utility of the several publications, which arose out of that controversy, every man will judge, who has read them. No one however can deny, that the immediate result of the contest was encreased virulence and animosity on the part of the Protestant ascendancy against the Catholic and Presbyterian and reconciliation and amity between the Presbyterian and the Catholic. An union, which naturally stimulated the Protestant ascendancy to a fiercer lust of rule, and provoked the Catholics and Presbyterians, (they compose the bulk of the population) to a vindictive acerbity of retaliation, to which they had long been strangers. From that hour to the present, the fair observer of political events in Ireland will distinctly mark the workings of the Protestant ascendancy in the rule and guidance of a numerous body of men united by oaths of secrecy, deluded under pretence of religion, goaded by superst ition and passion, lured by interest, and organized into complete subordination and blind obedience to the commands of their leaders. Mr. Pitt largely lent the arm of the executive to all the purposes of intolerance, to which his Irish undertakers thought fit to apply it. The weakening of Ireland by internal dissension was the private order given to the triumvirate. The public instructions to the ostensible and responsible officers of the Crown concealed concealed the Machiavelian principle in the back ground. System of It was a favourite tactic of Mr Pitt's to create terrifying by false false alarms, with a view of engrafting strong alarms. measures upon the timidity, which they created. Mr. Fitzgibbon in the first fervor of devotion to his patron outran his commission; and so far exceeded all the bounds of decency, as to retail officially in the House of Commons a most alarming report of the outrages of the Right Boys in 1787, as proceeding from a popish conspiracy. In this Mr. Orde, the secretary, as a man of honour and veracity, found it necessary to contradict his Majesty's Attorney General, in open Parliament, by declaring; that he not only did not believe it to be true, but in several places he knew it not to be true. And when this law officer of the Crown was shamed out of the clause he had introduced into the bill for preventing tumultuous risings, directing the magistrates to demolish the Roman Catholic chapels, in which any combination should have been formed, or an unlawful oath administered, Mr. Orde, with becoming dignity, declared, that he never would have concurred in such a clause. Mr. Grattan observed upon the extraofficial zeal of Mr. Fitzgibbon, that it was remedying disturbance by irreligion, and establishing it by Act of Parliament. * History of Ireland, by the Author, Vol. II. p. 208. In fomented In the year 1788, under the second adminis- Religious tration of the Marquis of Buckingham, whom dissension Mr. Pitt had specially selected for effecting his in Arviews upon Ireland, on the death of the Duke of magh. Rutland, the county of Armagh was the theatre, on which the managers of the ascendancy most prominently exhibited their newly delegated or usurped power. The county of Armagh is the most Protestant county of Ireland. It is in great part, a species of English colony. The primacy having been usually bestowed upon Englishmen, the consequence was, that whatever church lands could be beneficially demised, came to the hands of the English dependants and favourites of the Primates, as they fell in. The tenants moved not as their patrons died; but attached themselves to the soil, in which they had acquired a valuable interest. They had generally risen from menial situations, and retained a species of extraordinary gratitude for the Church, on the soil of which they lived and throve. They, like most religionists in their walks of life, manifested their forced zeal, more by their prominent abhorrence and persecution of others, than by the edifying exercise of the tolerant and mild precepts of their own religion. The ancient village feuds and dissensions of the Peep of Day boys and defenders, were renewed under the acrimonious distinction of Protestants and Catholics, for the wicked purposes of more lasting division. Lord made lor. The death of Chancellor Lifford in 1789, af forded Mr. Pitt an opportunity of rewarding the * Chancel- extraordinary, zeal and exertions of the Attorney Strength General Mr. Fitzgibbon, in the management of of the As- the difficult question of the Regency in the precendancy party. ceding year. By appointing him Chancellor, (the first Irishman that ever filled that station) he assumed credit for being a friend to Ireland; and at the same time secured the house of Lords, as far as the influence of Chancellor and Speaker could weigh. He commanded the Speaker's powers over the House of Commons in Mr. Foster, and he secured in Mr. Beresford the judicious application of all the fiscal douceurs and benefits; of the virtue and extent of which no other man was so cognizant. Mr. Pitt was naturally crafty, implacable and domineering. The disgust, which the aristocracy had shewn, at the first mention of Union, rouzed his haughty soul into an indignant resolution to subjugate them to it by their own timidity and weakness. His lofty spirit had never brooked: the independence, which the Irish forced the British senate to acknowledge in 1782. Unrestrained by sympathy, impregnable to friendship, unawed by advice, spurning his opponents, and confident of the profligacy of his adherents, this daring statesman seized the advantage of the disastrous times. In conduct tholics. In 1791 the government was more alarmed at Mr. Pitt's the sympathies of the Presbyterians in the North towards with the French revolutionists, than with the the Cadread of Catholic emancipation, although the Presbyterians came cordially forward as the staunch advocates and supporters of that measure. Mr. Pitt's general nostrum was to weaken by dividing. Nothing could so effectually put the nation and the Protestant ascendancy at issue, as the unequivocal determination of the representatives in Parliament not even to listen to their complaints. When, therefore, in 1792, the Catholic's petition was presented to the House of Commons by Mr. O'Hara, he desired not to be considered as its particular patron. Not a member stood forward to oppose its rejection by the house. The insulting outrage of not receiving their petition exasperated the Catholics, and filled their enemies with proportionate confidence. The animosity of each party was consequently sharpened. conduct to parties, The triumph of the Protestant ascendancy was Mr. Pitt's of short duration. In the next session that In the next session that very the ProParliament was directed to grant almost the testant whole substance of the Petition, which but some and his months before they had been ordered to reject view to with insulting contumely. The weakness of the Protestant ascendancy was thus exposed, by convincing the nation, that they moved not by their Union. Qwn |