to William a sufficient proof of treason may have arisen from the clause in the Act of Settlement by which all Catholics who resided unmolested on land occupied by rebels, were excluded from the category of innocent Papists.' If more than 2,000 persons were conditionally attainted by the Irish Parliament in 1689, more than 3,000 had been absolutely deprived of their possessions without trial by the Parliament of 1665; and the Parliament which committed the one injustice consisted mainly of the sons of the men who had suffered by the other. Reasonable judges, while censuring the Act of the Irish Parliament, will not forget the effect of the events of the last few generations in shaking all sense of the sanctity of property, the exigencies of civil war which made it imperative to find some resources by which to carry on the struggle, the violence with which in that age every contest was conducted.

It is, indeed, a curious illustration of the carelessness or partiality with which Irish history is written, that no popular historian has noticed that five days before this Act, which has been described as 'without a parallel in the history of civilised countries,' was introduced into the Irish Parliament, a Bill which, although it applied only to a much smaller number of persons, appears, in its essential characteristics, to have been precisely similar was introduced into the Parliament of England; that it passed the English House of Commons; that it passed, with slight amendments, the English House of Lords; and that it was only lost, in its last stage, by a prorogation. On June 20, 1689, we read in the English Commons Journals,' that leave was 'given to bring in a Bill to attaint of high treason certain persons who were now in Ireland, or any other parts beyond the seas, adhering to their Majesty's enemies, and shall not return into England by a certain day.' The Bill was at once read a first time. It was read a second time, and committed

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on June 22, with an instruction to the committee that they insert into the Bill such other of the persons who were this day named in the House, as they shall find cause.' On the 24th it was ordered, that it be an instruction to the committee, to whom the Bill for attainting certain persons is referred, that they prepare and bring in a clause for the immediate seizing the estates of such persons who are, or shall be proved to be, in arms with the late King James in Ireland, or in his service in France.' On the 29th there was another instruction to 'prepare and bring in a clause that the estates of the persons who are now in rebellion in Ireland, be applied to the relief of the Irish Protestants fled into this realm, and also to declare all the proceedings of the pretended Parliament and courts of justice now held in Ireland to be null and void;' and the committee were directed to sit de die in diem till the Bill be finished.' New names were added to the list of attainted persons on the 9th of July; on the 11th the Bill passed the Commons, and on the 24th the Commons sent a message to the Lords urging the despatch of the Bill. It is evident, however, that the measure there encountered serious opposition. On August 2 a conference was held, and the Lords required to know on what evidence the attainted persons were shown to be in Ireland, for upon their best inquiry they say they cannot trace some of them to have been there they instanced Lord Hunsden.' The answer which was laid before the House of Commons on the 3rd and communicated to the Lords on the 5th of August is curious, for it shows the extremely small amount of testimony which was thought necessary to support the attainder. 'The names of those who gave evidence at the bar of the House, touching the persons who are named in the Bill of Attainder being in Ireland, were Bazil Purefoy and William Dalton; and those at the committee to whom the Bill was referred were William

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Watts and Matthew Gun.' On August 20 the Lords returned the Bill, with some amendments, leaving out Lord Hunsden and several other names, and inserting a few more; but on that day Parliament was prorogued, and the House of Commons had no opportunity of considering the amendments of the Lords.i

These facts will show how far the Irish Act of Attainder was from having the unique character that has been ascribed to it. It is not possible to say how that Act would have been executed, for the days of Jacobite ascendency were now few and evil. The Parliament was prorogued on the 20th of July, one of its last Acts being to vest in the King the property of those who were still absentees.2 The heroic defence of Londonderry had already turned the scale in favour of William, and the disaster of the Boyne and the surrender of Limerick destroyed the last hopes of the Catholics. They secured, as they vainly imagined, by the Treaty of Limerick, their religious liberty; but the bulk of the Catholic army passed into the service of France, and the great confiscations that followed the Revolution completed the ruin of the old race. When the eighteenth

1 Commons Journals. I think the reader will agree with me that it is very surprising that Macaulay, who has dwelt with so much emphasis and indignation upon the Irish Act of Attainder, and who has related with extreme minuteness most of the proceedings of the English Parliament which was prorogued on August 20, has kept an absolute silence about this episode. There is not an allusion to it in his History. The Bill was again brought in on the 30th of October, 1689, and similar bills were introduced on the

4th of April and on the 22nd of October, 1690, but they were not carried, though the last Bill passed the Commons, December 23, 1690.

2 See King, Appendix 24. It appears from King that the object of this law was to put an end to the plunder of absentee property which had been going on through the country. The personal property of absentees in Dublin was for the most part sent to England, without molestation, by agents of the absen

tees.

century dawned, the great majority of the former leaders of the people were either sunk in abject poverty or scattered as exiles over Europe; the last spasm of resistance had ceased, and the long period of unbroken Protestant ascendency had begun.

CHAPTER II.

1700-1760.

HAVING now given a brief outline of the events that led to a complete Protestant ascendency in Ireland, I shall proceed to analyse the conditions of Irish society in the period immediately following the Revolution, to trace the effects of legislation and of social and political circumstances on the character of the people, and to investigate the reasons why the later history of Ireland differs in most respects so widely from the contemporaneous history of Scotland. The Revolution had thrown all the resources and government of Ireland into the hands of a small Protestant minority, but it had not given that minority any real security. The ruling class were thinly scattered among a hostile population. Though all active resistance had ceased, the passions and memories of a succession of ferocious civil wars still burnt fiercely beneath the surface of Irish society. The position of the new dynasty was exceedingly precarious, and its downfall would be inevitably followed by a new revolution of property in Ireland. The Irish Protestants from their position were almost wholly dependent for their safety on English support, and they had no power of resisting any conditions that were imposed on them. In England the Revolution had greatly increased the political power of the commercial classes, and a strong spirit of commercial jealousy had begun to prevail in English legislation.

Such were the conditions that produced the penal