neglected or omitted to put them (the penal laws) in due execution, were betrayers of the liberties of the kingdom;" and in June, 1705, they resolved, "That the saying and hearing of mass, by persons who had not taken the oath of abjuration, tended to advance the interest of the Pretender; and that such judges and magistrates as wilfully neglected to make diligent inquiry into, and to discover such wicked practices, ought to be looked upon as enemies to her Majesty's Government." And, upon another occasion, they resolved, "That the prosecuting and informing against Papists was an honorable service to the Government.' 993

GEORGE I.

The following acts of Parliament were passed in this reign, for the purpose of strengthening the system which had been adopted by William and Anne, for preventing the growth of Popery.

An act to make the militia of this kingdom more useful.4

By the 11th and 12th clauses of this act, the horses of Papists may be seized for the militia.

By the 4th and 18th clauses, Papists are to pay double towards raising the militia.

By the 16th clause, Popish house-keepers in a city, are to find ́ fit Protestant substitutes.

An act to restrain Papists from being high or petty constables, and for the better regulating the parish watches.5

An act for the more effectual preventing fraudulent conveyances, in order to multiply votes for electing members to serve in Parliament, &c.6

By the 7th clause of this act, no Papist can vote at an election, unless he takes the oaths of allegiance and abjuration.

An act for the better regulating the town of Galway, and for strengthening the Protestant interest therein."

An act for the better regulating the corporation of the city of Kilkenny, and strengthening the Protestant interest therein.

8

An act by which Papists resident in towns, who shall not provide a Protestant watchman to watch in their room, shall be subject to certain penalties.9

By the 12th Geo. I. c. 9. §. 7. No Papist can vote at any vestry held for the purpose of levying or assessing money for rebuilding and repairing parish churches.

4 2d G. I. c. 9.

52d G. I. c. 10.-This act expired in three years, and was not renewed.

I Com. Jour. 3. 289.

2 Ib. 319.

3 Ib. 319.

6 2d Geo. I. c. 19.

7 4th Geo. I. c. 15.

9 6th Geo. I. c. 10.

These acts of Parliament originated in the same spirit of persecution, which disgraced the reigns of William and Anne, and were, like the penal laws against the Catholics of those reigns, palpable violations of the treaty of Limerick. Though a glimmering of toleration had found its way into the councils of England, and given rise to "an act for exempting Protestant dissenters of this Country (Ireland) from certain penalties to which they were subject," the Catholics were excluded, by a particular clause, from any benefit of it. And though it was in this reign that the first act1 passed "for discharging all persons in offices and employments from all penalties which they had incurred by not qualifying themselves, pursuant to an act to prevent the further growth of Popery," the favor conferred by it was wholly to the Protestant dissenters, as no Catholic had been placed in any public office since the passing of that penal law.

The loyalty of the Catholics was in this reign put to a complete trial, by the Scotch rebellion of 1715. If, after having fought three campaigns in support of James's pretensions to the throne of Ireland; after having experienced the infraction of every part of the treaty of Limerick, and been exposed to a code of statutes, by which they were totally excluded from the privileges of the constitution; and if, after they had become subject "to the worst of all oppressions, the persecution of private society and private manners," they had embarked in the cause of the invader, their conduct would have been that of a high spirited nation, goaded into a state of desperation by their relentless tormentors, and if their resistance had been successful, their leaders would have ranked among the Tells and Washingtons of modern history. But so far from yielding to the natural dictates of revenge, or attempting to take advantage of what was passing in Scotland to regain their rights, they did not follow the example of their rulers, in violating, upon the first favorable opportunity, a sacred and solemn compact; and thus they gave the strongest testimony, that they had wholly given up their former hopes of establishing a Catholic prince upon the throne. Their loyalty was not, however, a protection to them against the oppressions of their Protestant countrymen. The penalties for the exercise of their religion, were generally and rigidly inflicted. Their chapels were shut up, their priests dragged from their hiding-places, hurried into prisons, and from thence sent into banishment.

