and intended massacre, which were never once thought of. But above all, that they urged them to swear, that the priest, Nicholas Sheehy, died with a lie in his mouth; without doing which, they said, no other discovery would avail them. Upon these conditions, they promised and undertook to procure their pardons, acquainting them at the same time, that they should certainly be hanged, if they did not comply with them." Thus did those virtuous men, prefer even death to a life of guilt, remorse, and shame, the just punishment in this world. of their tempters, as well as the wretches seduced by them.

CHAP. XVII.

Reflections on the foregoing subject!

YET some persons there were, who, in order to save the characters of these their friends, from the horrible imputation of suborning others to commit perjury and murder, strenuously endeavored, and with some success, to have it believed, that credit ought to be given to the testimony of those approvers, in preference to the solemn and unanimous declarations of these dying men. But let us advert a moment to the miserable weakness of the credulity. Those approvers were imprisoned on a charge of murder, and struck with the fear of an ignominious death; being certain, at the same time, that their par don was to be obtained only by the testimony they gave, however false. On the other hand, the dying prisoners beforementioned, had often rejected the like offers of pardon, and solemnly denied their being guilty of the crimes for which they Buffered, in the very article of death; conscious that they were instantly to account for such denial, before an all-seeing Judge. Now when we consider this material difference in the circumstances of the testimonies of the accusers, and the accused, who can forbear concluding, that the oaths of the former were wilful perjuries, prompted by the hopes of a pardon, of which the shedding of innocent blood was to be the only purchase; and that the solemn declarations of the latter, were noble and successful efforts of truth, conscience, and honor, against the strongest temptations to the contrary, that the love

of life, and the tenderest endearments and connexions of this world, could have thrown in their way."

Such, during the space of three or four years, was the fear. ful and pitiable state of the Roman catholics of Munster, and so general did the panic at length become, so many of the lower sort were already hanged, in jail, or on the informers lists, that the greatest part of the rest fled through fear; so that the land lay untilled, for want of hands to cultivate it, and a famine was with reason apprehended. As for the better sort, who had something to lose (and who, for that reason, were the persons chiefly aimed at by the managers of the prosecution), they were at the utmost loss how to dispose of themselves. If they left the country, their absence construed into a proof of their guilt: if they remained in it, they were in imminent danger of having their lives sworn away by informers and approv ers; for the suborning and corrupting of witnesses on that occasion, was frequent and barefaced, to a degree almost beyond belief. The very stews were raked, and the jails rummaged in search of evidence; and the most notoriously profligate in both were selected and tampered with, to give informations of the private transactions and designs of reputable men, with whom they never had any dealing, intercourse, or acquaintance; nay, to whose very persons they were often found to be strangers, when confronted at their trial.

In short, so exactly did these prosecutions in Ireland resem ble, in every particular, those which were formerly set on foot in England, for that villainous fiction of Oates's plot, that the former seem to have been planned aud carried on intirely on the model of the latter; and the same just observation that hath been made on the English sanguinary proceedings, is per fectly applicable to those 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 necessary to per petuate the remembrance of them, as well to maintain the truth of history, as to warn, if possible, our posterity and all man. kind, never again to fall into so shameful and so barbarous a delusion."

CHAP. XVIII.

Some prospect of mitigating the rigor of the popery laws.

ALL this while, the chapels of the Roman catholics were suffered to be open, and the exercise of their religion was actually connived at; although the religion was, at the same time, accused, in the spirit of the framers and advocates of the popery laws, of prompting its professors to these 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 substance, than of the free exercise of their religion; since having long since taken from them almost all that was real of the former, they have left them unmolested with regard to the latter.*

By this connivance, however, the defenders of these laws pretend, that the objection from the breach of the articles of Limerick is removed; as these articles promised nothing more than that the Roman catholics should not be disturbed in the exercise of their religion. But (besides there is a wide difference between a meer connivance and a privilege, the former being purely negative, or a non-hinderance, depending solely on the will or caprice of the persons conniving; the latter, an actual and positive power of doing what is not otherwise prohibited, which power or privilege was the thing stipulated by

