nature soever. 5. Irish army to be kept on foot by their Majesties. 6. The Irish Catholics to be allowed to live in towns and cities, to be members of corporations, to exercise all sorts and manners of trades, and to be equal with their Protestant fellow-subjects in all privileges, advantages, and immunities accruing in or by the said corporations. 7. An act of Parliament to be passed for ratifying and confirming the said conditions.'

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Now, whatever be the extent and meaning of these articles, it is clear that the 6th article, if it were found singly, includes every thing which the present Roman Catholics profess to require. It would have placed the Roman Catholics of the kingdom on the same footing as the Protestants. By this article they would have been rendered eligible to places in corporations, to the bench, and to seats in Parliament: in fact, (and I admit it freely, for it strengthens my case,) every thing which has been since granted, every thing which is now withheld, would have been secured. Such would have been the consequences of De Ginckel's acceptance of this article. Did he accept it? His answer was decisive and instant: Though he was in a manner a stranger to the laws of England,' (I quote his words from Story's Journal, vol. ii. p. 231,) yet he understood, that those things they insisted upon were so far contradictory to them and dishonourable to himself, that he would not grant any such

terms, and so returned them; and ordered a new battery to be immediately raised to the left of Mackay's fort for mortars and guns. Then the Irish sent again to know what terms his Excellency would please to propose to them;' and then he sent in the twelve articles which formed the basis of the treaty of Limerick.

"Can there linger a belief in the mind of any man, that De Ginckel, having indignantly rejected terms which directly and specifically secured to the Roman Catholics of Ireland all the privileges which their descendants now require, could have intended by the counter terms which he sent in, on the very same day, to grant them by implication the very same advantages?

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By reciting the terms allowed to Waterford in the preceding year, and to Galway during this campaign, and the terms refused to Limerick, I have, I trust, prepared the House to follow me in the fair and inevitable construction of the terms actually granted by De Ginckel in this memorable treaty.

"The articles, then, on which the principal stress is laid by the advocates of the Roman Catholics, as sustaining their specific rights, are the first, second and ninth. I will proceed to examine them in detail; but the whole treaty should be examined to see how utterly impossible it is that any one part of it, or the whole together, can bear the weight now attached to it. Is it to be believed, for instance, that any article of the

treaty can have been intended to convey to the Roman Catholics an equality of civil rights with the Protestants, when another article gives to the noblemen and gentlemen comprised therein, 'liberty to ride with a sword and case of pistols if they think fit, and keep a gun in their houses for the defence of the same, or for fowling.' Can any other inference, on the contrary, be drawn from this very Article, than that it was the intention of the victor (an intention admitted by the vanquished) to disarm all who were not specifically excepted? Can it be contended, that all which is now asked, was guaranteed by any general terms in the treaty, if it were necessary to frame a special provision, as was done in the seventh Article, without which no Roman Catholic gentleman, not even the Earl of Lucan himself, could legally have kept a fowling-piece in his house?

"To proceed: the first Article provides as follows_ The Roman Catholics of this kingdom shall enjoy such privileges in the exercise of their religion, as they did enjoy in the reign of King Charles the Second; and their Majesties, as soon as their affairs will permit them to summon a Parliament in this kingdom, will endeavour to procure the said Roman Catholics such further security in that particular as may preserve them from any disturbance upon the account of their said religion.'

، The honourable Baronet, the Member for

Westminster, last night distinguished between what he denominated the first and the second clause, or division of this Article; the first clause guaranteeing the privileges af the Roman Catholic religion as they existed in the time of Charles II.; the second promising such further security as might preserve the parties accepting these terms, from any disturbance, in other words, any civil disabilities, on account of their said religion.?

"Now admitting, what I will scarcely, even for the sake of argument admit, that there is an ambiguity in the latter part of the sentence, which, taken singly, might be open to the interpretation of the honourable Baronet and the Petitioners, I contend, that though he may thus collect totidem literis, the sentence which he desires to find in the treaty, the context of the first member of the sentence will disprove his inference, even if I had not already shown how utterly incredible it is, that De Ginckel would have granted, by implication, in the evening, when he was dictating the terms, what in the morning he had indignantly refused, when the terms were proposed to him, and when this particular provision was asked in direct words. The truth is, that the very words in the second clause, in that particular,' obviously connect it with the words of the first clause, viz. "in the exercise of their religion;" and both together confine, accordingly, the mean

ing of the first Article of the Treaty of Limerick to the free exercise of the Roman Catholic Religion. "The second article provides more specifically for certain civil rights.

"But, before I proceed to the examination of it, I will stop to enquire into the limitation of the first article, even as to religion, by the words, ' as they did enjoy in the reign of King Charles the Second.' It was well observed on a former occasion, by the honourable and learned Member for Dublin, (Mr. George Moore,) that the construction would have been very different, if the period referred to had been the reign of James II. instead of Charles II. The reign of James was the more obvious point of reference, if the article had intended to grant to the Roman Catholics of Ireland many privileges, even in the exercise of their religion: in that day they were legally equal, and practically more than equal, to the Protestants. But the victor deliberately fixed on the reign of Charles II. as the period, the privileges of which he was willing to concede to the Irish. Now, what was the state of the Roman Catholics in Ireland at that period? I will not enter into details: they are well given in the work of Dr. Browne.* I will quote no

* Brief Review of the Question, whether the Articles of Limerick have been violated. By Arthur Browne, Esq., Representative in Parliament for the University of Dublin.-Dublin, 8vo. 1783.