-rented farms, but all let at any rent, no matter how little, over half the value, were free of this tax. Where, in distracted or quiet times, since, has a parliament of landlords in England or Ireland acted with equal liberality?

The £20,000 a month hereby granted was altogether insufficient for the war; and James, urged by the military exigency, which did not tolerate the delay of calling a parliament when Schomberg threatened the capital, issued a commission on the 10th April, 1690, to raise £20,000 a month additional; yet so far was even this from meeting his wants, that we find by one of Tyrconnell's letters to the queen (quoted in Thorpe's catalogue for 1836), that in the spring of 1689, James's expenses were £100,000 a month. Those who have censured this additional levy and the brass coinage were jealous of what was done towards fighting the battle of Ireland, or forgot that levies by the crown and alterations of the coin had been practised by every government in Europe.]

Chapter XI.

An Act for Repealing the Act for keeping and celebrating the 23rd of October as an Anniversary Thanksgiving in this Kingdom.

Chapter XII.

An Act for Liberty of Conscience, and Repealing such Acts or Clauses in any Act of Parliament which are inconsistent with the same.

An Act concerning Tythes and other Ecclesiastical Duties.

Acts XIII. and XV. provide for the payment of tithes by Protestants to the Protestant Church and by Catholics to the Catholic Church.

Chapter XIV.

An Act regulating Tythes, and other Ecclesiastical Duties in the Province of Ulster.

Chapter XVI.

An Act for Repealing the Act for real Union and Division of Parishes, and concerning Churches, Free-Schools and Exchanges.

Chapter XVII.

An Act for Relief and Release of poor distressed Prisoners for Debts.

Chapter XVIII.

An Act for the Repealing an Act, Entituled, An Act for Confirmation of Letters Patent Granted to his Grace James Duke of Ormond.

[The list of estates granted to Ormond, under the settlement at the restoration, occupies a page and a half of Cox's Magazine. To reduce him to his hereditary principalities (for they were no less) which he held in 1641, was no great grievance, and that was the object of this Act.]

Chapter XIX.

An Act for Encouragement of Strangers and others to inhabit and plant in the Kingdom of Ireland.

Chapter XX.

An Act for Prevention of Frauds and Perjuries.

Chapter XXI.

An Act for Prohibiting the Importation of English, Scotch, or Welch Coals into this Kingdom.

Chapter XXII.

An Act for ratifying and confirming Deeds and Settlements and last Wills and Testaments of Persons out of Possession.

Chapter XXIII.

An Act for the speedy Recovering of Servants' Wages.

Chapter XXIV.

An Act for Forfeiting and Vesting in His Majesty the Goods of Absentees.

Chapter XXV.

An Act concerning Martial Law.

Chapter XXVI.

An Act for Punishment of Waste committed on Lands restorable to old Proprietors.

Chapter XXVII.

An Act to enable his Majesty to regulate the Duties of Foreign Commodities.

Chapter XXVIII.

An Act for the better settling Intestates' Estates.

Chapter XXIX.

An Act for the Advance and Improvement of Trade, and for Encouragement and increase of Shipping, and Navigation.

Chapter XXX.

An Act for the Attainder of Divers Rebels, and for the Preserving the Interest of Loyal Subjects.—(Dealt with in our sixth chapter.)

Chapter XXXI.

An Act for granting and confirming unto the Duke of Tyrconnel, Lands and Tenements to the Value of £15,000 per annum.

Chapter XXXII.

An Act for securing the Water-Course for the Castle and City of Dublin.

Chapter XXXIII.

An Act for relieving Dame Anna Yolanda Sarracourt, alias Duval, and her Daughter.

Chapter XXXIV.

An Act for securing Iron-works and Land thereunto belonging, on Sir Henry Waddington, Knight, at a certain Rate.

Chapter XXXV.

An Act for Reversal of the Attainder of William Ryan of Bally Ryan in the County of Tipperary, Esq.; and for restoring him to his Blood, corrupted by the said Attainder.

CHAPTER V.

REPEAL OF THE ACT OF SETTLEMENT.

It appears from the Journal of the proceedings of the parliament, and from many other authorities, that no act of the Irish Parliament of 1689 received such full consideration as the following. Two bills were brought in for the purpose of repealing the acts of settlement—that into the House of Lords, on May 13, by Chief Justice Nugent; that into the House of Commons by Lord Riverstown and Colonel MacCarthy. Committees sat to inquire into the effects of the bills; many memorials were read and considered; counsel were heard, both generally on the bills and on their effects on individuals; the debates were long, and it was not till after several conferences between the two houses that the act passed. The act was deliberately and maturely considered.

