The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century

Front matter

IEELAND. Vol. __OXDON : PRINTED UV SPOTTISWOOOE AND CO., NEW-fcTItEET f-Q7- • I ASD PARLIAMENT STRE* " IRELAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. BY JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, M.A. IN THREE VOLUMES. Vol. II. LONDON : LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1874. AU sights reserved. CONTENTS.

BOOK V. CHAPTER

I. THE REVIVAL OF THE CELTS. SECTION . Pj1GE I. Effects of English institutions in Ireland . . 2 Irish finance ........ 4 The Oligarchy and its motives .... 6 The Septennial Bill 8 II. Growth of the Catholic population .... 11 Revival of national spirit ..... 12 Dr. Curry's history ...... 13 Apparent Catholic loyalty 15 Irish Catholic regiments raised for service in Portugal 18 III^The landlords and the peasantry .... 20 Absenteeism ........ 22 .- Whiteboys 23 Father Sheehy 29 Connection of the Whiteboys with the Pretender . 32 IV. Condition of the people ...... 35 The Pension List ....... 36 Scheme of George the Third for the better government of Ireland ....... 40 Viceroyalty of Lord Townshend .... 44 V._ Parties and persons ....... 46 Henry Flood 48 Grattan and Fitzgibbon VI CONTENTS.

Chapter II. Lord Townshend's Administration

SECTION PAGE I. Irish views on Reform ...... 56 Parliamentary intrigues . . r. . .58 Principles of Irish politicians ..... 62 Dissolution of Parliament ..... 69 II. Material improvement of Ireland .... 71 Townshend's difficulties ...... 73 Revenue frauds ....... 75 Rejection of Supply Bill ..... 78 Thoughts of governing Ireland without Parliament 80 Dismissals from the Council ..... 85 Prorogation . . . . . . . .87 III. Alternatives before Lord Townshend ... 89 Purgation of the Board of Revenue and defeat of the Oligarchy ........ 91 Justice to Ireland ....... 95 Indiscipline of the army ...... 98 IV. Price of Townshend's victory .... 100 Resignation of the Speaker ..... 103 Justice to Ireland again ..... 104 V. Corruption and its effects ..... 107 Fresh difficulties . . . . . . .111 Government relieved by Lord Shannon . . . 114 VI.

Irish grand juries . . . . . . . 116 The Oak Boys 116 The Donegal evictions and the Hearts of Steel . 119 Emigration to America ...... 125 Irishmen out of Iceland . . ■ . . .127

Chapter III. Lord Harcourt And Colonel Blaquiere

I. Irish Presbyterians ..... 129 English Colonial policy ...... 132 American complaints ..... 134 Resolution of the English Parliament . . .137 Lexington ... ... . . . 139 Bunker's Hill . . . . . . . ja,i CONTENTS. SECTION PAGE II. Lord Harcourt as Viceroy ..... 145 Introduction to Irish public life .... 147 Responsibilities of an Irish Secretary . . . 148 Proposed Absentee Tax . . . . . .150 III. Parliamentary manœuvres ..... 159 Breach of the woollen compact . . . .162 English injustice and its effects on Irish character 164 IV. Mr. Henry Flood 170 Lord Harcourt's difficulties ..... 172 \ Sympathy between the Irish Protestants and America 1 75 Loyalty of the Irish Catholics ..... 176 n American tendencies of the Irish Parliament . .179 Demands for justice ...... 183 English perversity 184 New Parliament ....... 187

BOOK VI. CHAPTER

I. THE BEGINNINGS OF RETRIBUTION. I. Effects of misgovernment . . . ... . 190 Irish landlords :...... 192 The Irish Church 195 England to be brought to a reckoning . . . 199 II. The American War 201 Surrender of General Burgoyne . . ... 204 War with France and Spain . . . . ' . 205 III. American privateers in St. George's Channel . . 208 Mr. Grattan in the Irish Parliament . . . 209 Catholic relief 210 The Volunteer movement 211 Paul Jones 212 Relaxation of the Trade Laws .... 214 Modification of the Penal Laws .... 216 Privateers 219 s. Debates on Ireland in the English Parliament . . 221 Woollen restrictions maintained .... CONTENTS. PAGE SECTION Opinions of leading Irishmen on the causes of Irish distress ........ 224 Lord Lifford's opinion ...... 225 Mr. Pery 226 Mr. Hussey Burgh . . . . . . .227 Mr. Hely Hutchinson 228 IV.

