attempt direct opposition, but they introduced modifications, which would make the bill as futile as its predecessors; and in this condition the heads of the New Popery Act were sent over with others to the English Council.

'I beg leave in particular,' wrote Doddington in transmitting them, 'to mention the bill for preventing the further growth of Popery, which the holy prelates have been mumbling and doing their best to render it ineffectual. The Papists are alarmed at this bill, which was designed to strengthen the one that passed formerly, and prevent the settling their estates in such a manner as would evade the first act, and hinder their estates from descending to their Protestant children. When I reflect how unaccountable an act it is for a Protestant Government to authorise Romish priests to exercise their religion, and at the same time the Dissenting ministers are made liable to very severe penalties for acting according to their persuasions, I cannot but hope some cure will be found out to put an end to so unreasonable a proceeding. We require alterations in the Council, which in truth is a scandalous board, and by such steps may allay that violent temper, which has been countenanced and preached up here since the death of the late King. And then a new Parliament, with the countenance of the Government, will take off that scandalous distinction, or rather infamous clause, and do such other things as may be for the real honour of the Queen and the good of her subjects."

The Popery Bill came back, but the Bishops'

1 'Doddington to Sunderland, September 2.' MSS. Record Office.

CHAP.

II.

1707

BOOK
II.

1707

handiwork being left entirely or in part undefaced, a Committee of the Commons reported upon it unfavourably, and it was rejected. A second set of heads were introduced by a private member, but at so late a period in the session that nothing more could be done with it. The Irish Parliament was falling into a habit which became afterwards the rule, of meeting only in alternate years. The Catholics were reprieved, and the Bishops had secured their gratitude in the event of half foreseen contingencies.

1 Commons' Journals, October 18, 1707.

SECTION V.

II.

1708

WHILE the Irish Jacobite House of Lords was thus CHAP. openly taking the side of the Catholics, the Pretender was preparing at St. Germains for a descent upon Scotland. An attack on Ireland, whether as a feint or as a reality, formed an important part of his plan. As soon as he should have established himself among his Highland friends, a French squadron was to come round to Galway, where the Catholic inhabitants, led by the country gentlemen, who had been officers in his father's army, were prepared to receive their allies. The government had received information of what was intended, and, so far as they were able, had taken measures to secure so important a town. The difficulties which they experienced sufficed to show, that the Limerick and Galway Clauses in the Popery Act were no gratuitous insults to a loyal and unoffending set of people, but resolutions of mere self-defence, of which the fault was, that they were left unexecuted. An order was sent to the mayor to call before him the principal Catholic gentlemen of the country, to offer them the Abjuration Oath, and, if they refused to swear, to secure their persons. The mayor, though of necessity a Churchman by profession, yet wore his churchmanship as an official cloke, with a sound Catholic body concealed below it. He invited the gentlemen to repair to Galway as he was directed. They obeyed-Lord Bophin and half a hundred others, with their servants and retinue of friends. They declined the oath as a matter of course. The mayor directed them to consider themselves

1708

BOOK prisoners on parole inside the walls, precisely in the place where they would be most useful when the French should arrive ; and Colonel Eyre the governor, with a handful of soldiers in the castle, found himself overmatched and virtually at their mercy.' The condition of Galway was the condition of all the counties where the Articles of Limerick had left the Catholic strength unbroken. In the event of an insurrection the only force which could be relied upon to oppose the Pretender was as usual the Ulster Militia, and the Ulster Militia had been simply annihilated by the Test clause. The rank and file of the regiments had been almost exclusively Presbyterian. After the insult passed upon them, and no longer permitted to have a single officer of their own persuasion they refused to obey the summons when invited to enlist; and Ireland, with Catholics, Protestants, traders, landowners, farmers, all classes and all creeds, disunited and mutually exasperated, lay at the time of trial once more without defence. Most precious commentary on the proceedings of all parties who had been concerned in bringing her to such a pass! The slightest success in Scotland would have led to the landing of a French army, and although an insurrection would have been less mischievous than in 1641, and in 1689, for there was as yet no glimmer of returning prosperity which could be again ruined, fresh millions must have been supplied from the English exchequer, and the wretched business of reconquest undertaken once more from the beginning.

Happily the Pretender's expedition failed; the

1 'Colonel Eyre to Secretary Dawson, March 30 and April 11, 1708.' MSS. Dublin Castle.

peril passed by; and English statesmen who had leisure to spare for the unlucky country, and intelligence enough to be conscious of the disgrace which this perpetual mismanagement entailed on them, renewed their resolution to take warning, and for the future to follow wiser courses.1

II.

1708