The titles and some of the effects of the acts of settlement are given in the preamble to the following statute. The effect of those acts of settlement had been, in a great degree, to confirm the unprincipled distribution of Irish property, made by Cromwell's government, amongst those who had served it best, or, what meant nearly the same thing, who had most injured the Irish. The acts of settlement gave legality to a revolution which transferred the lands of the natives to military colonists. The repeal of those acts, within 24 years after they passed, and within about 37 years after that revolution took place, cannot excite much surprise. The one-third of their holdings (which the Cromwellian soldiers were obliged by the acts of the settlement to give up) could not have made a fund to reprize those who had been ousted from the entire. However, the giving up of that one-third was not strictly enforced, and the stock resulting was wasted by commissioners, and distributed as the applicants had interest at court, not as they had title to the lands. Thus, Lord Ormond got some HUNDRED THOUSAND acres; albeit he had done more substantial injury to the Irish, and to the royalist cause in which they foolishly embarked, than any of the parliamentarians, from Coote to Ireton. Under such circumstances, we are not exaggerating the effect of the acts of settlement, passed after the Restoration, in saying, that they confirmed by law the Cromwellian robbery. The testimony of all the credible writers of the time goes to the same effect. Indeed, the repeal of the acts of settlement would have been against the interests of the natives, if they had received justice from those acts. This, in itself, is sufficient to prove how much hardship they had caused. The repeal of those acts by the Irish, as soon as they were in power, seems natural, considering how great and how recent was the injury they inflicted. Still, as we said, 24 years had passed since those acts had become law. Many persons had got possession of properties under that law, and many of those properties had, doubtless, been sold, leased, subdivided, improved, and incumbered, upon the faith of that law. It might be urged that persons interested by such means in these properties had become so with full knowledge that they had been acquired by violence and injustice, and that the original owners and their families were in existence, ready and resolved to take their first opportunity of regaining their rights. Such reasoning fixes all who had advanced money, made purchases, or become in any wise interested under the acts of settlement, with such injustice and imprudence as to diminish their claim for compensation upon the repeal of those acts. But it only diminished, it did not destroy that claim. All those persons reposed some confidence in the security of the then existing government; and many of them found a justification for the Cromwellian conquest, in the conduct of the Irish, as the well-sustained falsehoods of the English describe it.

For these reasons, Chief Justice Keating prepared a long memorial, which Forbes, Lord Granard, presented to the king, during the discussions on the bills, in May, 1689, setting forth the claims of those who came in under the acts of settlement, as incumbrancers, purchasers, tenants, by marriage, etc. This memorial is dishonestly represented by the Whig writers, as directed against the repeal altogether; but any one who reads it (which he can do in the appendix to Harris's life of William) will find that it is an argument in favour of the classes described in the last sentence. From the long and careful clauses in the following act, for the reprisal and compensation of those classes, we must infer that Keating's memorial produced its intended effect. However, these clauses require to be carefully examined, to see whether they carry out this principle of compensation fairly and impartially. The character of this parliament for moderation depends greatly on their doings in this respect.

We now come to a second class, the Irish who, having been given the alternative of "Hell or Connaught" (as a certain bishop was of Heaven or Dungarvan), preferred the latter, and were located on the lands of the Connaught people. This class would generally come in for their old holdings in the other provinces, and required no compensation; but the distribution, under this act, of the incumbrances, etc., between them and the owners of their former and present lands, seems lawyer-like and reasonable.

The next great class are the "adventurers," those who got lands during the Commonwealth, and whose holdings were confirmed by the settlement. Their claim was boldly and ably urged by Anthony Dopping, bishop of Meath. His speech on the Repeal Bill is given in King's appendix, and is worth reading. He bases their claim upon the supposition of the Irish having been bloody rebels, rightly punished by the giving of their lands to their loyal conquerors. His speech gives the genuine opinion of the English at the time. The preamble to the following act, and that to the Commons' bill, give the Irish view of the war. These documents deny that the bulk of the Irish were engaged in the conspiracy of 1641; and the denial is true, although it is also true that more than a "few indigent persons" engaged in it, as is plain from Lord Maguire's narrative; and although it might have more become this Irish parliament to proclaim the absolute justice of the rising of 1641, on account of the sufferings of all ranks of Irish, in property and in political and religious rights; while they might have lamented that English atrocities had led to a cruel retaliation, though one infinitely less than it has been represented. However, the parliament, probably from delicacy to the king, based the rights of the Irish upon the peace of 1684, and the Restoration as restoring them to their loyalty, and to the properties possessed in 1641.

