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II.

To this clause, as directly contradicting the Articles of Galway and Limerick, Ormond anticipated that ex1703 ception would be taken. He said that he would have prevented the insertion of it, had he been able.1 The Irish Council, however, insisted that they were the strongest places in the island; that Limerick had endured two sieges in each rebellion, and on each occasion had cost a year's war and half a million of money. They might have added, had they not shrunk, perhaps, from an inconvenient allusion, that it had cost also a treaty, which though it ought never to have been signed, yet existed as a fact, and had been confirmed by Parliament.

The bill went to and fro several times between the two Councils before it settled into the form in which it was to be laid before the Irish Legislature. There was general soreness of feeling, soreness about trade, soreness about the conflict of jurisdictions, soreness about the growing Pension List.2 Objections were raised on both sides. On the purchase and inheritance question England desired that the act should correspond with the law passed in her own Parliament for the Irish forfeited estates, placing them out of reach of Catholics by any means and for ever more. On other points the Irish Protestants desired more severe restrictions than England would grant. A clause was proposed for instance which, in the eagerness to protect

1 Other intended clauses he objected to successfully. "The clauses,' he wrote, concerning Galway and Limerick, I believe, you may think hard and inconvenient; but I could not conveniently hinder it. There were several other things offered in that bill, which I prevented putting in, but those I

could not well have done. The others were very hard indeed.' It is plain from the tone of Ormond's letter, that in some directions England wished the bill to be lenient. 'Ormond to Nottingham, 29th June.' MSS. Record Office.

6

2 Southwell to Nottingham, 17th July.' Ibid.

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1703

the Protestant children of Catholic fathers, would have CHAP. prevented Catholics from selling their estates under any circumstances, and would have reduced them universally to the position of tenants for life.' At last, as if in the hopelessness of agreement, or from a wish to evade responsibility, the Privy Council sent a general sketch of what they desired or were prepared to allow, and left the Irish House of Commons to draw the heads for themselves after the session had commenced.2

September at length arrived, the session opened, and business began. Ormond, in the speech from the throne, intimated that there was an opportunity of passing laws which night tend greatly to the establishment of the Protestant Religion. On the subject of which the minds of his hearers were most full, the social prospects of Ireland, and the union of the three kingdoms, he was silent. Both Houses responded loyally; but the Secretary anticipated a stormy session.

The Irish Council deprecated this interpretation. 'The bill,' they said, 'is not intended to hinder Papists from selling boná fide, but to restrain them from selling purposely to defeat their Protestant heirs, and therefore 'tis referred to a Court of Equity to examine the circumstances of the case, and determine accordingly; it being impossible to prescribe any other rule which may suitable to so many different cases.' -Remarks in the Irish Council, on the Notes upon the Bill returned from England.' MSS. Record Office.

be

2 On the 22nd July, Southwell writes:As to the bill against

The Commons were

Popery I find many objections
occur to the attorney and solici-
tor. 'Tis certainly very hard to
draw such a bill where many
severe things are enacted, and to
be able to distinguish or except
cases that deserve compassion; and
if that Bill is not thought fit to
pass, since what is here desired is
expressed therein, and that the
House here will certainly begin
such a bill, it would be of service
before that time to have some hint
or information how far the Council
of England would think proper to
come up to in such a Bill.'-
'Southwell to Nottingham, July
22.' Ibid.

3I wish we may get through

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1703

BOOK Occupied for some days in hearing petitions from Protestant sons of Catholic gentlemen threatened with being disinherited; expelling Mr Asgill, the member for Enniscorthy, for having written a heretical book,1 denouncing the forfeiture commissioners for having reflected scandalously on the Protestants of Ireland, and appointing committees to consider heads of bills. On the 29th they voted an address to the Queen, protesting against the suspicion that they wished to make Ireland independent, and declaring their entire conviction that their welfare depended on the maintenance of the connexion with England. On the 4th of October Southwell wrote 'that the Commons had sate that day to consider the state of the nation; and, after some hours sitting and considering the many misfortunes the country lay under in point of trade and other circumstances, all the speakers concluded that they did in most earnest manner desire a Union with England.' There had been no intemperance, or declamatory passion. The Secretary was forced to acknowledge, in spite of himself, that the temper and good dis

as we are. We found them mighty
hearty and frank before they were
chosen; now they begin to look
angry, and forget what they pro-
mised.'-'Southwell to Notting-
ham, September 25th.' MSS. Re-
cord Office.