Ireland undefended 232 Formation of Volunteer Companies .... 234 Paul Jones again ....... 235 The Irish Parliament demands Free Trade . . 238 Volunteer demonstration ..... 241 Riot in Dublin 242 Speech of Hussey Burgh ...... 244 V. Acknowledged wrongs of Ireland .... 247 Relief of the Presbyterians ..... 249 VI. The embargo 253 The Black Prince and Princess .... 255 Grattan's resolutions ...... 259 The Mutiny Act 261 The Patriot army 264 Demand for protection . . . . . .267 The houghers 268 Non-importation agreement . . . . .270 The Viceroy's difficulties 272

CHAPTER II. THE CONSTITUTION OF

1782. I. League against England ...... 274 The Protestant Colony of Ireland .... 276 Grattan and Catholic Emancipation . . . 278 II. Progress of the war in America .... 281 Lord Cornwallis in the Southern States ... . 283 Surrender at York Town ..... 286 III. Progress of revolutionary sentiment in Ireland . 288 Difficulties in managing the Irish Parliament . . 289 The Volunteers ....... 292 Session of 1781 293 Mr. Flood ........ 296 Siege of Gibraltar ....... 298 Attack on Poynings' Act ..... CONTENTS. IX SECTION PAGE The 6th of George 1 302 Concessions to the Catholics ..... 304 IV. Effects of the Penal Laws 306 The Dungannon Resolutions ..... 309 Catholic education .312 Proposed policy of Hely Hutchinson . . . 313 Mr. Grattan 317 Change of Ministry in England .... 319 V. The Rockingham Administration .... 320 Duke of Portland Viceroy of Ireland . . . 321 Errors of the English Liberal party in Irish policy . 324 Demands of the Patriots ..... 325 VI.

Declaration of Rights 328 Ultimatum of Mr. Grattan 331 Public principle of Flood 333 Correspondence of Portland with Lord Shelburne . 336 Alternative of the abandonment of Ireland . . 337 England concedes Grattan's demands . . . 341 Constitution of '82 342 Honours paid to Grattan ...... 344 Dissatisfaction of Flood 347 General Reform 350 Character of Flood 352

BOOK VII. CHAPTER

I. THE CONVENTION. I. Anomalies in the New Constitution .... 355 The Volunteers 356 Scene at Dunleckny 359 II. Fresh alarms of danger to Irish liberty . . . 361 Effects of the revolution 363 The Irish Parliament 365 T\Vo kinds of liberty 367 The Volunteer delegates 369 III. Opinion of Fox 373 VOL. II. & X CONTENTS. SECTION PAGE Grattan supports the Government .... 376 Grattan and Flood 377 IV. The Convention . . ... . . .380 George Robert Fitzgerald ..... 381 The Bishop of Derry ...... 382 The Convention Reform Bill 386 Speech of Fitzgibbon ...... 389 The Convention dissolves ..... 392 V. Changes in the Administration .... 395 Houghing of soldiers . . . . . .397 Defeat of Reform Bill in Parliament . . . 399 An appeal before the Irish House of Lords . . 401 Necessary increase of English influence . . . 403 Political morality of the Irish Peers . . . 404 VI.

Difficulty of Government in Ireland . . . 407 Violence of the Dublin mob ..... 409 Tarring and Feathering Committee .... 411 Irish patriots and Government detectives ; Father O'Leary 413 VII. Fitzgibbon and the Sheriff of Dublin . . .417 Pitt's views on Reform ...... 420 VIII. Project for the improvement of Irish trade . . 422 The Commercial propositions ill received . . 424 IX. Speech of Fitzgibbon on the Volunteers . . . 429 Debate in Parliament ...... 433 Fresh schemes of Reform ..... 436 X. The Commercial propositions re-introduced . . 438 Political tempest ....... 441 Fitzgibbon on Ireland and Great Britain . . . 443

CHAPTER II. WHITEBOYS, HIGH AND LOW.