Most fair inquirers will allow the justice of this restoration of the Irish; but will lament that the act before us contains no provision for the families of those adventurers, who, however guilty when they came into the country, had been in it for from thirty to forty years, and had time and some citizenship in their favour. There had been sound policy in that too, but it was not done; and though the open hostility of most of those adventurers to the government—though the wants and urgency of the old proprietors, added to a lively recollection of the horrors which thronged about their advent, may be urged in favour of leaving them to work out their own livelihood by hard industry, or to return to England, we cannot be quite reconciled to the wisdom of the course. Yet, let any one who finds himself eager to condemn the Irish Parliament on this account read over the facts that led to it, namely: the conquest of Leinster before the Reformation; the settlements of Munster and Ulster, under Elizabeth and James; the governments of Strafford, and Parsons, and Borlace; Cromwell's and Ireton's conquest; the effects of the acts of settlement, and the false-plot reign of Charles II.; let them, we say, read these, and be at least moderate in censuring the Parliament of 1689.

The Preamble to the Act of Repeal of the Acts of Settlement and Explanation, etc., as it passed the House of Commons. [27]

Whereas the Ambition and Avarice of the Lords Justices ruling over this your Kingdom, in 1641, did engage them to gather a malignant Party and Cabal of the then Privy Council contrary to their sworn Faith and natural Allegiance, in a secret Intelligence and traitorous Combination, with the Puritan Sectaries in the Realm of Great Britain, against their lawful and undoubted Sovereign, his Peace, Crown, and Dignity, the Malice of which made it soon manifest in the Nature and Tendency of their Proceedings; their untimely Prorogations of a loyal unanimous Parliament, and thereby making void, and disappointing the Effects of many seasonable Votes, Bills, and Addresses which, passed into Laws, had certainly secured the Peace and Tranquility of this Kingdom, by binding to his Majesty the Hearts of his Irish Subjects, as well by the Tyes of Affection and Gratitude, as Duty and Allegiance there. The said Lords Justices traitorously disbanding his Majesty's well assured Catholick Forces, when his Person and Monarchy were exposed to the said Rebel Sectaries, then marching in hostile Arms to dispoil him of his Power, Dominion, and Life; their immediate calling into the Place and Stead of those his Majesty's faithful disbanded Forces, a formidable Body of disciplined Troops allied and confederated in Cause, Nation and Principles with those Rebel Sectaries; their unwarrantable Entertainment of those Troops in this Kingdom, to the draining of his Majesty's Treasury, and Terror of his Catholick Subjects, then openly menaced by them the aforesaid Lords Justices with a Massacre and total Extirpation, their bloody Prosecution of that Menace, in the Slaughter of many innocent Persons, thereby affrighting and compelling others in despair of Protection, from their Government, to unite and take Arms for their necessary Defence, and Preservation of their Lives; their unpardonable Prevarication from his Majesty's Orders to them, in retrenching the Time by him graciously given to his Subjects so compelled into Arms of returning to their Duty; and stinting the General Pardon to such only as had no Freehold Estates to make Forfeitures of; their pernicious Arts in way-laying, exchanging and wickedly depriving all Intercourse by Letters, Expresses, and other Communications and Privity betwixt your said Royal Father and his much abused People; their insolent and barbarous Application of Racks and other Engines of Torture to Sir John Read, his then Majesty's sworn menial Servant, and that upon their own conscience Suspicions of his being intrusted with the too just Complaints of the persecuted Catholick aforesaid; their diabolical Malice and Craft, in essaying by Promises and Threats, to draw from him, the said Read, in his Torments, a false and impious Accusation of his Master and Sovereign as being the Author and Promoter of the then Commotion, so manifestly procured, and by themselves industriously spread.

