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Spanish officers being fent, or of any money being paid to these rioters. After this, they feverally declared, in the fame folemn manner, that certain gentlemen, whose names they then mentioned, had tampered with them at different times, preffing them to make, what they called ufeful difcoveries, by giving in examinations against numbers of Roman catholics of fortune in that province (fome of whom they particularly named) as actually concerned in a confpiracy, and intended maffacre, which were never once thought of. But above all, that they urged them to fwear, that the priest, Nicholas Sheehy, died with a lye in his mouth; without doing which, they said, no other difcovery would avail them. Upon thefe conditions, they promised and undertook to procure their pardons, acquainting them at the fame time, that they should certainly be hanged, if they did not comply with them." Thus did thofe virtuous men, prefer even death to a life of guilt, remorfe, and fhame, the just punishment in this world of their tempters, as well as the wretches feduced by them.

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CHAP.

f" I was three times in Ireland (fays an English commoner) from the year 1760 to the year 1767, where I had fufficient means of information, concerning the inhuman proceedings (among which were many cruel murders, befides an infinity of outrages and oppreffions, unknown before in a civilized age) which prevailed during that period, in confequence of a pretended confpiracy among Roman catholics against the king's government." Lett. Eng. Commoner, &c. ubi fupra.

CHAP. XVII.

Reflections on the foregoing fubject. YET fome perfons there were, who, in order to

fave the characters of thefe their friends, from the horrible imputation of fuborning others to commit perjury and murder, ftrenuoufly endeavoured, and with fome fuccefs, to have it believed, that credit ought to be given to the teftimony of thofe approvers, in preference to the folemn and unanimous declarations of thefe dying men. But let us advert a moment to the miferable weaknefs of this credulity. Those approvers were imprisoned on a charge of murder, and ftruck with the fear of an ignominious death; being certain, at the fame time, that their pardon was to be obtained only by the testimony they gave, however false. On the other hand, the dying prifoners before mentioned, had often rejected the like offers of pardon, and folemnly denied their being guilty of the crimes for which they fuffered, in the very article of death; confcious that they were inftantly to account for fuch denial, before an all-just and all-feeing Judge. Now when we confider this material difference in the circumftances of the teftimonies of the accufers, and the accufed, who can forbear concluding, that the oaths of the former were wilful perjuries, prompted by the hopes of a pardon, of which the fhedding of innocent blood was to be the only purchase; and that the fo2 lemn declarations of the latter, were noble and fuccefsful efforts of truth, confcience, and honour, against all the strongest temptations to the contrary, that the love of life, and the tendereft endearments and connexions of this world, could have thrown in their way.

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Such, during the fpace of three or four years, was the fearful and pitiable state of the Roman catholics of Munster, and fo general did the panic at length become, fo many of the lower fort were already hang

ed,

ed, in jail, or on the informers lifts, that the greatest part of the rest fled through fear; fo that the land lay untilled, for want of hands to cultivate it, and a famine was with reafon apprehended. As for the better fort, who had fomething to lofe (and who, for that reason, were the perfons chiefly aimed at by the managers of the profecution), they were at the utmost loss how to difpofe of themfelves. If they left the country, their abfence was construed into a proof of their guilt: if they remained in it, they were in imminent danger of having their lives fworn away by informers and approvers; for the fuborning and corrupting of witneffes on that occafion, was frequent and barefaced, to a degree almost beyond belief. The very stews were raked, and the jails rummaged in fearch of evidence; and the most notorioufly profligate in both were felected and tampered with, to give informations of the private tranfactions and defigns of reputable men, with whom they never had any dealing, intercourfe, or acquaintance; nay, to whofe very perfons they were often found to be ftrangers, when confronted at their trial.