I. Social state of Ireland ...... 447 The Bishops of the Establishment .... 449 Failure of the Charter Schools .... 451 Tithe proctors ....... 453 Whiteboys . . 454 II. The Pension List ....... 4G2 A Police Bill . . . . . . . . 464 •Opposed by the Patriots . . . . . 4QQ The Tithe question CONTENTS. XI SECTION PAGE Repression of Whiteboys. Sir Richard Musgrave . 473 III. Conspiracy Bill 476 Debate on the state of Munster . . . . 479 Measures for the preservation of peace . . . 484 IV. General corruption of public life .... 486 Peep-of-day Boys ....... 489 V. Grattan and the Prince of Wales .... 491 Illness of George the Third 492 Irish and English views on the Regency . . . 494 Expected change in the Irish Government . .495 Irish views of Independence ..... 496 Speech of Fitzgibbon on the Regency question . 498 Address of the Irish Houses to the Prince of Wales 503 Second speech of Fitzgibbon ..... 506 VI.

The Round Robin 509 The King recovers ....... 511 Quarrels in the Irish Parliament .... 512 Victory of the Government . . . . .515 The Duke of Leinster and the Ponsonbies deprived of office ........ 517 Political scandal and the formation of the Whig Club CHAP. I. THE ENGLISH IN IEELAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUBY.

BOOK V. CHAPTER

I. THE REVIVAL OF THE CELTS.

Section I

A free government depends for its successful working on the loyal co-operation of the people. Where the people do not co-operate, the forms of liberty are either a mockery, or an instrument of disunion and anarchy. Had the Irish been regarded from the outset as a conquered people whom a stronger neighbour had forced, for its own convenience, into reluctant submission, Ireland would have escaped the worst of her calamities. Her clans would have been held in awe by an army ; public order would have been preserved by a police : but her lands would have been left to their native owners ; her customs and her laws might have been untouched, and her religion need not have been interfered with. The nature of the English VOL. II. . b constitution forbade an experiment which might have been dangerous to our own liberties.

Ireland was in fact a foreign country ; we preferred to assume that she was an integral part of the empire. We imposed upon her our own modes of self-government ; we gave her a parliament, we gave her our trial by jury and our common law ; we assimilated the Irish Church to our own ; and these magnificent institutions refused to root themselves in an uncongenial soil. The Par liament was forbidden to legislate till its decisions had been shaped for it beforehand. The rule of feudal tenure inflicted forfeiture on rebellion ; the native owners were therefore dispossessed for assert ing the liberties of their country ; and their estates were bestowed upon aliens. The Irish preferred their own laws to ours. They became hi consequence ' Irish enemies ' and outlaws, and might be wronged and killed with impunity.

When we forced them at last to submit to our laws, trial by jury made the execution of them impossible ; and with equal impunity the colonists could then be murdered, their cattle houghed, and their daughters ravished by the natives. The Church being an estate of the realm and a governing section of the constitution, the Church in the two countries had to be shaped on the same pattern. At the conquest we forced the Irish Church into submission to the Papacy. At the Re formation we forced it to apostatise. As the Reforma tion pursued its course, the theory of our Church Establishment split the garrison of Protestants, whom we had planted in the island, into hostile camps. A free representative legislature which yet was not free and was not representative — a gentry who could not rule — a Church which could not teach — laws which CHAP. I. could not be enforced — these were the consequences which resulted from the preference of unreality to fact.

They might all have been avoided had the truth been acknowledged and acted on ; but England was unable to recognise that constitutional liberty in our country might be constitutional slavery in another. If the object was to absorb and extinguish the spirit of Irish nationality, it singularly failed of at tainment. Had the union been conceded for which the presentiments of the Irish Parliament led them to petition in 1704 ; had trade and manufactures been allowed to develop, and the stream of British Pro testant emigration been directed continuously into all parts of the island, the native population might have been overborne or driven out, and the mother countrv might have retained the affections of a people with whom she would then have been identified in interest and sentiment. By a contemptible jealousy she flung them back upon themselves, a minority amidst a hostile population, and condemned them to idleness and impoverishment ; she left them to add their own grievances to the accumulated wrongs of the entire country ; while she left them at the same time their own Parliament, in which the national discontent could find a voice ; and taught them to look for allies among her own enemies.

The Protestant revolt will form the subject of the present volume. It was an act of madness — madness in the colony which revolted — madness in the mother country which provoked the quarrel. The colonists were an army of occupation amidst a spoliated nation who were sullenly brooding over their wrongs. By England's help alone they could hope to retain their ascendency. It was England's highest interest to b2 keep the garrison strong, if she was to escape a recur rence of the dangers which had already cost her so dear. The colonists in their own vanity and exasperation forgot or despised the peril from a race whom they regarded as slaves. England, half conscious of an injustice which she was too proud or too negligent to redress, attempted to hold the colony in check by patronising and elevating the Catholic Celts.