And whereas a late eminent Minister of State, for parallel Causes and Ends, pursuing the Steps of the aforesaid Lords Justices, hath by his Interest and Power, cherished and supported a Fanatical Republican Party, which heretofore opposed, put to flight, and chased out of this your Kingdom of Ireland, the Royal Authority lodged in his Person, and to transfer the calamitous Consequences of his fatal Conduct from himself, upon your trusty Roman Catholick Subjects, to the Breach of publick Faith solemnly given and proclaimed in the Name of our late Sovereign, interposed betwixt them and his late Majesty's general Indulgence and Pardon, and wrought their Exclusion from that Indemnity in their Estates, which by the said publick Faith is specially provided for, and since hath been extended to the most bloody and execrable Traitors, few only excepted by Name in all your Realms and Dominions. And further, to exclude from all Relief, and even Access of Admittance to Justice, to your said Irish Catholick People, and to secure to himself and his Posterity, his vast Share of their Spoils; he the said eminent Minister did against your sacred Brother's Royal Promise and Sanction aforesaid, advise and persuade his late Majesty to give, and accordingly obtained his Royal Assent to two several Acts. The one intituled, An Act for the better Execution of his Majesty's gracious Declaration for the Settlement of this Kingdom of Ireland, and Satisfaction of the several Interests of Adventurers, Soldiers, and other his Majesty's Subjects there. Which Act was so passed at a Parliament held in this Kingdom, in the 14th and 15th Years of his Reign. And the other, An Act intituled, An Act of Explanation, etc.

Which Act was passed in a Session of the Parliament held in this Kingdom, in the 17th and 18th Years of his Reign, most of the Members thereof being such, as forcibly possessed themselves of the Estates of your Catholic subjects in this Kingdom, and were convened together for the sole special Purpose of creating and granting to themselves and their Heirs, the Estates and Inheritances of this your Kingdom of Ireland, upon a scandalous, false Hypothesis, imputing the traitorous Design of some desperate, indigent Persons to seize your Majesty's Castle of Dublin, on the 23rd of October, 1641, to an universal Conspiracy of your Catholick Subjects, and applying the Estates and Persons thereby presumed to have forfeited, to the Use and Benefit of that Regicide Army, which brought that Kingdom from its due Subjection and Obedience to his Majesty, under the Peak and Tyranny of a bloody Usurper. An Act unnatural, or rather viperously destroying his late Majesty's gracious Declaration, from whence it had Birth, and its Clauses, Restorations and Uses, inverting the very fundamental Laws, as well of your Majesty's, as all other Christian Governments. An Act limiting and confining the Administration of Justice to a certain Term or Period of Time, and confirming the Patrimony of Innocents unheard, to the most exquisite Traytors, that now stand convict on Record; the Assigns and Trustees, even of the then deceased Oliver Cromwell himself, for whose Arrears, as General of the Regicide Army, special Provision is made at the Suit of his Pensioners. Now in regard the Acts above mentioned do in a florid and specious Preamble, contrary to the known Truth in Fact, comprehend all your Majesty's Roman Catholick Subjects of Ireland, in the Guilt of those few indigent Persons aforesaid, and on that Supposition alone, by the Clause immediately subsequent to that Preamble, vest all their Estates in his late Majesty, as a Royal Trustee, to the principal Use of those who deposed and murthered your Royal Father, and their lawful Sovereign. And furthermore, to the Ends that the Articles and Conditions granted in the Year 1648, by Authority from your Majesty's Royal Brother, then lodged in the Marquess of Ormond, may be duly fulfilled and made good to your Majesty's present Irish Catholick Subjects, in all their Parts and Intentions, and that the several Properties and Estates in this Kingdom may be settled in their antient Foundations, as they were on the 21st of October, 1641. And that all Persons may acquiesce and rejoyce under an impartial Distribution of Justice, and sit peaceably down under his own Vine or Patrimony, to the abolishing all Distinction of Parties, Countries and Religions, and settling a perpetual Union and Concord of Duty, Affection, and Loyalty to your Majesty's Person and Government in the Hearts of your Subjects, Be it enacted, etc.

[Here follows the Act of Repeal.]

CHAPTER VI.

THE ACT OF ATTAINDER.

Chapter XXX.

An Act for the attainder of various rebels, and for preserving the interests of loyal subjects.

The authenticity of this Act as printed by Archbishop King has been questioned, especially by William Todd Jones in 1793. But we believe its authenticity cannot be successfully contested. Lesley, in his "Reply" to King, makes no attempt to disprove its existence, but, on the contrary, alludes to it and applauds James for having opposed it. King, however, asserts that the Act was kept a secret; and that the persons attainted, or their friends, could not obtain a copy of it. For this Jones answers:—