SECTION II. II. 1703 In the summer of 1703 Queen Anne's first Irish CHAP. Parliament was about to assemble for the most eventful session in that country's history. Henry Maxwell, expressing the general sense of intelligent AngloIrishmen, had foretold, that, with discouraged industry, and a continued separate political existence, Ireland must inevitably fall back into the hands of the Celts. The minds of the Irish Protestants were set upon a Union. English politicians had determined that there should be no Union. They believed that they could invent means by which Maxwell's prophecy could be defeated, without sacrificing the interests of the Manchester manufacturers. They could not, for their own sakes, allow the country to relapse into a condition, out of which it had been extricated at a cost so severe. As little did they desire it to become strong enough to demand privileges and rights, which they were too jealous to concede . . . . . The position in which they wished to see Ireland, was that of a dependent province, occupied in growing unlimited wool for the English looms, with the relations of its inhabitants to one another and to England so adjusted, that they could never more be politically dangerous. If they could not eradicate Popery, the Government believed that they could establish a system which would condemn the professors of it to helplessness. But if their intentions may be conjectured from their subsequent conduct, they did not desire the Protestant supremacy BOOK II. 1703 to be too complete or too immediate. Whatever may have been their previous uncertainties, they had now convinced themselves that the ownership of land must henceforward be Protestant exclusively; yet a Catholic population might still be useful as a check on Protestant encroachment. And Catholic and Protestant could both be held in subjection, if each section of the people were made to feel themselves dependent upon England for protection against the other. They hoped probably, that as time went on, the natural superiority of the more rational form of religion would assert itself, and that Popery would disappear; but, like most English statesmen, they looked to the immediate problems which lay before themselves, leaving future generations to solve their own difficulties. It would be enough for them if they could invent means to escape compliance with the demand for a Union, which would have brought with it commercial equality. By the English bill for the repression of Popery, no Catholic was any longer able to buy or inherit real estate in England. The disability had been already so far extended to Ireland, that Catholics were unable to acquire lands which had been forfeited there. The intention was now to extend the act to Ireland in all its completeness. The Bill for the Expulsion of the Catholic Dignitaries had been, so far, little more than a form; and a form it might, if desirable remain. A bill which limited the right of inheriting or buying real property to Protestants, would enforce itself of its own nature; and, after a generation or two, must destroy the last hold of Catholic owners on the soil of their fathers. The preparations for this remarkable commentary on the Articles of Limerick were inaugurated with due solemnity. The Duke of Ormond, fresh from his glories at Vigo, and decorated with the thanks of the House of Commons, was sent over as Viceroy. His greatness cast a lustre on his country. His appointment was a compliment which might stand in lieu of more essential concessions, and by his rank and personal influence he was expected to overbear opposition. The heads of the bills which were to form the subject of the business of the session, were carefully considered by the Irish Council through the summer.2 Six measures which Sir Edward Southwell, the Irish Secretary, described as most useful, and which he knew to be most acceptable," were sent over in June for the formal sanction of the English Council. The first was an extension of the bill already passed to prevent priests from coming into Ireland from abroad. The act of the last session,' Ormond wrote, 'extended only to dignitaries and regulars; but it being found by experience, that secular priests, educated beyond sea among her 1 His influence was scarcely sufficient, great as it was. Sir Edward Southwell, the Irish Secretary, writes on the 25th September Tis a miserable fatigue we are under; we are forced to use a great deal of claret, and a great many arguments, and all little enough. There is a most strange mixture of Scotch and fanatical principles which sours the mass. They are jealous of everything, and, were it not that my Lord Duke has a great personal interest, and many are ashamed to deny him whom they have talked themselves into, nothing at all would be done.''Southwell to the Earl of Notting ham, 25th September 1703.' MSS. 2 To soothe Irish sensitiveness, 3 Southwell to Nottingham, June 12.' Ibid. СНАР. II. 1703 II. 1703 BOOK majesty's enemies, did imbibe their sentiments, and at their return did become incendiaries to rebellion, it was conceived necessary to prohibit their return, and the new act was, in fact, but to reinforce a good law already in being against foreign education." The second of the bills of the acceptableness of which the Secretary entertained no doubt, was the notorious one, to prevent the further growth of Popery." There is, and there was at the time, an impression that this too celebrated act was the work of the Irish Parliament; that the English Government consented against their better judgment, and would have preferred it to reject it altogether. Nottingham, perhaps, was not unwilling that such an impression should go abroad; but the correspondence of the Lord Lieutenant and the Secretary tell a different story. The principle of the bill had been recommended from England. The heads, as first drawn by the Irish Council, were modelled immediately on the pattern of the English Popery Bill and the English act providing for the disposition of the forfeited estates; but the model was departed from in one material point. The object was confessedly to prevent Popery from recovering its lost ground, by a law to punish those who seduced others, or were seduced themselves from the Protestant religion,' a law to prohibit Papists from disinheriting or injuring their Protestant children;' and a law to prevent estates, already in the possession of Protestants, from descending to 1The Lord Lieutenant and Council in Ireland to the Earl of Nottingham, June 26th.' MSS. Record Office. This act was apparently carried unaltered. It placed secular priests coming from abroad into Ireland on the same footing as regulars. Irish Statutes, 2 Anne, cap. 3. 21 Anne, cap. 32. Catholics;' in other words, to prevent Catholics from inheriting or purchasing such estates. In this condition the heads were sent over. The Privy Council immediately observed, and in writing to the Lord Lieutenant appear to have severely commented on, a very considerable modification of the English precedent. The English act disabled Catholics from inheriting or purchasing lands anywhere or from anyone. The prohibition in the Irish heads extended only to lands belonging to Protestants. The change had been made intentionally. Ninetenths of Ireland being Protestant, the Irish Council had designedly left the Catholics free to inherit and purchase from one another. To those who consider such acts indefensible in any form, the difference will seem small. It is of importance, however, as showing the respective attitudes of the two governments towards the question. The Irish Council, with a pattern set before them to work from, departed slightly from it in the Catholic interest. The English Council complained. The Irish Council answered, that if the Queen and Council in England desired to make the act co-extensive with the English act, they had no objection.' 1 In another direction the Irish Bill was harsher than England desired. 'Limerick and Galway being in great part inhabited by Papists, and having been in all rebellions of fatal consequence to the English,' a provision was introduced that, with the exception of twenty merchants at each place, to be licensed by the Government, no Papist should for the future' dwell or inhabit' in either of those towns.2 1 Remarks in the Irish Council 2 Lord Lieutenant and Council on the Bills returned from Eng- to Nottingham, 26th June.' Ibid. land. MSS. Record Office. CHAP. II. 1703 |