Before the story can proceed, the events mentioned at the close of the last chapter require to be described more particularly. Poisonous as were the laws in restraint of trade, unequal as was the executive government to the repression of the most vulgar crimes, the administra tion of Ireland possessed a single merit. If it did nothing, it cost little. The taxation was light, and the finances, notwithstanding the infamy of the Pension List, were economically managed. At the middle of the century the annual revenue averaged eight hundred thousand pounds. Of the entire sum, the fixed excise and customs duties, the quit rents, and the hearth money which had been settled upon the Crown, and were be yond control of Parliament, produced three quarters, which were supplemented by a biennial grant.

A debt of a million incurred in the Spanish succession war was materially reduced on the re-establishment of peace. In 1749 the income exceeded the expenditure, and it was agreed on all hands that the surplus should be appropriated to the discharge of the little that remained. On the principle there was no difference. But whether the Irish House of Commons was to have the honour of suggesting the appropriation in com pliance with their asserted privilege of originating their own money bills, or whether it was to be recom- CHAP. I. 1753 mended from England, according to the English construction of Poynings' Act, which forbade the in troduction of bills into the Irish Parliament that had not been first submitted to the English Council, became a burning question. The self-respect of Ireland was held to depend on the right solution of it, and the two countries flung themselves into the struggle with a passion of political desperation during three biennial sessions.

In 1749, in 1751, and in 1753 the Viceroys informed the Commons in the speech from the throne that his majesty would recommend the application of the surplus to the payment of debt. The Commons took no notice of the recommendation, drew the heads of their bills on their own initiation, and forwarded them to England. In England the heads were altered by the Council, and the King's previous consent was re-introduced. Twice the Irish Parlia ment submitted with murmurs. In 1753, under the viceroyalty of the Duke of Dorset, they threw out the altered bill by a majority of five. The additional duties were refused and the business of the country was brought to a standstill. A majority in the House of Commons was at this time returned by four great families. The Fitz geralds of Kildare, the Boyles, the Ponsonbys, and the Beresfords, by their county influence and their private boroughs, were the political sovereigns of Ireland.

The government was carried on by their as sistance, and they received in return the patronage of the State. The Viceroy understood the meaning of the vote. The great houses were affecting patriotism for objects of their own, and he found it necessary to capitulate. The terms were privately arranged ; Boyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons, was

BOOK V

made Earl of Shannon, with a pension of 2,0007. a year. John Ponsonby succeeded Boyle as Speaker. The patriot orators were silenced by promotions. Anthony Malone became Chancellor of the Exchequer ; Stannard, Recorder of Dublin, another eloquent ex ponent of the wrongs of Ireland, was made Prime Sergeant. The opposition to England's initiation of money bills was suspended till the great families were again hungry, and fresh expectants of promotion were in a position to be troublesome. The Parliament determined with the Sovereign. On the death of George the Second the House, which had been elected at his accession, came to its mature end, and in October, 1761, the first session was to open of the new representation. Anticipating a demand for a fine on the renewal of the lease, and resolved to resist at the outset the patriotic affectations which were used as a pretext for agitation, the English Council inserted in the first bill, Avhich was sent over to be laid before the new Parlia ment, a clause for the application of a sum of money.

The Earl of Halifax, who was now viceroy, was deafened with the clamours of the Irish servants of the Crown, and doubted the wisdom of his chiefs. The supporters of Government threatened apostacy. The ministers, Halifax thought, might be right in the abstract, but they were pressing an invidious claim in the face of a notorious prejudice. The supplies might be again challenged, and at the opening of a new reign it might be unwise to commence with a quarrel.1 The Secretary of State 2 gave the Viceroy to under- 1 ' Halifax to the Earl of Egremont, Octoher 11, 1761.' S. P. 0. who took office with Newcastle in 1761. 2 Wj'ndham, Earl of Egremont, stand that the insertion of the clause had been made deliberately, and was to be insisted on. The right of Great Britain was indubitable. The assertion of it was considered indispensably necessary to the King's honour and the vindication of the prerogative.

