II. 1747 English House of Commons. In their own country, CHAP. occasionally, we are brought face to face with one or other of them when selected in time of trouble for some special work of difficulty or danger: we are enabled to see the metal of which they were composed, and to admire the use which the Government thought fit to make of them. Galway, lying on the Atlantic, with its open harbour, was the most vulnerable point of the island. Through Galway the priests had free egress and ingress. Galway was the second, if not the greatest, depôt of the smuggling trade. The Articles of Galway had left the Catholics in unbroken strength there. The Houghers had thinned the Protestant settlers. Whenever an invasion was contemplated, Galway was the spot where a foreign contingent was most sure of finding a favourable reception. The Protestant interest of Connaught,' said an Act of Parliament in 1717, depended on the loyalty of that single town, yet no care had been taken to strengthen the Protestant element there As Galway was in 1717, so it continued, governed by a corporation of Catholics, who had perjured themselves as a qualification for office. The penal laws, neglected everywhere, were in Galway openly defied. The handful of troops in the castle were left to themselves, undisciplined and disorganized. Nunneries and friaries were multiplied. Smugglers loaded and unloaded at the quay. If, for decency's sake, on the appearance of a commissioner of the revenue, it was necessary to put on an appearance of energy, due notice to the offenders beforehand secured the futility of the search warrant. Although the country remained undisturbed in the rebellion of 1745, yet in the extreme west the Dis IV. 1747 BOOK arming Act had been enforced imperfectly. It had been long notorious that in Galway, as in Kerry, recruits and money had been regularly levied for the Pretender. Prudence required that the town should not be left entirely in the hands of the Pretender's friends, and, in 1747, an officer, who had served at Culloden, Colonel Stratford Eyre, son of Mr. Eyre, who had been governor of Galway in 1715, was sent by the Government to command there. Colonel Eyre, who had been born and educated in the country, understood the ways of it. He found himself set to defend a town of which the walls had not been repaired for a quarter of a century; the castle in ruins; the very name of military authority forgotten. By law no Catholics ought to have been in Galway at all. There were thirty Catholics there to one Protestant, and the Protestant was becoming Protestant but in There were 180 ecclesiastics, Jesuits, friars, and seculars. Robert Martin, owner of half Connemara, resided within the liberties, and was making a fortune by smuggling there. He was described by Eyre as able to bring to the town of Galway in twenty-four hours 800 villains as desperate and as absolutely at his devotion as Cameron of Lochiel.' 1 name. The Mayor and Corporation, the fee-simple of whose united property did not amount to 1,000i., received the tolls and customs duties. By their charter they were bound in return to maintain the fortifications. Being what they were, they preferred to divide the town revenue amongst themselves. The mayor, an O'Hara, was the son of Lord Tyrawley's footman; the sheriff was a beggar; of the alder men one was a poor shoemaker, the other a broken 1 'Col. Eyre to Secretary Wayte, November 20, 1747. MSS. Dublin. II. 1747 dragoon. In conformity with the usual Castle policy, CHAP. Colonel Eyre was directed to act in harmony with the civil authorities; on taking possession of his office he furnished the Secretary with a specimen of the manner in which the funds were appropriated by them.1 From the Corporation there was no help to be looked for; Colonel Eyre being made responsible for the town, had no leisure to wait till he could bring the Mayor and Aldermen to a sense of their duty. He re-established discipline in the garrison with a strong hand; he himself stopped the gaps in the walls where they had fallen down; and, taking the reins with a firm hand, he gave orders for the gates to be closed, as was usual in garrison towns, at sunset. The Corporation had not laid open Galway to all comers, that a soldier from the army of the hated Duke of Cumberland should come thus amongst them, interfering with their pleasant habits, and making himself their master. They sent in a complaint, largely signed, against the innovation of the locked gates. The streets of Galway, they said, must be free at all hours of day and night, without sentinels, BOOK IV. 1747 or inconvenient persons, to restrain the citizens in Colonel Eyre, who was at no loss to understand Here, evidently, was a man with the spirit in him of a true ruler; a man beyond all others fit to govern a people like the Irish; beyond all others certain, if not interfered with, to command their affection and 1 Colonel Eyre's words have something of a Cromwellian ring about them. 6 'And now, gentlemen,' he continued, since you are here in your corporate capacity, I must recommend you to disperse those restless Popish ecclesiastics. Let me not meet them in every corner of the streets when I walk as I have done. No sham searches, Mr. Sheriff, as to my knowledge you lately made. Your birds were flown, but they left you cakes and wine to entertain yourselves withal. I shall send you, Mr. Mayor, a list of some insolent unregistered priests, who absolutely refused me to quarter my soldiers, and to my surprise you have billeted none on them. These MSS. 1 II. 1747 obedience. Such a man England ought specially CHAP. to have valued; but England's stomach had grown feeble. She had lost her nerve, and was frightened at shadows. Though Eyre spoke boldly his mind misgave him; he wrote to Secretary Wayte to entreat that the Castle would stand by him. He even determined to see the Viceroy himself, and was going to Dublin for the purpose. Being threatened with assassination,1 and a day fixed for his death, he stayed in Galway unhappily till the date was past; and the delay was fatal. The Mayor was beforehand with him. His Excellency, convinced of the moral excellence and innocent intentions of the Galway Corporation, overruled Eyre's orders, forbade him to interfere, by inconvenient restrictions, with the pursuits of the inhabitants; bade him understand, in short, that although if mischief came he might pay with his head for it, nevertheless, it was the pleasure of the Castle that nothing should be done which could give umbrage to the Catholics of Ireland. The consequences were immediate and characteristic. The governor was at the mercy of the townsmen, and might now be insulted with impunity. A follower of Robert Martin, a Connemara boy, named Brennan, marched ostentatiously past the sentinel at the bridge, carrying a gun and pistol. The man being notoriously a Catholic, the sentinel took them 1 'Sir, as I had not the pleasure of seeing you since you came to your government of Galway, I hope soon to see you in the Elysian fields, as I am just going off the stage. And I am sure, if you don't leave that town, you'll lose your life before the 10th of next month. 'Tis all your own fault, for you could not bear the employment which you got, not for your bravery, |