CHAPTER XXXI.

Growth of principle among the Catholic party-Increase of wealth among them→→ The Catholic merchants and tradesmen-Liberalising tendency of commercial pursuits Dr. Curry, Mr. O'Conor, and Mr. Wyse-Difficulty of rousing the Catholic body-The Irish parliament-Bill for the registry of priests rejectedRejoicing of the Catholics-The first CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION formed Their ADDRESS to the throne-Favourably received-Accession of George III.-Address of the Catholics of Ireland-Remonstrance of Grievances- Its failure-Dissensions among the Catholics-Concessions to the Catholics-Bill of 1776.

Ar the very time that the system of penal tyranny had reached its full height, and the protestant ascendancy flattered themselves that their power was to endure for ever, principles were silently at work, which were afterwards destined to level with the dust both the system and its agents. Tyranny always contains within it the seeds of its own destruction. It is a beautiful remark of Curran, that "Man, destined to the grave-nothing appertaining to him is exempt from the stroke of Death: his life fleeteth as a dream, his liberty passeth away as a shadow, so too of his slavery · it is not immortal: the very chain that grinds him is gnawed by rust, or is rent by fury or by accident, and the wretch is astonished at the intrusions of freedom unannounced even by the harbinger of hope."

So far as the penal laws were designed to impoverish and humiliate the Roman catholic population, they had succeeded to their fullest extent. They were now entirely divested of all civil and religious privileges by law, and the great bulk of the property of the country was in the hands of the protestants. But the protestant failed to reap all the pecuniary and personal advantages that he anticipated from the exclusive system of legislation. In what respect was he profitted by having a portion of earth in a land of beggars? What signified his property to him, if he lived in a state of constant terror and alarm? Besides, he soon found the inconvenience of the laws preventing the catholics purchasing, or taking long leases of landed property. If he wished to dispose of his estate, and a Roman catholic was willing and able to buy it, he could not, because the law prevented. If he was anxious to improve his property by granting long leases, and Roman catholics were found ready to take them, they could not, because the law prevented. If he wanted to secure money in landed property, and he found a Roman catholic proprietor willing to take it, he dared not lend it, because the son of that catholic, by turning protestant, might rob him of the entire amount.

The penal laws were thus soon found to act prejudicially to the protestant landed proprietor as well as to the catholic; and, accordingly, numerous attempts were made to evade them. To this the Protestants were stimulated by motives of self-interest, rather than

regard for the public well-being. The government, also, was obliged to relax in its system of persecution. The penal system was too hideous to be kept in constant operation: it was too complex, too expensive, and too troublesome, to be enforced in all its details. Besides, government felt, that if catholic property and catholic labour were completely prostrated, taxes could not be obtained from the catholic population, and the revenue must fall off. The catholics were the great body of consumers, and if they possessed nothing, nothing could be extracted from them. This is always a telling consideration with governments. The penal laws, therefore, were not enforced with the same rigour. They were held in terrorem over the heads of the community, to be used on those occasions when it was deemed necessary to be more than usually harsh and cruel with the Roman catholic population.

But the main hope of the amelioration of the catholic sufferings lay in a body of men who now came into notice,--and who had been fostered, perhaps created, by the oppressive operation of the penal laws themselves. While the landed property of the country was slipping out of the hands of the catholics, and they seemed verging rapidly towards pauperism; the MERCHANTS and TRADESMEN of Ireland were laying the foundations of future fortune, pros perity, and liberty. When the protestants devised the oppressive laws against the catholic landed proprietary, they imagined that all the wealth of the country would immediately flow in their own direction. But they were mistaken; for they forgot that before wealth came to them it must exist; and it could only come into existence by the industry and commerce of the population. But the protestant was too idle, and too aristocratic, to busy himself in such concerns he contented himself with framing the laws, which he endeavoured to do, so as that he might enjoy all the rewards of industry without its toils. Hence the profitable pursuits of trade and commerce were left to the catholics, who were induced to betake themselves to the acquisition of personal property, as it had almost entirely escaped the malignant ingenuity of the first framers of the penal code. Almost all the trade, therefore, that English jealousy had allowed Ireland to retain, in course of time fell into the hands of the Roman catholics. A body of men thus arose, enriched by commerce, united to the people by the powerful ties of a common interest, sympathy, and relationship, and needing only to be put fairly in motion to work out the emancipation of Ireland.