The bill must be laid before Parliament in the form in which it had been sent over. If it failed, Halifax would not be held responsible.1 The storm which Halifax anticipated would have certainly risen but for peculiar conditions under which the new members had been returned. The corruption with which the Government had secured a majority on the appropriation of the surplus had suggested to the constituencies that they might them selves obtain a share in the plunder. Seats in Parliament had been hitherto virtually for life. More frequent elections would compel the representatives to divide their spoils with their supporters. At the elections, to their general surprise, the candidates had been called on for a promise to support a Septennial Act; pledges to that effect having been especially exacted from the servants of the Crown as the price of their return.2 Embarrassed with the prospect of a change which they secretly disliked, while they were themselves afraid to oppose it, to the surprise of Halifax they declined the challenge on the money bill.

They passed the supplies by a large majority. They ventured a resolution that the Pension List had been increased without sufficient reason,3 and seemed to threaten an 1 ' Egremont to Halifax, Octo ber 20.' S. P. 0. 3 The Civil Pension List had grown from 54,49"/. in 1759, to 64,127/. in 1761. Commons' Jour nals, Ireland, 1761. « 2 ' Halifax to Egremont, Octo ber 1701, and December 4, 1761.' attack upon it. The Viceroy lectured the Lords Justices. Egremont wrote that the King was amazed and offended at so extraordinary a demonstration, and insisted that there should be no repetition of it.1 The excitement was unnecessary; the real attention of the Commons was absorbed in the Septennial Bill. Dr. Lucas, the patriot member for Dublin, introduced the heads at the opening of the session. In December, when the Pension storm had abated, the subject came forward for discussion.

Halifax had received no in structions. He expressed no opinion and offered no opposition. If the ministry considered the measure objectionable, he said he could stop it in Council, but he was evidently uncertain in what light it would be regarded. Could the Commons have been assured that the bill would be rejected in England they would have passed it with acclamations. The neutral attitude of the Viceroy alarmed them. They were afraid to turn it out. They were afraid that if sent over it might be returned unopposed. They escaped from the dif ficulty by attaching to it a property qualification as a condition of eligibility so heavy, that so encumbered the most . ardent patriot could only desire that the bill might fail.2 It was presented to the Viceroy, but without the forms which were observed usually with popular measures.

When the House desired to signify a special desire that a bill should be returned to them, the heads were carried to the Castle bv the Speaker, attended by the entire body of members. A motion that the heads of the Septennial Act should 1 'Halifax and Egremont Corre spondence, November 1761.' S.P.O. cation was to be an estate of 600/. a year, for a borough seat 300/. 2 For a county seat the qualifibe so presented was defeated by a majority of two to one, and no sooner had a private member placed the heads in Halifax's hands, than its authors manœuvred in secret to stop it in the Irish Council. Halifax reported that the change was ' uniformly disliked by the most unprejudiced people of rank, influence, and fortune.' ' They were alarmed by secret, and, as they thought, authentic information, that if transmitted it would certainly be returned to them ;' x and Shannon, Ponsonby, and the other prominent members of the Council of State, requested an assurance that their alarms were unfounded before they would consent to let it go.

The ministry, playing with their fears, replied that the King could make no engagements beforehand. The Dublin merchants held a meeting to protest against ' the clandestine arts ' by which an important reform was obstructed. The heads were at last transmitted, passing the Council only, however, by a majority of one. ' The popularity of the Bill has dimin ished,' wrote Halifax, ' as the probability of its being carried into law has increased. Nobody wishes for it. It is unacceptable to those who seemed most sanguine in its favour. Unanimous as they were at first, they will now throw it out rather than pass it.' With a curious consciousness that if the Irish Parliament became a reality it would cease to exist, the patriot members began to fear that the agitation had been set on foot by English treachery, ' as a preliminary step towards a Union.' 2 They might have spared their terrors.

Either by 1 ' Halifax to Egremont, Decemher 11 and December 23, 1761.' 2 ' Halifax to Egremont, Feh ruary 18, 1762.' S. P. O. design or accident, the draftsman had added a con dition which made the bill into an absurdity, and relieved the government of the necessity of bestow ing the most transient consideration on the subject. The heads of the Septennial Act were submitted as usual to the English law officers of the Crown. They returned it to the Lords of the Council with the following report : — ' We have examined the Act for limiting the dura tion of Parliament transmitted from Ireland. So much thereof as limits the duration to a term of seven years, imports a most essential alteration in the constitution of Ireland. The fitness or unfitness of this provision is a matter of State of so high a nature that we submit the same entirely to the wisdom of your lordships. ' For the qualification of members we doubt how far such provisions are expedient for Ireland — whether the qualification be not too high, and the exceptions too few. ' An amendment, however, is absolutely necessary.

