forcing them to grievous compofitions-[Vol. 3. p. 13.1 One inftance, from a multitude, of the cruel punishment of Jury-men in the star-chamber, who refused to find a title in needy projectors and rapacious courtiers, to the ancient eftates and inheritances of their Catholic countrymen, a peaceable and unoffending race, I will adduce from my lord Wentworth's own narrative of his treatment of the Jury of the county of Galway. This Jury would not comply, and find for the Deputy; and grievously they atoned for it. "We bethought ourselves, writes his lordship, of a course to vindicate his Majefty's honor upon this occafion, not only against the perfons of the Jurors, but also against the fheriff, for returning fo infufficient a Jury; and therefore, we fined the Sheriff in a thousand pounds to his Majefty; and we have fined the Jurors four thousand pounds each; their eftates are feized, and themfelves imprisoned till the fines be paid- [State Letters of Strafford, Vol. I.] Such was the fentence inflicted upon the first Magiftrate of a county; and upon a jury, who gave a verdict according to their confciences; and would not make a wanton conveyance of the inheritance of their Catholic neighbours.-How ill this tyranny began to be relifhed by Strafford's own packed Parliament, about this time, may be collected from an extract of the grievances which, in his administration, the Commons voted real ; and which, in one article, alludes to this cafe of the Sheriff, and gentlemen of Galway,-[Commons' Journals, Vol. I. page 94] "That Jurors, who who gave their verdict according to their confciences, were cenfured in the caftle-chamber, (the ftar-chamber) in great fines; fometimes pillored, with lofs of ears; and bored through the tongue; and fometimes marked in the forehead with an iron, with other infamous punifhments." And Doctor Leland fays, in his Hif tory, Vol. 3, page 32-"The jurors of Galway were to remain in prifon till each of them paid his fine of four thousand pounds; and ac knowledged his offence in Court, upon his knees.-" Against these united religious, and territorial depredations on the Catholicks, by lord Strafford and the Proteftant government, the natives were deftitute of all manner of defence; which is powerfully ftated in that elevated and, lamentable Remonstrance of the Catholicks at Trim, on the 17th of March, 1642, The procuring of falfe inquifitions upon feigned titles to our ellates, againft many hundred years poffeffion; and no traverfe, or petition of right, admitted thereunto; and Jurors denying to find fuch claims were cenfured to public infamy, and ruin of their ef tates. And nothing muft ftand against fuch claims to great and confiderable parts of the kingdom, but letters patent under the great feal; and if letters patent be produced, as in moft cafes they were, none must be allowed valid, nor yet fought to be legally avoided; fo that one hundred and fifty letters patent were declared void in one morning, nearly to the utter ruin of the faid Ca tholicks." [See Remonstrance of Trim, Section II.-Carte's Ormond, Vol. III.] But I have fatigued you out of measure; and will now lay a final reftriction upon further quo tation. tation.-Such, gentlemen, was the cruel oppref fion, fuch were the ftimulus which drove the unprotected and desperate Irish to the extremities, and to the violences of 1641; violences fo magnified, and a war fo little understood, that a critical refearch into the hiftorical documents of the times, might vindicate the Catholicks from the imputed commencement of thefe barbarities; and afcertain that the ferocious hoftilities of both fides were dilated, by feverish minds, into incre dible exaggeration. It would be unneceffary to fwell thefe, already too tedious, pages, by any further declaration of opinion regarding general Catholic Rights, to which from my youth I have fo frequently pledged my unimportant name. The Bar and the Revenue, are their undoubted inheritance; and their fidelity to their military engagements, long established, and every day exemplified in Europe, fhould peculiarly recommend them to the army and the marine.-If the regiment of Berwick, over whom James, a fugitive, and in a foreign land, bent his grey, difcrowned head, and confecrated their fidelity with his tears, should, for having, after a lapfe of 100 years, adhered to the fame established military principle, and to the facredness of an oath, be confidered by fome Reformers, as immature for renovators of the conftitution, furely it can be no difqualification for their becoming the foldiers of the state. Strange Strange fatality attendant on the brave!Fidelity to Religion and allegiance to the French Monarch, incapacitates them for the armies of their natural Sovereign; and excludes them from a constitution which profeffes religious liberty, and is ftrictly monarchical. As to any profeffion or defcription of men, offering technical oppofition to the emancipation of the Catholic body, not upon the ground of its being hazardous to the ftate, but because Catholicks may divide with them the emoluments of office, the fees of profeffion, and the wages of certain crafts, its tranfcendant prefumption would create a contemptuous laugh-Does any exclufive body, profeffional, or handicraft, imagine that parliament, and the great mafs of four million and a half of people, agitating a agitating a comprehenfive and a momentous national measure, will afford cognizance to the illiberality of petty monopoly or continue to reftrict two millions to poverty, because that poverty may minister to their exclufive gains?. And God knows! the boon is but fmall, where the neceffities are fo calamitousGovernment opens to the Catholic gentlemen an avenue to the departments of the law and to the opulent tradefman an increase of his apprentices -in themfelves, both highly acceptable- -But how will this liberality extend itself to the peasant?Where mourn they, the while! within what clay-cold, rooflefs habitation does the ftrength and effence of the nation famish?—No man fays, God bless them!—but the contempt of neglect is poured upon their innocent heads From afar, their faint ear hearkens to the fugacious found ' of of Liberty, and for an inflant they are erect to catch the long-expected call: But it dies away, impotent to their relief, and they relapfe again to penury, and ftupor ! But, I am queftioned wherefore have I recited thefe ancient oppreflions, whofe tendency may be to awaken their concomitant animofities? If animofities are awakened, their opiate is in your poffeffion, FOR REPARATION IS IN YOUR HANDS-To relieve the misery of the peasantry is the only object of my refearches; and the root of their disease lay deep, and required inveftigation to the fource! They afk but for the privileges of the Proteftant yeoman!That you will beftow a boon upon them which can nothing impoverith yourselves!that you will extend to the Catholic farmer the ESSENTIAL SPIRIT of the conftitution; which in the divine fimile of the Poet, is a communication of fire to the lamp of another, without fuffering a diminution of your own light, or heat- And had I any folicitude to be recollected by posterity I should require no other character to be infcribed upon my monument, than "Here is depofited, the friend of the peasants; The advocate of those who could not return him fervice; You will obferve, gentlemen, I have not dabbled with any local Ulfter difturbances-I do not confider them within the fcope of my prefent undertaking; I have no fkill in the investigation of petty oppreffion, and the confequent refiftance of the most calamitous of the fpecies; nor do I pretend to ascertain the proportions of outrage between |