BOOK 1739 given a guarantee for their good conduct, than 'as long as they had their effects in their pockets.'1 The time was coming when the lesson of the Reformation would have been really learnt, when Catholic gentlemen would have discovered that, without abandoning their faith, they could be in truth and sincerity good subjects of a Protestant Government; that the Pope had neither in theory nor fact a right to meddle with their temporal allegiance. When religion was no longer made use of as a cloke or a palliation for political conspiracy, demands for the relaxation of the penal laws could be presented boldly, and could not be refused. But the experience of centuries was not to be set aside and obliterated by the good behaviour of one generation; and the revival of the old pretensions to control the policy of the Irish Government, which has been the fruit of completed toleration, raises a doubt whether concession was not after all premature. The suspicion attaching to the representatives of a creed which has dyed its garments in blood so deep as Romanism has done will only finally disappear when the heads of a Church which sanctioned the atrocities of the Inquisition has with equal solemnity condemned them. Earnest Catholics, at present, seem rather bent on justifying the fetters in which it was found necessary to chain them; they still refuse the acknowledgments which are due to the conscience of Europe; and, rather than make frank confession of their fathers' sins, they take refuge in dishonest evasions, or in audacious denials of the established truths of history. 1 'Address of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, September 26, 1739. MSS. Record Office. II. 1740 The Catholics who addressed themselves to George CHAP. the Second were in a more wholesome frame of mind. The cowardice of modern Protestants, who disavow and condemn a policy which merits no blame and needs no apology, had not yet taught them how much they might dare with impunity. They could admit without disguise or shame their forefathers' guilt. They affected to believe, and, being humbled into good sense, perhaps they really felt that they had been treated with leniency. The day of emancipation was coming, coming as the gift in part of that very Irish Parliament which they now dreaded as their oppressor. But it had not come yet; nor was it by rapes and abductions, by houghing cattle, by perjured conversions, by juggling lawsuits, or by purchased advocacy in the back corners of the English Cabinet, that they would hasten its arrival. War was declared by England against Spain a month after the presentation of the petition. It was discovered that, while these gentlemen, on behalf of part of the Catholic community, were affecting so profound a loyalty, the flights of the Pretender's Wild Geese from the Kerry rivers were never more numerous. Letters intercepted from Irish residents in Spain shadowed out an intended invasion. Count Dillon was reported to be himself in Munster organizing an insurrection; and hot patriots declared nothing to be more certain than that a bloody war would break out all over Ireland in six months.'1 The Duke of Devonshire, who succeeded Dorset in the viceroyalty, recognized and admitted a peculiar insolence in the Catholic attitude; and the necessity of listening to 1 'Bernard Ward to his father at Carrigham, Ross. From Madrid, August 29, 1739.' MSS. Record BOOK IV. 1740 the demand for the Disarming Act became apparent at last even at St. James's. The Cabinet gave way, but so gave way as in yield ing to secure themselves from Catholic resentment. Though legislation on the subject was confessed to be necessary, the Duke of Devonshire was not permitted to recommend it from the Throne. He was instructed to leave the initiative to the Irish Parliament, to take no part, and to avoid all appearance of taking part, 'that an answer might be the more easily given to foreign Princes who would interfere.'1 The Parliament accepted a responsibility which ought not to have been thus exclusively thrown upon it. Instead of the concessions which the petition of the Catholics demanded, the heads of a Disarming Bill were at once introduced. They were heard in Council in objection; their arguments were answered; and the Viceroy transmitted the bill to England with a story which showed conclusively that the time was not ripe for trusting the Irish nation with larger powers. A colony of Quakers in Kildare had celebrated the Fifth of November with Rumours were flying that a Spanish camp had been 1 The Duke of Devonshire to the Duke of Newcastle, October 12, 1739. 'The Duke of Newcastle to the Duke of Devonshire, November 8, 1739.' MSS. Record 2Devonshire to Newcastle, January 12, 1740.' Ibid. formed in Gallicia. French officers were discovered enlisting recruits at Limerick; English regiments were being tampered with; and deserters had off gone with the Wild Geese.1 The Government, too happy that the Irish Parliament had been bolder than themselves, returned the Bill, which was immediately passed. The depleted arsenals were again fully supplied. Authority once more dared to assert itself. Disaffection cowered again into its hidingplace with instant submissiveness; and to this one effort of resolution, after so long and so mischievous a struggle, Ireland owed the unbroken quiet in the rebellion of 1745, of which, by some absurd irony, the indulgent rule of Lord Chesterfield has gained the exclusive credit. 1 'Devonshire to Newcastle, March 18, 1740.' CHAP. II. 1740 BOOK IV. SECTION III. FOR the half century intervening between the Duke |