And COMMERCE, in all climes and countries, has been the genuine friend of civilization. Liberty invariably follows in its steps; together with knowledge, religion, and social happiness. It breaks down in time the despotism of the mightiest tyrants. The spirit of commercial enterprise has, at all times, been opposed to the spirit of barbarism, and is destructive of feudal and class legislation. It is hostile to monopoly, and to all exclusive rights and privileges. Without commerce, indeed, no nation has ever made distinguished

progress in the higher stages of human civilization. And well did the cruel Protestant oligarchy know the weight of the curse they inflicted upon Ireland, when they deprived her of her trade, and ruined her manufactures!

Fortunately, also, there rose up at this juncture, three distinguished individuals, who, in a short time, were enabled to infuse quite a new spirit into the catholic body. When a nation has been long placed in circumstances of a trying and dangerous nature, and the proper time for relief at length arrives, Providence always takes care to raise up men that are fitted to battle with and command those circumstances. Leaders spring at once into their places; and the work to be done is accomplished as if by miracle. The three men who appeared in aid of the catholics at this juncture, were Dr. Curry, Mr. O'Conor, and Mr. Wyse.

DR. CURRY was a physician in extensive practice in Dublin; a kind benefactor to the poor, and an ardent friend of his oppressed country. He was descended from an ancient Irish family, that of the O'Corra; many of whom had figured in past history. His grandfather was a captain in the service of king James, and had fallen at the battle of Aughrim. A remnant of property saved from the general wreck, enabled his father to educate him abroad, like most other Irish youths of the period. The young CURRY returned to Ireland, full of aspirations after the liberty of his fallen country. He was soon shocked by the fierce bigotry of the times, as displayed by the protestant population. It is related by Mr. O'Conor, that in one of these periodical exhibitions of intolerance, when the pulpit vied with the press in maligning and misrepresenting the religion and principles of the catholics, pouring out the most slanderous abuse on the dead in order to feed the flame of the existing hatred against the living,-that Dr. Curry, passing through the Castle-yard of Dublin, on the 23rd of October, 1746, overheard a young girl, passing from one of these intolerant sermons against the catholics, exclaim with uplifted hands and horror vividly expressed on her countenance "Are there any of these bloody papists now in Dublin?" The incident, which would only have excited the laughter of a less reflective mind, filled Dr. Curry with the deepest anxiety. He found that the child's terrors proceeded from the anniversary sermon preached that day in Christ's church he procured a copy of it, and found it surcharged with historical slander and the grossest misrepresentations. From that day he dedicated the whole weight and energies of his mind to the cause of catholic emancipation; repelling the calumny, and checking the asperity which issued from those seats which had been set apart for the exercise of truth and benevolence. His principal work, entitled "A Historical and Critical Review of the Civil Wars in Ireland, from the Reign of Queen Elizabeth to the

"HISTORY OF THE IRISH CATHOLICS," p. 223.

Settlement of King William," remains to this day a monument of his industry and ability. It added much to our historical information of Ireland, removed many of the calumnies of the enemy, and cleared the way for the exertions of future labourers in the same field.

