It is true that an attempt to revive the lost bill was made four years later, not with, but without, the sensational proposition; and it was made at the invitation of England herself, and for a special reason, in one of those bursts of alarm and anger which have periodically provoked English statesmen into acts of spasmodic severity. Bishop Atterbury, after seven years of restless efforts to bring about an invasion of Ireland by a Spanish force under the Duke of Ormond, had, in 1722, laid a plot to seize the Tower and the Bank, and to proclaim the Pretender in London. General Dillon, an Irish Catholic in the French service, was to land in England with some thousands of the Irish brigade. Ormond was, if possible, to carry out at the same moment his design on his own country. The plot was discovered. Irish priests were found as usual to have been the most active instruments in carrying on the correspondence. The English Government awoke to the necessity of cooling down these feverish spirits; and the Duke of Grafton, in opening the Irish Parliament in 1723, dwelt in his speech on the perils to religion and liberty which had been so nearly escaped; and he expressed a hope that duty, patriotism, and the just detestation of such wicked and unnatural contrivances would animate both Houses to give the world an evidence of their loyalty. The King's only object for Ireland, he said, was to make it a happy Protestant country. The Parliament, he trusted, would give its serious attention to provide laws for strengthening the Protestant interest, and prosecuting more effectually those already in being against the Catholic priests, whose numbers were notoriously increased.1 16 'Speech of the Lord Lieutenant, August 29, 1723.' Commons' Journals, CHAP. I. 1723 BOOK 1723 The responsibility of the initiation was thus assumed by Walpole's cabinet. The Irish Commons, so exhorted, passed a series of resolutions against the connivance of magistrates, false conversions, and pretended conformity, by which the penal laws were systematically evaded. They then took up again the lost bill of 1719. Lord Fitzwilliam and other gentlemen, whose properties were affected by it, and whose interest had thrown it out, were heard in objection at the bar of the House. After long discussion the heads were agreed upon and were presented by the Speaker to the Viceroy, as Plowden says, with a special request that he would recommend them to the consideration of the Government. The Duke replied that he had so much at heart a matter which he had himself advised, that the Commons might depend on his respecting their wishes. The Council, warned by experience, attempted no second alterations. The nature of the penalties was left apparently for England to decide, for the Council this time insisted merely on the need of some effectual means' to stop the influx of priests; and requested Walpole, Townshend, and Stanhope to determine what those means should be.1 The Wood' hurricane was at this moment unfortunately at its height, and absorbed by its violence every other consideration. Embarrassed by the larger problem, the English Government had no leisure to consider the difficult question of dealing with the unregistered priests. The bill was laid aside, not rejected, but merely postponed, and before another session the alarm had subsided. But that there was I. 1724 no collision between the two countries, and no di- CHAP. vergence of opinion; and that the Irish Catholics have no reason on this occasion to thank Walpole for standing between them and their Protestant oppressors, may be concluded with certainty from the Duke of Grafton's words at the prorogation. He insisted, as strongly as at the opening, on the need of a vigorous execution of the laws already existing, to the neglect of which the increase of priests was due. For himself he promised to contribute his part by giving directions that, for the future, such persons only should be put in the commission of the peace as had distinguished themselves by steady adherence to the Protestant interest.1 BOOK 1725 SECTION V. So ended the last attempt to punish, by penal laws, the unregistered Catholic clergy as such. 'Weariness of the struggle and the mildness of the Government determined that the conversion of the nation should be left to time, unless the priests should be mad enough to give fresh provocation.'1 'The Irish people,' it was thought (and the words are a remarkable tribute to the value of authority in Ireland, however imperfectly it was exerted), 'the Irish people were more docile and less obstinate than either the Scotch or Welsh, and, had the same pains been taken to convert them which were used in Wales and Scotland, Ireland would have long since become Protestant." The object of intelligent people thenceforward was to find a means of reconciling the loyal priests and the Government, and subsidizing a power which had proved too strong to be violently overthrown.3 Many bills, or attempted bills, directed at the curtailment of Catholic influence, bills to prevent intermarriages between Catholics and Protestants, bills to annul clandestine marriages accompanied with violence and rape, bills to prevent the intrusion of false converts into public employments or seats in the 1 2 Ibid. Reflexions for the Gentlemen of settle salaries for them. Their inIreland. Dublin, 1738. terests would then be closely tied to those of the state, and they might be managed like cannons, whose mouths are still pointed as they please who fill their bellies. -Ibid. 3 Possibly it might be a good plan to abolish the payments of dues, offerings, and fees, from the poor Papists to the priests, and House of Commons, bills to check the practising of Catholic solicitors, can be traced for another generation in the records of the Irish Parliament. But the real feeling of the Protestant gentry on this momentous subject was from the present period rapidly changing. A signal evidence of the alteration remains in a sermon preached before the House of Commons, which received the thanks of the House, and was printed by order, at the very time when, if tradition spoke truly, both Peers and Commons were endeavouring to force a measure upon the country which would have placed the Protestants of Ireland on a level of barbarity with Spanish inquisitors. The preacher was Doctor Synge, Chancellor of St. Patrick's, afterwards Bishop of Clonfert. The occasion was the 23rd of October, the anniversary of the Irish St. Bartholomew day. The year was 1725. The text was the 23rd of the 14th of St. Luke, Compel them to come in:' the subject, the legitimacy of compulsion, as applied to conscience. 'Ireland and England,' the preacher said, ' are in that peculiar position that many of those who have enjoyed the protection of the Government are only watching their opportunity to overthrow it. The conspiracies against Queen Elizabeth, the Gunpowder Plot, the dreadful massacres of this day, are so many evidences of what is plain from history. For this reason the wisdom of the legislature has thought it necessary to frame several laws to weaken the power and interest of the Catholics of Ireland, and because the laws do not answer the end proposed, others more severe may come hereafter to be tried. 'Self-preservation is the first law of life, but laws of this kind are liable to one objection, which in the I. 1725 |