No member is to sit, according to the Act, till his qualification is proved, while a full House is sitting, with the Speaker in the chair. The law, therefore, can never be executed, nor any business at all, be cause no Speaker can be chosen before the members have a right to vote ; and no member can exercise his right of voting till such Speaker is chosen.' 1 1 ' Report of the Attorneyand Solicitor-General of England to the Eight Honourable the Lords of a Committee of the Privy Coun cil Appointed to Consider the Irish Bills. March 5,1762.' S. P. 0.

Section II

The penal laws had failed to coerce the Catholics into conformity. The Charter schools had failed to convert them. The penal laws had failed because the English Government had interposed to protect the Catholic clergy. The Charter schools had failed, having been choked in Irish society, as wholesome vegetables are choked in a garden when the weeds are allowed scope to spring.1 Celtic Ireland was reviving from the stupor into which she had been thrown by the Revolution. Exclusion from the land had driven the more energetic of the Catholics into trade. Pro testants who had to seek their fortunes had gone to countries where they were more fairly dealt with, and had left the field open. A commercial Catholic population, ambitious and wealthy, was springing up in Dublin, Limerick, and Cork ; and a time was visibly approaching when their relations to the soil would have to be reconsidered.

Liberal English politicians were already looking to the Catholics as a convenient counterpoise to the Protestant colonists, whom ill- 1 Within a few years of their establishment the Charter schools had ceased to grow. Private bene factions fell off; and though Par liament made no difficulty in voting monev, the annual grants were swallowed up by peculation. The industrial training, so excellent in conception, degenerated by negligence into a system in which the children became the slaves of the masters, and grew up in rags and starvation. As the numbers fell off, infant nurseries were esta blished, the society observing that parents were more willing to part with their children when very young. These nurseries, from a report of one of the managers to the House of Commons, appear at last to have been merely foundling asylums, twenty infants having been found at one of them ' exposed among the carpenters' shavings.' Commons' Journals, November 10, 1761. usage was exasperating into disaffection.

A section of the Catholics, in return — the educated men of business, the more temperate of the bishops, the noble men of Norman- English blood, the Fingals, the Ken mares, the Trimlestons, who had preserved their estates and were allowed their titles by courtesy — were wil ling enough to meet advances to them with cordiality and gratitude. By the side of these, within the same communion, were the irreconcilable spirits Avho inherited the past traditions — the representatives of the dispossessed chiefs — who nursed in secret their unappeased resentment, and revenged their wrongs when opportunity offered, as ravishers of women, cattle-houghers, in cendiaries, and agrarian assassins. To them England was the cause of all the woes which they suffered, and was and should be to the end a loathed and exe crated enemy.

They were themselves the descend ants of the men who had fought at Aghrim, and been cheated at Limerick. In the French brigade they had still an army on the Continent, which they re cruited annually from their own ranks, and to which they looked as their future avenger. The first section accepted their situation, and made the best of it. The second brooded over their wrongs, and fed themselves with dreams of vengeance. Both, perhaps, were at bottom of the same nature, and were working towards the same end ; but their out ward attitude was markedly different. The English Government, accepting the distinction as real, made it the basis of its Irish policy, and the rule of the Castle statesmanship was to conciliate the more repu table Catholics, and to assume that the Catholic creed as such, no longer forbade or interfered with allegiance to a Protestant sovereign.

The first open sign of the approaching change was in the viceroyalty of the Duke of Bedford, who, while in office in 1757, spoke in terms so unambiguous of a relaxation of the penal laws, that public thanks were bestowed on him from the altars of the Catholic chapels. It might have been well to relax the penal laws had the causes for which they were imposed been clearly asserted and admitted. Unhappily the desire of conciliation was pressed 60 far as to disfigure and conceal the facts of history. An annual sermon, preached before the House of Commons on the 23rd of October, was de signed to keep alive the memory of the rebellion and massacres of 1641. Dr. Curry, a Catholic physician of eminence, ventured boldly on the same ground. In a memoir of the period he revived the plea which was alleged to Charles the Second in bar of the Act of Settlement, that the rebellion was no rebellion, but the innocent and cruelly misrepresented effort of a loyal people to defend the Crown against Puritan usurpation ; that half of the alleged cruelties were the invention of fanatical bigots ; that the rest were enor mously exaggerated ; and that so far as blood had been shed at all, it was only in self-defence against a deliberate design to exterminate the Catholic population.