MR. O'CONOR of Ballengar, the ancestor of The O'Conor Don, was intimately associated with Dr. Curry in his efforts for the emancipation of the catholics. He was descended in a right line, from Roderick O'Conor, the last of the kings of Ireland; but the estates of the family had been completely broken down by the long persecution which the Irish catholic landlords had to undergo, until only a shred of property remained. Eight hundred acres of bad land, overburdened with debt, was barely sufficient to keep him and his family above the level of poverty. He was poor, and lived in a cottage, devoting himself for the greater part of his life, to the study of the history and the antiquities of his native country. Mr. O'Conor's first public appearance as a defender of the catholics of Ireland, was as a pamphleteer, in 1747. Sir Richard Cox had charged Lucas, the author of "The Barber's Letters," with being an incendiary and a papist, whose design was to make way for the introduction of the Pretender. Mr. O'Conor was roused to making a "Counter Appeal," under the signature of "A Protestant Dissenter." To have published it as the work of a catholic, would have been to consign it to oblivion; to such an extent were catholic publications then proscribed by protestant bigo try. But the tract, as emanating from a protestant, was read with avidity; and proved of considerable service in the vindication of the catholic body from the historical aspersions of their enemies. Mr. O'Conor continued, at various intervals, to address the public on the same question,-often with surpassing effect.

Mr. WYSE was the third co-operator in the work of national regeneration. He was the descendant of an English or Norman family, which had accompanied Earl Strongbow to Ireland, and afterwards settled in that country. The estates of his family had also been frittered away by successive confiscations; yet he brought to the catholic cause a mind ardent, fearless, and indomitable. "His habits," says his descendant, the Right Hon. Thomas Wyse, M. P., "were not literary but active; little content with oblitera ting Protestant prejudice, he thought a more important task remained behind-the compressing into shape and system the scattered energies of his Catholic countrymen.-To that purpose, with the firmness of a will not easily to be swayed from its object, he bent the energies of a bold and earnest conscience. To him and to Dr. Curry, the Catholic body owe the seeds of that great confederacy which, in aftertimes was destined, through the labours

* Mr. O'Conor used to relate, that his father, after the Revolution, was obliged to plough his own fields, and that he would often say to his sons-" Boys, you must not be insolent to the poor. I am the son of a gentleman, but ye are the children of a ploughman."

of mightier men, to embrace the entire island. But his fate was not so tranquil as that of either of his companions. He had rendered himself a far more conspicuous mark to the hostility of the persecutor: his days were embittered and endangered by every ingenious application of the penal code which his enemies could devise; and after successively proving in his own person the inflictions of the gavel act, and of the disarming act, the ingenious malignancy of the discoverer, the secret conspiracy of the Protestant minister, the treacherous calumny of the informer, he sunk broken-hearted into the grave, leaving it as an injunction in his last will to his children," that they should, with all convenient speed, sell the remainder of their hereditary property, (a portion of which had already been disposed of for that purpose), and seek out some other country, where they might worship God like other men, in peace, and should not be persecuted for manfully observing in the open day the religion of their hearts, and the dictates of an honest conscience."*

At the period when these distinguished men commenced their labours, the prospect of improvement seemed black enough. The great mass of the catholics were almost unconscious of their own degradation. The loss of rights and of property had made them. indifferent, spiritless, and quiescent under their wrongs. The sacred spark of patriotism became extinct; they were content, barely to exist, to vegetate-the patient victims of their country's wrongs, and the insensible spectators of its ruin. The clergy and the aristocracy also, were quite indisposed to take any part in the efforts attempted to be made for the relief of the catholic population. Long habits of submission to oppression had debased the minds of the upper classes, into a tame acquiescence with the stern dictates of English supremacy. Perhaps they feared, and with reason, that the very clanking of their chains might rouse their keeper from his slumber, only to rivet them the more securely.

Though the parliament had long sunk into a mere instrument for recording the anti-Irish acts of the English government, it is remarkable that it was the first to give the presage of hope to the Irish people. A few words will be sufficient to explain the state of parliament at this period: The House of Commons was a mere mockery of representation. The great bulk of the people, both catholic and protestant, were completely divested of political power: they had no franchise. The power to send members to parliament rested in the Irish corporations, which were sinks of vice and corruption. They were regular articles of sale; every Each had its PROTESTANT patron, whose one having its price. nominees they returned to parliament, receiving in return, places in the customs and excise, and very often hard cash. The proprietors of the boroughs formed a body called undertakers, who entered

HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION, p. 44–5.