conformity." We must confess we would rather attribute the obstinacy of the Irish gentlemen on this occasion, the magistrate, or the lawyer, to the conscientious sense of the obligations they owed to that religion which they were instructed to be lieve was the best. We should suppose that their obstinacy was the offspring of an honest conviction of the truth of the principle to which they clung, and not the base and interested progeny of pride, folly, or custom. If Mr Leland was to be deprived of his rights, because he refused acknowledging the supremacy of the pope, we should not consider it a very liberal conjecture that Mr Leland refused the oath from obstinacy rather than from principle. Such a feeling could never endure very long. In an individual, the pride of an insulted mind may be found to resist the united efforts of force and fraud; but in the mind of a nation, the sentiment must have a broader foundation; it must be the conviction of the truth of the principle to which it adheres, and not a passive obedience to custom or to fashion.

Chichester, having witnessed the progress of discontent with considerable apprehension for the security of his government, determined on convening a parliament. Twenty-seven years had elapsed since any parliament was held in this kingdom, in consequence of the extraordinary revolution which had taken place in the state and circumstances of Ireland. The new parliament promised to be a more faithful representative of all its mixed inhabitants than any which had hitherto preceded it.

Seventeen new counties, and a great number of newly created boroughs, were to be added to the general representation. The convening of this parliament, in 1612, alarmed the minds of the Irish. From the new arrangements, the creation of counties and boroughs, the influence of the government was supposed to be increased to an alarming extent. The Roman catholics suspected the integrity of Chichester's design in calling a parliament; and their principal leaders, men of distinguished consequence in the pale, Lords Gormanston, Slane, Killeen, Trimblestown, Dunsaney, and Louth, addressed a letter to the king, in which they boldly remonstrated against the calling of the parliament. This letter being considered by James as too bold in its language, was contumeliously rejected. The trade of parliament went on; the boroughs were multiplied to forty; the recusants, or, in other words, the independent Irish party, rallied their friends; the clergy co-operated in stimulating the people to a vigorous effort against farther innovations, and every hand and every heart were engaged in the grand contest for the rights and privileges of Irishmen. The catholic lawyers displayed unprecedented activity, and, notwithstanding the exertions of government, succeeded in beating their enemies at the majority of the elections.

Notwithstanding the apparent triumphs of the country, or catholic party, the government had so managed the old and the new boroughs, that, on counting the parliamentary numbers, there appeared one hundred and twenty-five protestants, and one

hundred and one cotholics.* A contest of a singular nature took place on the appointment of the speaker. Sir John Davis, the Irish attorney-general, was recommended by James. Sir John Everard, a justice of the king's bench, was the favourite of the country party. The struggle was so violent, that the party of Sir John Davis seated him in the lap of Sir John Everard, who had been previously put by his friends into the speaker's chair. The violence of parties had now so highly inflamed the public mind, that Chichester felt it necessary to endeavour to calm the rising tempest by mild and conciliating remonstrance. The puritans, inflated

* About the 18th of May 1618, the lord deputy, with all the peers of the realm, and the clergy, both bishops and archbishops, attended in scarlet robes, very sumptuously, with sound of trum pet. The Lord David Barry, Viscount Buttevant, bearing the sword of state, and the Earl of Thomond bearing the cap of maintenance; and after all these the lord deputy followed, riding upon a most stately horse, very richly trapped; himself attired in a very rich and stately robe of purple velvet, which the king's majesty had sent him, having his train borne up by eight gentlemen of worth. They rode from the castle of Dublin to the cathedral church of St Patrick, to hear divine service, and a sermon preached by the reverend father in God Charles Hampton, archbishop of Armagh, and primate of all Ireland. But as many of the nobility were catholics, they did not go into the church; neither heard divine service or sermon, notwithstanding they were lords of the parliament house, but they staid without during the time of service and sermon. Now when service was done, the lord deputy returned back to the castle, these recusant lords joining themselves again with the rest of the state, and rode to the castle, in manner as they came from thence, where the parliament was held this was the first day of its meeting.—Desider. Curos. Hiber. Vol. I.

with all the hideous spirit of sectarian despotism, murmured at the policy of the deputy, and, in the genuine language of the inquisition, called for the rigid enforcement of the penal statutes to establish an obedient conformity to their religion.

The shameful multiplication of the meanest and most mercenary sycophants, by the late creation of boroughs, roused the pride and the indignation of the catholic nobility and gentry of Ireland. It was, no doubt, a painful reflection to the independent Irish mind, to have witnessed the degraded and humbled state to which their countrymen were reduced. To see a whole catholic nation, a parliament, with the exception of the immediate hirelings of government, almost all catholic; the great majority of the army catholic: to see such a power as this lorded over by a few adventuring innovators from England and Scotland, who composed the administration and filled the offices of the crown, must have greatly afflicted the heart, and roused the vengeance of a high-spirited country. The catholics boldly remonstrated with James against the indignities under which they suffered. They ordered the lords Gormanston, Fermoy, Hussey, Luttrel, and Talbot, to repair to the British monarch, and to seek the immediate redress of such intolerable grievances. It is said that James received their complaints with good temper and kindness; he agreed that commissioners should be sent into Ireland, to ascertain the justice of the Irish remonstrance. Even such a concession as as this from James elevated the hopes of the catho

lics; and one of their delegates, Sir James Gough, triumphantly announced, on his return to Ireland, the intention of the British monarch to tolerate the catholic religion, and redress the injuries of which his Irish subjects had complained. The hypocrisy of the king was not even now discovered by the Irish catholics; the professions of a tolerant and liberal spirit, which James so often made to Ireland, appeared to be part of his system of division and weakness. He would raise the hopes of those he wished to destroy, and promise toleration to the religion of Ireland, in order that he might the more effectually eradicate it. He summoned the Irish delegates to his counsel, and in a tone of insulting and ignorant mockery, told them that no system of government would content the Irish. "You would," said James, "have the kingdom of Ireland like the kingdom of Heaven." Notwithstanding the practices which we have detailed, and by which his Irish subjects were so insulted and oppressed, this monarch, in the stile and spirit of a despot, thus addressed the delegates of the Irish nation.

"In the matter of parliament, you have carried yourselves tumultuously and undutifully, and your proceedings have been rude, disorderly, and inexcusable, and worthy of severe punishment, which, by reason of your submission, I do forbear, but not remit till I see your dutiful carriage in this parliament, where by your obedience to the deputy and state, and your future good behaviour, you may redeem your past miscarriage, and then you