* "But it seems (says Mr. Young) to be the meaning, wish and intent of the discovery laws, that none of them (the Irish catholics) should ever be rich. It is the principle of that system, that wealthy subjects would be nuisances; 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 self-contradictions that ever were issued in the world. They are framed in such a manner that no catholic shall have the inducement to become rich.........Take the laws and their execution into one view, and this state of the case is so true, that they actually do not seem to be so much levelled at the religion, as at the property that is found in it.........The domineering aristocracy of five hundred thousand protestants, feel the sweets of having two millions of slaves: they have not the least objection to the tenets of that religion which keeps them by the law of the land in subjection; but property and slavery are too incompatible to live together: hence the special care taken that no such thing should arise among them."-Young's Tour in Irel. vol. ii. p. 48.

the said articles, not only to be preserved, but also to be enlarged by a future parliament; whereas the quite contrary has been since 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 those laws, in so many instances, of both their liberty and property ! Nothing certainly can equal the absurdity of supposing the exercise of that religion to be free and undisturbed, at the same time that it is forbidden and restrained by a multiplicity of severe legal penalties, which are still occasionally inflicted.

Under all these unjust suspicions pressures, and restraints, did the Roman catholics of Ireland labour, by the operation of the two self-executing popery acts of the second and eighth of queen Anne, without the least glimpse of any reasonable hope of redress, until the year 1775; when a prospect seemed to be opened to them of some future alleviation in the legislature's free and unsolicited tender of an oath of allegiance, which has afforded them the long-wished for opportunity of wiping off, effectually, those foul aspersions which for so many years past have been cast 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 witnesses of the constant dutiful behaviour of the Roman catholics of Ireland, under many painful trials; and conscious that their long perseverance in such behaviour was the best proof they could have given of the integrity of that principle, which had hitherto withheld them from sacrificing conscience and honor to any temporal interest, since rather than violate either by hypocritical professions, they bave, under all trials, patiently suffered in that particular: these truly patriotic members, I say, influenced by such motives, caused the aforesaid oath to be framed; which as it is the most certain test, that can possibly be required or given by men, of the sincerity of their professions must sufficiently ensure their civil duty and ailegiance.

As the conciliating spirit of the framers of this oath manifestly appears in the preamble to it, it may not be improper to insert it in this place at large.

"Whereas many of his majesty's subjects in this kingdom

are desirous to testify their loyalty and allegiance to his majesty; and their abhorrence of certain doctrines imputed to them; and to remove jealousies, which hereby have, for a length of time, subsisted between them and others, his majesty's loyal subjects; but upon account of their religious tenets, are by the laws now in being, prevented from giving public assurances of such allegiance, and of their real principles, good-will, and affection towards their fellow subjects; in order, therefore, to give such persons an opportunity of testifying their allegiance to his majesty, and good-will towards the constitution of this kingdom, and to promote peace and industry among the inha bitants thereof, be it enacted, &c."

This test, so well calculated to answer all the necessary purposes of civil duty and allegiance, was, at its first promulgation, voluntarily, and cheerfully taken by a great and respectable number of the Roman catholic clergy, nobility, gentry, and people; when no other apparent benefit to them was either proposed or expected from it, but that of testifying, in the most effectual manner, their loyalty and attachment to his majesty's person and government, as well as their abhorrence of certain impious doctrines, most uncharitably imputed to them by their enemies.

CHAP. XIX.

The catholics of Ireland state their grievances in an humble address and petition to the lord lieutenant to be laid before his majesty.

ABOUT this time these people, fearing that neither the number nor quality of their grievances were truly made known to his majesty, or his council in England; from whom, in the last resort, their redress was expected; set forth and delineated some part of the most considerable of them, in the following dutiful address and petition; which, in order to its being transmitted to England and laid before his majesty, was presented, in due form, to his excellency the earl of Buckinghamshire, lord lieutenant of Ireland, by the right honorable the earl of Fingal, the honorable Mr. Preston, and Authony Dermot, esq. And as it has been hitherto but in few hands, and in