nest wives, as an ordinance was put out by the Queen and parliament, that no woman should for a wife be commended to any minister, without her honesty withal could be sufficiently testified unto him."*

Bishop Burnet, in his life of Bedel, says, "That the bribes went about almost barefaced, and the exchange they made of pennance for money, was the worst of simony."

In the Commons Journals, 1640-The Protestant Bishops are stated "to have exacted money for holywater, for anointing, for mortuary-muttons, mary-galbons, Saint-Patrick-ridges, soul-money, and the like." And the House of Commons, in their humble remonstrance, state, "that the money taken in commutation of pennance was not converted to pious uses, but made a private profit."

And Wentworth, who suffered for his own crimes,† calls them "an unlearned clergy, who have not so much as the outward form of churchmen to cover themselves withal, nor their persons any way reverenced."

The oaths of supremacy, conformity, and uniformiby, were the instruments used by the new clergy to dispossess the old. Sir Arthur Chichester was one of the most cruel and intemperate enforcers of these penalties; so much so, that in 1606, the sufferers sent over Sir Patrick Barnwell to complain to the King and Council: for which he was committed to the

Legacy to Prot. p.

State Letter, vol. 1. p. 187

tower, and instructions were sent over to the Lord Deputy, not to answer for his conduct, but to send them over some answers for form's sake.* For they said that proceedings in matters of religion want not captious eyes in that country.

If any lenity was shewn, the author of it was punished. Lord Deputy Falkland was for that reason so clamored at by the Bishops and the faction, that he was dismissed with disgrace.†

The clergy did not confine themselves to ecclesiastical censures, nor the operation of the common law. Hammond L'Estrange relates, that "the Lords Justices, finding they were celebrating mass in Coke'sstreet, sent the Archbishop of Dublin, Mayor, Sheriffs, Recorder, and a file of muketeers, to apprehend them, which they did, taking away the crucifixes and paraments of the altar-the soldiers hewing down the images of Saint Francis. Fifteen chapels were seized to the King's use; and the priests so persecuted, that two of them hanged themselves in their own defence:" and this was at the time when the English historians say, that the Catholics enjoyed undisturbed possession of their religion.

The ancient laws against the Irish, were a compound of iniquity and absurdity, marking the semibarbarity of their authors. By the temporary constitutions made in Magno Parliamento, in the reign of King Henry VIII. By the Deputy and Council it

* David Curios Hibern. vol. 1, p. 489.

† Leland, vol. 2, p. 481.

was ordered, that no Nobleman should have more than twenty cubits or bandlets of linen in their shirts; horsemen, eighteen; footmen, sixteen; garsons, twelve; clowns, ten; and none of their shirts shall be dyed with saffron, upon pain of twenty shillings.

Now, however provoking to a Nobleman to have his shirt cut by act of parliament; yet, with twenty cubits, he might have an ample shirt in despite of the ordonnance; but it is remarkable, that from the time that religion was called in aid of the persecutions, the laws became infinitely more refined, more subtle, and more diabolical; so frightful is religion when profaned to the purposes of villainy!

The penalty of twenty shillings against the saffroncoloured sleeves, when coupled with the murders and tortures inflicted by the peep-of-day-government in our times upon those who wore green, shews that whatever colours or opinions were adopted by the Irish, they were alike to be persecuted. As they had wide sleeves, they were persecuted; had they narrow sleeves, they would have been persecuted. Saffron was persecuted, and green was persecuted. Popery was persecuted; and, had they turned Protestants, they would have been persecuted perhaps more than ever the next day, and some new crime invented as a pretence for plundering them. For we can hardly give the English, in Queen Anne's time, credit for so much stupidity as not to perceive, after so long experience, that persecutions could not prevent the growth of Popery: for, before their time, it was a

S s

maxim established, that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church.

Be it as it may, we shall just observe, that the Catholics, now ground into dust, deprived of education and property, and every means of acquiring either, became null in their native country. They had no part in the framing or ecution of the laws, being excluded from the parliament and the bench, and from juries and from the bar. Their only duty was to bear with patience the penalties inflicted on them, and be spectators of the ludicrous, though interested, quarrels of their oppressors. When any

question under the penal laws was tried against them, it was by a Protestant judge, a Protestant jury; and as they had a Protestant prosecutor, so they must have a Protestant advocate. What justice they could look for, Heaven knows!-They were shut out from all corporations and offices, and every privilege belonging to freemen. If a Catholic made kettles in Bridestreet, a Protestant who envied him, procured a corporation bye-law, that no Catholic should work copper in Bride street. If they petitioned, they were kicked. In short, they were humbled below the beasts of the field. The law of discovery, which crowns the Popery code, was published without any pretence of existing provocation or necessity; and if any thing were wanting to stamp its complexion, it is the auspices under which it passed. The royal assent was given by Thomas Lord Wharton, whose character was thus sketched by the masterly pen of Swift:

"Thomas Lord Wharton, by the force of a wonderful constitution, had passed, by some years, his grand climacteric, without any visible effects of old age, either on his body or his mind; and in spite of a continual prostitution to those vices which usually wear out both. His behaviour is in all the forms of a young man at five and twenty; whether he walks, or whistles, or swears, or talks baudy, or calls names, he acquits himself in each beyond a templar of three years standing. He goes constantly to prayers in the forms of his place, and will talk baudy or blasphemy at the chapel door. He is a presbyterian in politics, and an atheist in religion; he had imbibed his father's principles of government, and took up no other in its stead; excepting that circumstance, he is a firm presbyterian. It was confidently reported, as a conceit of his, that talking upon the subject of Irish Bishops, he once said, with great pleasure, he hoped to make his we a b- -P.

He is perfectly skilled in all the arts of managing at elections, as well as in large baits of pleasure; for making converts of young men of quality, upon their first appearance; in which public service he contracted such large debts, that the ministry in England were forced, out of mere justice, to leave Ireland at his mercy, where he had only time to set himself right; although the graver heads of his party think him too profligate and abandoned, yet they dare not be ashamed of him, for he is very useful in parliament, being a ready speaker, and content to employ his gift upon such occasions, where those who