in Ireland kept not the same equilibrium as in England: 1703. the great mass of the Irish people was forced or frightened out of any political interference with state affairs. The Queen, who held her crown against the claims of her brother by the tenure of protestantism, readily yielded to the cries of both parties to oppress the great body of her catholic subjects of Ireland.

venting the

popery,

No crimes, no new offences, no attempts against Act for prethe government, were laid to their charge: and a new growth of code of unparalleled rigor was imposed upon this suffering people. They had formerly been deprived of their inheritances: they were now prevented from ever again acquiring an inch of land in that kingdom, and subjected to further penalties and disabilities for professing their religion *. Nothing more strongly pourtrays the abandoned state of the Irish catholics at this period, than that no man in either house of parliament stood up in their favour to oppose the act for preventing the further growth of Popery.

* Without entering into a nauseating detail of this new penal code, suffice it to refer the reader to Mr. Burke's highlyfinished picture of it in his admirable Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe, (Let. to Lang. p. 67.) to whom he says: "You ahhorred it, as I did, for its vicious perfection. For I must do it just ice. It was a complete system full of coherence and consistency : well digested and well composed in all its parts. It was a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance; and as well fitted for the pppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man."

1703. Some members of the commons affected to clear themselves of responsibility, by resigning their seats to others of a more pliant disposition *. Resignations on this score became so frequent, that the house came to à resolution," that the excusing of members at their own request from the service of the house, and thereupon issuing out new writs to elect other members to serve in their places, was of dangerous consequence, and tended to the subversion of the constitution of parliament." And it was afterwards resolved unanimously," that it might be the standing order of the house, that no new writs for electing members of parliament in place of members excusing themselves from the service of the house, do issue at the desire of such members, notwithstanding any former precedents to the contrary."

Force of anti-catho

So violent was the tide of anti-catholic prejudice at lic preju- this period in Ireland, that the British cabinet feared

dice.

to oppose the severity they condemned. The Queen was at this time in alliance with the Emperor, and upon the strength of it had interceded with him for certain indulgencies on behalf of his protestant subjects. It appeared therefore an ill-judged moment to encrease the persecution of her own subjects, who were

* These members instead of opposing what they condemned, like Pilate washed their hands before the people, in proof of their innocence. This prevaricating system of debasement has been recently followed on the question of union, by the temporizing or venal secession of members, who wanted assurance to support that measure, which they left to be carried by the votes of their less punctilious substitutes.

dis

not protestants. Her ministers feared the party, which 1703. had proposed the measure, in which were many senters of great political influence. They resorted in the true spirit of Stuart policy to the following expedient. They superadded to the bill, already surcharged with cruelty, a clause, by which all persons in Ireland were rendered incapable of any employment under the crown, or of being magistrates in any city, who should not, agreeably to the English Test Act, receive the sacrament according to the usage of the church of Ireland. To this it was presumed the dissenters would not have submitted; and so the bill would be lost. The base experiment failed, and the unintended severity feli both upon the protestant dissenters and 'the catholics: not because they merited punishment, but because a timid and insincere ministry preferred duplicity and deceit to candor and manliness*. The bill, thus loaded with the intemperate rigor, which the British cabinet had heaped upon it for preventing its passing, went through both houses without opposition from a single member in any stage of its progress.

of the vio

the articles

This bill was conceived by the persons comprised in Complaints the articles of Limerick, to be a direct violation of lation of them. Lord Kinsland and colonel Brown, with seve- of Limerick. ral other catholic gentlemen, petitioned to be heard by

Burnett says, "it was hoped by those who got this clause added to the bill, that those in Ireland who promoted it most would now be the less fond of it, when it had such a weight hung to it." History of his own Times, Vol. II. 214.

This was Lord Godolphin's ministry.

1703. counsel against it: this was granted.

Protestant

dissenters

against the

al Test.

After the arguments of Sir Theobald Butler, Mr. Malone, and Sir Stephen Rice, of counsel for the petitioners, had been heard both at the bar of the House of Lords and Commons, and totally disregarded, the petitioners were tauntingly assured, that if they were deprived of the benefit of the articles of Limerick, it was their own fault, since by conforming to the established religion, they would be entitled to these and many other benefits that therefore they ought not to blame any but themselves: that the passing of that bill into a law was needful for the security of the kingdom at that juncture, and in short, that there was nothing in the articles of Limerick which should hinder them from passing it *.

The protestant dissenters did not silently submit to petition be involved in the severity, which substantially and Sacrament- formally was intended by the parliament of Ireland and the cabinet of England to fall upon the catholics exclusively; they accordingly presented a petition to the commons on the occasion of the above-mentioned clause, which has been usually termed the Sacramental Test, complaining, that to their great surprise and disappointment they found a clause inserted in The Act to prevent the further Growth of Popery,

* Debates on the Popery Bill, 2 Ann. The arguments of counsel before the commons on the 22d of February, and before the lords on the 28th of February, 1703, are given in the Appendix to my Historical Review, No. LII. Mr. Arthur Brown, in 1788, one of the representatives for the University of Dublin, pub. lished a very warm pamphlet to refute this charge, which he conceived tended to bring odium on the protestant interest.

which had not its rise in that honourable house; 1704. whereby they were disabled from executing any public trust for the service of her Majesty, the protestant religion, or their country, unless contrary to their consciences they should receive the Lord's Supper according to the rites and usages of the established church. This parliament was disposed to favour the dissenters, inasmuch as they joined with it in the common cause against the catholics; but its horror

of

popery outbalanced its tenderness for presbytery, and it prevailed by fair words with the dissenters to withdraw their opposition to the bill, on a specious promise, that the clause obnoxious to them should be repealed in their favour. Cruelty and injustice generally go hand in hand. Not only the clause affecting the dissenters, whose punishment could in no shape check the growth of popery, was left unrepealed, but during this queen's reign it was frequently carried into the most rigorous execution.

persecuted

The ingratitude of the Stuart family never ceased The Irish to press upon those, who had been the first and the last by the Stuto fight for them in their distresses. In the front of theirfriends.

* Vid. Com. Journ. Vol. II. 451.

+ In October, 1707, the commons came to resolutions, that by the Act to prevent the further Growth of Popery, the burgesses of Belfast were obliged to subscribe the declaration and receive the Sacrament according to the usage of the Church of Ireland: and that the burgessship of the said burgesses of Belfast, who had not subscribed the declaration and received the sacrament pursuant to the said act, was by such neglect become vacant. Vide

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arts and