There was a mystery about these Articles which has been left unexplained. They were accepted by the Irish leaders as sufficient, yet, in the form in which the Irish leaders signed them, they were less favourable than in the draft first offered by Ginkel.' The alteration was explained afterwards as an oversight. This only is certain, that William had directed Ginkel generally to grant the utmost that the English Parliament would allow; that, by some means or other, the concessions were at the last moment materially reduced; that Sarsfield signed them in this reduced form; and that William endeavoured afterwards, without success, to restore them to their original state. The material stipulations, on which the doubts afterwards arose, were these: 1. That the Roman Catholics of Ireland should enjoy such privileges, in the exercise of their religion, as were consistent with the laws of Ireland, or as they did enjoy in the reign of Charles the Second; the King promising, as soon as his affairs would permit, to summon a Parliament in Ireland, and to endeavour to procure the Roman Catholics such further security in that particular, as might preserve them from disturbance on account of their religion.2 1 The allusion will be explained in the next page. 2 This article, intended obviously to confer religious liberty, might mean much or little, as it was interpreted. The 2nd of Elizabeth, which was still in force, prohibited the exercise of the Catholic religion, and so far the article gave the Catholics nothing. On the other hand, the law of Elizabeth had rarely been acted on. Under Charles the Second the practice CHAP. III. 1691 BOOK I. 1691 2. The inhabitants of Limerick, and of every other garrison town in possession of the Irish, the officers and soldiers in arms, under any commission from King James, in the counties of Limerick, Cork, Kerry, Clare, Sligo, and Mayo, and-so the words stood in the original draft--all such as are under their protection in the said counties, should retain such estates, interests, and privileges, as belonged to them in the time of Charles the Second, or at any time during which the laws of Charles the Second were in force. They should retain their personal property untouched also, and be at liberty to pursue their several trades and professions as freely as before, subject only, they and all other Catholics in the kingdom who made their submission, to take the simple Oath of Allegiance, as modified by the English Parliament.1 The sixth article passed a sponge over the plunder and violence which the Protestant farmers and gentry suffered under at the beginning of the war.2 So long as the second of these three articles contained the contested words, printed in italics, it conceded nearly all for which Sarsfield had asked. Very many of the Catholic gentry being in the army, were protected as commissioned officers. The estates of most of those who were absent, and yet were com gious houses had been closed and 1 I, A. B., do sincerely promise and bear true allegiance to their majesties King William and Queen Mary.' 2 See the articles in Plowden, vol. i. Appendix, p. 49. There were forty-two articles in all-thirteen civil and twenty-nine military. The military articles referred to the detailed winding up of the war; the remainder of the civil articles contained particular provisions of no historical importance. promised in the insurrection, were in the counties thus carefully particularized; and thus it might be said, that nearly every Catholic of consequence, with a disposition to be dangerous, would be covered by the broad vagueness of the word 'PROTECTION.' Inexperienced in Ireland, and in the spirit of the broad truth that He who overcomes By force, hath overcome but half his foe, เ William was expecting to win by kindness those whom he had defeated in the field, and had studied rather to spare their pride, and not to make their overthrow too complete. The fact, however, was not to be concealed, that in the Articles as signed by the Irish generals the protection clause was not present. The King, in his confirmation of the Articles in the ensuing February, said, that the words had been casually omitted by the writer;' that the omission was not discovered till the Articles were signed, but was taken notice of before the town was surrendered;' and that the Lords Justices, or General Ginkel, or one of them, had promised that the clause should be made good, since it was within the intention of the capitulation, and had been inserted in the rough draft.' He therefore for himself 'did ratify and confirm the said omitted words." The deliberate assertion of William ought not to be lightly questioned, yet it is difficult to credit that the accidental omission of a paragraph of such enormous consequence should have passed undetected. The more probable explanation is, that the Lords 1 Confirmation of the Articles of Limerick, February 24, 1692. Plowden, vol. i. Appendix. CHAP. III. 1691 I. BOOK Justices, who had arrived at the camp when the treaty was in progress, narrowed down the King's liberality, and extorted harder terms than he had prescribed or desired. 1691 Once more, in conclusion, the conditional character attached to the first of the Articles was extended to the whole. The Lords Justices and the General undertook to use their utmost endeavours that the treaty should be ratified and confirmed in Parliament.' They bound themselves to use their endeavours;' more they could not do; and if words had a meaning, there was still reserved to the legislature a power of revision. SECTION VIII. HAD the Articles of Limerick and Galway been carried out in the spirit in which they were framed, it is sometimes pretended that the reconciliation between the English and Irish races, which unhappily remains incomplete, would then have been effected. The allegiance of the conquered would have been given freely to a sovereign who, when they were at his mercy, had forborne to punish them. The past would have been forgotten, and the Catholics, grateful for a toleration which they were conscious that they had not deserved, would have settled down contentedly under a government which left them their religion undisturbed by persecution, and uninsulted by penal legislation. If I am unable to share this opinion, it is because William's policy, however natural, and for himself, pressed as he was by his difficulties with France, convenient, was but a repetition of an experiment which had been tried many times and had invariably failed. To allow the Irish to manage their own affairs, so far as was consistent with a bare allegiance to the British crown; to interfere and punish when indulgence had produced its unvarying consequences, and then tread over again the same round, in the hope that Ireland had learnt her lesson and would at last recognize forbearance, had been the principle on which Irish affairs had been administered from Henry the Seventh's time downwards, and can be traced distinctly through successive stages of failure, from CHAP. III. 1691 |