In short, fo exactly did thefe profecutions in Ireland resemble, in every particular, thofe which were formerly fet on foot in England, for that villainous fiction of Oates's plot, that the former feem to have been planned and carried on intirely on the model of the latter; and the fame juft obfervation that hath been made on the English fanguinary proceedings, is perfectly applicable to thofe which I have now, in part, related, viz. " that for the credit of the nation, it were indeed better to bury them in eternal oblivion, but that it is neceffary to perpetuate the remembrance of them, as well to maintain the truth of hiftory, as to warn, if poffible, our pofterity and all mankind, never again to fall into fo fhameful and fo barbarous a delufion."

CHA P.

CHA P. XVIII.

Some profpect of mitigating the rigour of the popery

laws.

ALL this while, the chapels of the Roman catho

lics were suffered to be open, and the exercise of their religion was actually connived at; although that religion was, at the fame time, accufed, in the fpirit of the framers and advocates of the popery laws, of prompting its profeffors to thefe pretended acts of rebellion; which proves to a demonstration, that these laws, notwithstanding their pompous title, were primarily intended, rather to deprive these people of their property and fubftance, than of the free exercife of their religion; fince having long fince taken from them almost all that was real of the former, they have left them unmolested with regard to the latter.a

By this connivance, however, the defenders of these laws pretend, that the objection from the breach of the articles of Limerick is removed; as thefe articles promised nothing more than that the Roman catholics

fhould

"But it seems (fays Mr. Young) to be the meaning, with and intent of the discovery laws, that none of them (the Irish catholics) fhould ever be rich. It is the principle of that fyftem, that wealthy fubjects would be nuifances; and therefore every means is taken to reduce, and keep them to a state of poverty. If this is not the intention of these laws, they are the most abominable heap of felf-contradictions that ever were issued in the world. They are framed in fuch a manner that no catholic fhall have the inducement to become rich. . . . . . . Take the - laws and their execution into one view, and this state of the cafe is so true, that they actually do not seem to be fo much levelled at the religion, as at the property that is found in it.

... The domineering ariftocracy of five hundred thousand proteftants, feel the fweets of having two millions of flaves: they have not the leaft objection to the tenets of that religion which keeps them by the law of the land in subjection; but property and flavery are too incompatible to live together: hence the special care taken that no fuch thing should arife among them." Young's Tour in Irel. vol. ii. p. 48.

fhould not be disturbed in the exercife of their religion. But (befides that there is a wide difference between a meer connivance and a privilege, the former being purely negative, or a non-hinderance, depending folely on the will or caprice of the perfons conniving; the latter, an actual and pofitive power of doing what is not otherwise prohibited, which power or privilege was the thing stipulated by the faid articles, not only to be preserved, but also to be enlarged by a future parliament; whereas the quite contrary has been fince done by these laws;) how can it be seriously imagined, that the catholics of Ireland enjoy, at this day, the free exercise of their religion, when that very exercise is precisely the cause of their being robbed, pursuant to thofe laws, in fo many inftances, of both their liberty and property! Nothing certainly can equal the abfurdity of fuppofing the exercise of that religion to be free and undisturbed, at the same time that it is forbidden and restrained by a multiplicity of fevere legal penalties, which are still occafionally inflicted.

Under all these unjust fufpicions, preffures, and restraints, did the Roman catholics of Ireland labour, by the operation of the two felf-executing popery acts of the fecond and eighth of queen Anne, without the leaft glimpse of any reafonable hope of redrefs, until the year 1775; when a profpect feemed to be opened to them of fome future alleviation in the legislature's free and unfolicited tender of an oath of allegiance, which has afforded them the long-wifhed-for opportunity of wiping off, effectually, thofe foul afperfions which for fo many years paft have been caft upon both, by their ignorant or malicious enemies. In that year, a majority of humane and enlightened members, in both houses of parliament, having been themselves witneffes of the conftant dutiful behaviour of the Roman catholics of Ireland, under many painful trials. and conscious that their long perfeverance in fuch behaviour was the best proof they could have given of the integrity of that principle, which had hitherto withheld them from facrificing confcience and honour

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