1 Curiously, Asgill was expelled
from the English House of Com-
mons four years later on the same
ground, and for the same book.

2

They resented especially the charge of favouring the native Irish. On the 24th September they passed a resolution, That the

Protestant freeholders of this kingdom have been falsely and maliciously misrepresented, traduced, and abused as persons that, through length of time, and contracting new friendships with the Irish, or interpurchasing with one another, but chiefly through a general dislike of the disposition of the forfeitures, are scarce willing to find any person guilty of the late Rebellion even upon full evidence; and that such a representation has been one of the great causes of the misery of this kingdom.' Ibid.

position of the debate surprised most people, the loudest grievances being touched with all the true sense, but at the same time with all the true disposition, as if they desired nothing more.'1

So real were the grounds of complaint, so just the demand which was based on those complaints, that the House was disposed to assert its powers in the form in which alone it could command attention. The Government had asked for supplies for two years. A party, led by the Speaker, Solicitor General Brodrick, insisted that, unless their remonstrances received attention, the money vote should pass for one year only; and, after a hot debate, the Castle had but a bare majority of 122 to 119. The Pension List, a running sore and a scandal for a century, was brought up and sifted. The Crown regarded the hereditary revenue as private property, which it might bestow at pleasure irresponsibly for good or evil. On the Irish Establishment was laid the Regium Donum. On the Irish Establishment were quartered also court favourites, royal mistresses and their bastards.2 Weary of a separate constitution, which was abused for the sustenance of infamy, and with an honourable eagerness to cast off their shame, they voted that pensions paid out of the kingdom should be taxed four shillings in the pound; and on the 22nd October they framed their more serious discontents and desires into a direct address to the Crown.

They were, and always had been, they said, most loyal; but Ireland, from many causes, was mise

1 'Southwell to Nottingham, October 4.' MSS. Record Office.

2 Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester, mistress of James the

Second, had a pension of 5,000l. a-
year from Ireland; and the Duke of
St. Alban's, Charles the Second's
son, a pension of 8007.

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II.

rable. Their trade was ruined, their industry paralysed, their manufactures violently taken from 1703 them. They were overrun with paupers; among whom, in consequence of these unjust measures, were now to be found industrious Protestants. In a country where the Papists were so formidable, they humbly conceived that Protestant immigrants ought to have been encouraged; whereas Protestant families were now removing to Scotland, or emigrating to the plantations. The commerce of Ireland was utterly destroyed. The restrictions and prohibitions had rendered it impossible for any merchant to carry on business. Government officials were intolerably corrupt. Some had made enormous fortunes; others, holding high and lucrative employments, were residing in England. The Commons implored the Queen to consider their wrongs, and concede the only measure which could really remove them—a firm and strict union between Ireland and England.'

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Sir Richard Cox, who had succeeded Methuen as chancellor, supported the address of the Commons in a powerful letter to Lord Nottingham : Your Lordship,' he said, 'will be pleased to consider, that this country is inhabited by a people of several nations, interests, and religions; and that incendiaries may easily serve themselves of one party or the other; that all labour under great poverty, occasioned chiefly by the English acts of woollen manufacture and resumption; that if the few English here find themselves oppressed, they will return to their mother country, as many as are

1 Address to the Queen, October 22. MSS. Record Office. Cf. Journals of the Irish House of

Commons, October 1703.

2 The Resumption of Forfeitures Act.

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