BOOK II. 1708 The Irish High Churchmen required a bridle. Lord Wharton, a more determined Whig than Pembroke, was chosen to force the hand of those fanatical or dishonest schemers, and, if possible, compel them to consent to the repeal of the Test. The Irish Bishops, more fortunate than they deserved, found a champion, where they might least have looked for one, in the vicar of Laracor. Jonathan Swift, against whom Anne's prejudices had closed the hopes of advancement in England, had been recommended by Lord Somers to Wharton's patronage. Wharton, for reasons of his own, paid no attention to Somers's request; and Swift, who never forgave an injury, paid home this fresh instance of undeserved neglect. He sketched a character of Wharton himself which, merited or unmerited, will cling to his memory while the English language endures. The Dissenters he regarded with the intense detestation which men of powerful minds entertain for what they call fanaticism; and, in his own extraordinary misconception of the true character of the Irish problem, he left behind him one more evidence, that the fanaticism of fools may be keener sighted than the most masculine of intellects. The removal of the disabilities : enclosed it to the Lords Justices rival of her sacred majesty, not foreseeing whither such thoughts might tend.' If the address must be read publicly by some belonging to the Council, I humbly beseech your Excellencies, that the Archbishop of Dublin, or the Bishop of Clogher may not read it, lest they give it a turn of madness, or make it look as if it were words tending to sedition.'-MSS. Dublin Castle, 1708. being, as he knew, the measure which Wharton most desired, he attacked it in a pamphlet, which supplied the Opposition with an armoury of arguments-arguments at the moment unanswerable, which later history has too effectually answered. The Presbyterians, he insisted, constituted the only political danger to which Ireland was exposed. He compared the Catholics to a chained lion bound fast, with teeth drawn and claws pared to the quick; the Presbyterians to an angry cat free to fly at the throat of any innocent passer-by. The Catholics, he said, were as inconsiderable as women and children, powerless to hurt and doomed to certain disappearance in one or two generations. The greater part of their lands was taken from them; they could buy no more and the little that they retained, must every year grow less under the law. The priests were registered, and, as they dropped off, could have no successors. The peasantry without leaders, without discipline, without natural courage, were but hewers of wood and drawers of water, and however well they might be inclined were for ever powerless to do hurt. The Viceroy, whatever his moral character, saw deeper into the Irish problem than the future Dean of St. Patrick's. On the 5th May, 1709, he met the Parliament. It was unchanged, for it had no natural period except the death of the reigning sovereign, and had not been dissolved. The two main parties into which the House of Commons was divided, were the nominees on one side of the Peers and Bishops, and those on the other who inherited the principles of the Revolution. Between them lay an undetermined section, which in the last session had inclined to the High Flyers, but had been frightened by the Pre CHAP. II. 1709 BOOK II. 1709 tender's attempt, and by the extreme danger to which Ireland had for a few weeks been exposed. The Viceroy said, that 'he was directed to lay before them a consideration of infinite consequence,'' to put them in mind of the inequality in numbers between the Protestants and Papists of Ireland,' and 'the melancholy experience they had had of the good nature of that sort of men when they had it in their power to distress or destroy them.' 'They must consider, therefore, whether bills were not wanting to confirm the law for preventing the growth of Popery; and, secondly, the evident necessity of cultivating and preserving, by some means or other, a good understanding among all denominations of Protestants.”1 The Commons replied, 'that they had found, by dearly bought experience, that the Protestant religion was no longer safe than while it was not in the power of Papists to injure them.' They called to mind with abhorrence the satisfaction which too visibly appeared in the faces and in the insolent behaviour of the generality of them in the late attempt of the Pretender.' "They felt themselves bound to maintain the Church as by law established;" but they were conscious of the danger of division.' They could not be negligent of their common safety, or of the affection and courage which had been shown by the Dissenters against the French and Irish Papists.' 6 Test, and were a plain confession of the injustice of it. But either Swift's arguments had been too successful, or they represented too nearly the average opinions of Churchmen. Direct measures of relief to Dissenters were found as impossible as in the preceding session. In the direction of safeguards against Popery, the lower House required no exhortations. In spite of the act against reversals of outlawries, the Queen, it was rumoured, meditated the restoration of many or of all the families attainted for the last rebellion. If Ireland was ever to have peace there must be an end of these recurring threats of a disturbance of the existing settlement. In the rear of such a policy lay confusion, insurrection, and bloodshed. The first act of the Commons was to demand a promise, that the attainders should be maintained, and they withheld the full supplies till it was given. A dangerous Jacobite spirit had begun to show itself in Trinity College. Edward Forbes, one of the fellows, had aspersed the memory of King William.' The provost and the rest of the society had expelled him; and the Lower House, in words which were taken by the High Churchmen as a declaration of war, petitioned the Queen to grant 5,000l. to the College for a library, as a reward for the provost's zeal, and 'the encouragement of good literature, and sound Revolution principles."1 In this humour the rejected Penal Bill of the previous session came again before them. It was received in a spirit which showed the Bishops that, if they meddled further with it, they might have to submit to the repeal of the Test as well. It passed 1 Commons' Journals. Session 1709. II. 1709 II. 1709 BOOK both Houses without difficulty, and the code of law which was designed to transfer the entire soil of Ireland to members of the Established Church, and reduce the Catholics to landless dependents, was finally completed. The habit, so long indulged, of treating Irish penal laws as only made to be disobeyed, had tempted the Catholic gentlemen too far. Had they been contented to work quietly below the surface, they might have undermined the first act till all its purpose had been eaten out. had been eaten out. But they had danced upon it, and defied it, and laughed it to scorn, and they had brought their fate upon their own head. By the new act, every settlement, every lease on lives, every conveyance made by a Catholic owner since 1704, by which any Protestant or Protestants had been injured, was declared void, and the loopholes were closed by which the act of that year had been evaded. To defeat Protestant heirs, Catholics had concealed the true value of their property. Children were now enabled to compel their fathers to produce their titledeeds, and make a clear confession. Catholic gentlemen had pretended conversion to qualify themselves for being magistrates and sheriffs, for being admitted to the bar, or for holding a seat in Parliament, while their children were being bred up secretly in the old faith. The education of their families was made a test of sincerity, and those whose sons were not brought up as Churchmen remained under the disabilities. Nor, if words could hinder it, were the acts directed against the priests to be any more trifled with. Fifty pounds reward was now offered for the conviction of any Catholic archbishop, bishop, or vicar-general; twenty pounds reward for the conviction of friar, |