BOOK

I.

1691

deficient in every element of moral health and life, to brood over its wrongs; and the mixed races, the conquerors and the conquered, the Saxon and the Celt, would grow together as they had grown before, in a common interest and common resentment.

Certain principles, easily defined, had they been steadily acted on at the close of the civil war, would have made by this time the woes and the wrongs of Ireland a thing of long-forgotten history.

A complete subjugation of the native faction untrammelled by articles of capitulation.

The resolute exclusion of a Catholic hierarchy, and stringent laws, stringently enforced, against the introduction of priests from abroad.

Entire toleration of all Protestant communities, and an effective system of national education.

Sharp penalties against absentees; a legislative union of England and Ireland; the abolition of the Irish Parliament, the separate government, and the separate bars; and a complete naturalization of all classes of Irish as English citizens

How England on all these points, treating Ireland as a conquered country which she had no longer occasion to fear, and might therefore safely misuse, deliberately left undone what she ought to have done, -refused the union when Ireland asked for it,-destroyed Irish manufactures,―ruined her trade,-incurred the odium of penal laws while destroying their efficacy-demoralized the entire people-and at last, by the most ingenious complication of mismanagement, exasperated Protestant and Catholic, Saxon colonist and indigenous Celt, into a common revolt, will be told in the following pages.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

THE OPENING OF THE PENAL ERA.

SECTION I.

SIR THOMAS CLARGES, in a speech in the English House of Commons on the state of Ireland,1 said that 'King James's false dice were still played with there.' The question which the politicians asked themselves who had charge of the new settlement was, not what they could best do to re-establish order and industry, but how the dice could so be thrown that they might make their own fortunes.

Marking, as it does, a turning-point in Irish history, the campaign of 1691 is usually considered to have decided beyond reversal the fate of the Irish Catholics; yet the meaning of great events, however legible in their consequences, is often concealed from the actors in them. Notwithstanding Aghrim and the surrender of Limerick, the Lords Justices 2 either doubted their power to hold the Catholics down, or they had received orders to indulge and protect them. Under the terms of the Limerick convention, half the Irish army left the country for France, intending to come.

I.

BOOK
II.

The rest returned

were allowed to

back when a new chance offered.
unmolested to their estates, or
enter William's service. Coningsby and Porter were
credited with having removed the obnoxious clause
from the second Limerick Article, which, if sustained,
would have left the rebellion unpunished. Yet the
loyal colonists were dismayed to perceive that the
Catholics were handled as tenderly as ever. Catholic
gentlemen who had been in James's army were
admitted to, or continued in, the commission of the
peace. Catholic officers were taken back into the
army,
and the oaths were altered to suit their con-
sciences. They swore allegiance in the simple form
prescribed by the English Parliament;' but the ab-
juration, which the law equally required, of the Pope's
pretended right to interfere with subjects' allegiance,
was dispensed with in their favour. The reversals
of outlawries, which the war had suspended, recom-
menced. The disputed clause in the treaty was treated
as binding, and Catholics covered by it received their
pardons. The army, its wages being in arrear, was
again billeted upon the Protestant gentry and the
half-ruined farmers. The English House of Commons
had insisted that the expenses of the war should be
paid, in part at least, out of the sale of confiscated pro-
perties. It seemed as if the Government deliberately
intended that there should be no properties to sell.

Had there been no Limerick or Galway Articles, 3,921 Irish resident owners would have been liable to forfeiture, and fifty-seven absentees. The estates amounted to over a million plantation acres; their

13 & 4 William and Mary, against Lord Coningsby and Sir cap. 2. English Statutes. C. Porter before the English House of Commons, 1693.'

26 Articles of Impeachment

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market value to two millions and a half sterling.1 CHAP. The acts of James's Parliament had thrown the whole country into confusion. The old owners had made haste to take possession, and half the properties in the country had changed hands. Commissioners were appointed to hear claims, and reinstate the expelled Protestants. They were accused of showing favour to the Catholic interlopers, and of raising difficulties in the way of the rightful proprietor. Of the lands newly lapsed, a quarter was at once restored to the Catholics under the Articles of Limerick and Galway. Sixty-five great Irish proprietors, whom the Articles could not be made to cover were reinstated by special favour from the crown. The vast domains of the late King, the grants to Tyrconnell, and the estates of others who were not to be pardoned, were distributed, under letters patent, to courtiers and favourites with the most lavish and indiscriminate generosity.

เ

The secrets of these transactions were imperfectly ravelled out on subsequent enquiry. When we touched on this subject,' reported the Parliamentary Commissioners in 1699, we found difficulties too great to be overcome, most of these matters being transacted in private.' They discovered, however, that Lord Raby received 2,000l. to procure the pardon and restitution of Lord Bellew." Lord Albemarle3 'consented to receive' 7,500l. from Lord

1 Exact figures : Plantation acres, 1,060,792; rental, 211,6231. ; total value, 2,685,130l., taking a life at six years' purchase, and an inheritance at thirteen.-Report of the Commission appointed by Parliament to enquire into Irish Forfeitures.

2 Walter Bellew, who commanded a troop of horse in Tyrconnell's regiment. His father, created by James the first Lord Bellew, was mortally wounded at Aghrim.

3 Van Keppel, Lord of Voorst, created Earl of Albemarle by William.

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BOOK Bophin for a similar service,' and these were but two instances out of many of a similar kind. Considerations of pretended merit were alleged in excuse of grants to favoured individuals. Under a general plea of 'service done' Lord Sydney received fifty thousand acres, and Lord Albemarle a hundred thousand. A hundred and thirty thousand were given to Bentinck, whose deserts were held to be so self-evident that no explanation was so much as offered. Coningsby, as one of the Lords Justices, rewarded himself handsomely for his official labours, and forty thousand acres were bestowed on Henri de Ruvigny, created by William Earl of Galway. These noblemen had contributed something towards the reduction of the country on which they were quartered so liberally ; but credit could be allowed for more doubtful services in favour of those who had private access to the dispensers of the royal bounties. James Corry 'obtained a heavy mortgage and an estate,' the considerations mentioned in his letters patent being that his house was burnt, and that he furnished the garrison at Enniskillen with provisions and materials to the value of 3000l. at his own expense.' When the commis

1 Lord Bophin was not restored, and it is therefore uncertain whether Van Keppel actually received this scandalous bribe. In pursuance of this agreement,' says the report, 'a letter was sent to the Lords Justices to go before the Commission of the Court of Claims in favour of Lord Bophin, to have him aðjudged within the Articles of Galway. Nothing being done therein, a bill was drawn, to be transmitted to England, restoring Lord Bophin to his estates and blood, the con

sideration suggested being to educate his children Protestants, and to set his estate to Protestants. The bill was brought into the House of Commons in Ireland, and the House resenting their being used to support a clandestine bargain, rejected,' &c.

2 Bentinck commanded a regiment at the battle of the Boyne, and behaved well there.

3 Ancestor of the Earl of Bel

more.