was judged to be rebellion, and for the generous support of this Stewart against the fanaticism of his enemies, the rebellion of his subjects, and his own unworthiness, they lost a million of acres of their fruitful soil; and my ancestors who got them, were called the Williamites.

A Dutch Pope.

Of the heads of the church, or Popes of London, none was less bigoted than this one. He even brought with him into England some of those principles of liberty, which afterwards encreased, and made that little island prosper as it has done; and the loss of which liberty, with other crimes, has brought it to its present state of danger.

I have no objection to the English celebrating the glorious memory of this deliverer-to deliver them from a perfidious and tyrannical race of kings, was really a deliverance: but I am an Irishman, endeavoring to write Irish history, with truth and brevity. I therefore give you his health, as I have heard it drank by Irishmen.

"Here's the glorious and immortal memory of King William, who delivered us from Popery (by persecution) slavery (by conquest) brass money (by empty purses) and wooden shoes (by bare feet.") He began his reign by kicking his father-in-law from the throne, and finished it by breaking his own neck.

Pope Anne of London.

THE last of the Stewarts.-This weak woman, vacilated between whigs and tories, was forced into the persecution of the Irish as she had been into the act of attainder of her brother, and the proclaiming a reward of fifty thousand pounds for his arrestation. In her reign, also passed the laws of discovery, and those for the prevention of the growth of Popery, the most monstrous that had yet sullied the Irish code; and still more odious, if such crimes admitted of comparisons, by being a direct infringement of the treaty of Limerick between the Irish and King William.

By these laws the Roman Catholics were absolutely disarmed: they could not purchase land: if a son, though the youngest, abjured the Catholic religion, he inherited the whole estate of his family; and if he turned discoverer, during the life-time of his father, he took possession of his fortune, and left him and his family beggars, or dependants, if dependance could be upon one who had violated the principles of filial duty.

If a Catholic had a horse in his possession, of whatever value, a Protestant might take it upon paying him five pounds.

If the rent paid by any Catholic, was less than two-thirds of the full improved value, whoever discovered or turned informer, took the benefit of the lease.

Barbarous restrictions were laid on education at home, and penalties on obtaining it abroad, and the

child in whose love the father had centered the hopes of his declining years, was liable to be snatched from his fond arms and entrusted to a Protestant guardian, the interested enemy of his religion and his peace. And this temptation was not held out only to adults, but to infants incapable of choice or judgment, whose tender years have no dependance but in a parent's care-no protection but in his love.

In what code, christian or heathen, can we find a parallel for such pollution? Would it not, in any other country, be an apology for a thousand rebellions ? and would it not stamp the nation where it originated (unless England be especially dispensed from every obligation, human or divine) with the indelible stain of everlasting infamy?

In all countries informers are odious, and instruments only of the guilty and impure. But what code ever held out the property of the father as a bribe to the treachery of the son?" Honor thy father," is the commandment of God. " Rob thy father," that of a fiend! Yet has this law raised a trophy of immortal honor to the Irish name! for I can hear of no one instance where an Irish son has been found so base as to enter into the views of these monstrous law-givers, by trampling on the dictates of nature, of religion, and of honor.

Another instance of exquisite depravity-the wife was also bribed to turn against the husband, and the principles of dissention were sown in the marriagebed; and lest the social ties and endearing affections of the heart should ever operate to bring about in

Ireland peace, union, and forgiveness, heavy penalties were inflicted upon what was grossly termed committing matrimony, where one party was a Catholic!

Now, what was the crime of the Irishman ?-to rest satisfied with the religion of his fathers. What motive except terror, had he to embrace the new religion ?-none. He knew it only by its perversion he could not view it but with horror; for it was never presented to him but as an instrument of persecution and of spoliation. This is a strong assertion— I will support it by strong proofs of history. Let us take a short view of the reformation in Ireland.

Of the Reformation in Ireland.

"AT the reformation," says Spencer, "preachers were sent to them who did not know their language." "Besides," says he, "the inferior clergy in those days, who had the immediate cure of souls, were men of no parts nor erudition; but what is worse, they were still as immoral as they were illiterate;" and in another place he adds, they were most licentious and disordered; and for the better reformation of them (the Irish Catholics) they put their clergy, whom they reverenced, to death."

By the 2d Elizabeth, chapter 2, it appears they were forced to be present at the reading of the litany in a barbarous language (for so the English appeared to them) and which they did not understand and to

complete the absurdity, a remedy was provided, that where the Irish priest did not know English, he might speak Latin.

In the reign of James I. it was ordered, that the bible and common-prayer-book should be translated into Irish; upon which an Irish Protestant Bishop said, laughing to his friend, "In Queen Elizabeth's time we had English bibles and Irish ministers; but now we have ministers come of England, and Irish bibles with them."

Might not the Irishman reply to this mockery"Makest thou thy shame thy pastime ?"

"The benefices were bestowed upon the English and Scotch, not one of them having three words of the Irish tongue.

Their first care was to dispossess the ancient clergy of their benefices; and there are some curious accounts in old authors of the successors appointed to them.

Bishop Bonner, when he was in the Marshalsea, sent a letter by a Chaplain to the Archbishop, wherein he merrily related how these Bishops had ordained each other at an inn, where they met together. Whilst others laughed at this new method. of consecrating Bishops, the Archbishop shed tears, and lamented that such ragged companions should come poor out of foreign parts to succeed the old clergy in rich deaneries, prebendaries, and canon places, who had such ill luck at meeting with disho

*Theatre of Prot. and Cath. Religion, p. 245.

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