16th Geo. I. c. 9.

2 Burke's Letter to a Peer of Ireland.

GEORGE II.

In this reign, the following additional disabilities were imposed upon the Catholics.

By the 1st G. II. c. 9. sect. 7. no Papist can vote at an election without taking the oath of supremacy. However great the oppression which the Catholics had experienced during former reigns, this measure altogether completed their entire exclusion from the benefits of the Constitution, and from the opportunity of regaining their former just rights. It was because this privilege had begun to operate amongst Protestants in a manner very favorable to the Catholics, and to bring about a feeling of regret for their sufferings, and a coalition between the two parties to oppose the influence of the English Government as a common cause of grievances, that Primate Boulter advised the Ministers to pass this law.

His principle of government for Ireland, was to uphold the English interest by the divisions of the inhabitants; and, on this occasion, it induced him to adopt the desperate resolution of disfranchising, at one stroke, above five-sixths of its population.'

By the first clause of 1st Geo. II. c. 30. barristers, six clerks, &c. are required to take the oath of supremacy.

By the second clause all converts, &c. are bound to educate their children as Protestants.

By 7th Geo. II. c. 5. sect. 12. barristers or solicitors, marrying Papists, are deemed Papists, and made subject to all penalties as such.

By 7th Geo. II. c. 6. no convert can act as a justice of the peace, whose wife, or children, under 16 years of age, are educated Papists.

The 13th Geo. II. c. 6. is an act to amend former acts for disarming Papists.

By the 6th clause of this act, Protestants educating their children as Papists, are made subject to the same disabilities as Papists are. By 9th Geo. II. c. 3. no person can serve on a petty jury, unless seized of a freehold of 5l. per annum, or, being a Protestant, unless possessed of a profit rent of 15l. per annum under a lease for years.

By 9th Geo. II. c. 6. sect. 5. persons robbed by privateers, during war with a Popish prince, shall be reimbursed by grand jury pre

• Primate Boulter, in his Letter of this year to the Archbishop of Canterbury (1st. vol. p. 210.) says, "There are, probably, in this kingdom, five Papists, at least, to one Protestant."

sentment, and the money be levied upon the goods and lands of Popish inhabitants only.

The 19th Geo. II. c. 5. is an act for granting a duty on hawkers and pedlars to the society of Protestant charter-schools.1

The 19th Geo. II. c. 13. is an act to annul all marriages between Protestants and Papists, or celebrated by Popish priests.2

By the 23rd Geo. II. c. 10. sect. 3. every Popish priest who shall celebrate any marriage contrary to 12th Geo. I. c. 3. and be thereof convicted, shall be hanged.

Of these last acts, and of Lord Chesterfield's administration, Mr. Burke gives the following account-"This man, while he was duping the credulity of the Papists with fine words in private, and commending their good behaviour during a rebellion in Great Britain, as it well deserved to be commended and rewarded, was capable of urging penal laws against them in a speech from the throne,3

The following is the preamble of the charter for erecting these schools. "George II. by the grace of God, &c. Forasmuch as we have received information, by the petition of the lord primate, lord chancellor, archbishops, noblemen, bishops, judges, gentry, and clergy, of our kingdom of Ireland, that in many parts of the said kingdom, there are great tracts of land almost entirely inhabited by Papists, who are kept by their clergy in great ignorance of the true religion, and bred up in great dissatisfaction to the Government. That the erecting of English Protestant schools in those places, is absolutely necessary for their conversion; that the English parish schools already established, are not sufficient for that purpose; nor can the residence of the parochial clergy only fully answer that end."-Catholics are excluded by this charter from being subscribers to, or members of this society. Vid. Report of Committee of Irish H. of Commons, 14 Ap. 1788. Ir. Comm. Journ. 12 Ap. 810.

The children admitted into the schools are orphans, or the children of Catholic and other poor natives of Ireland, who, from their situation in life, are not likely to educate them as Protestants. They are apprenticed at the age of fourteen years, with a fee of seven guineas with each female, and of five guineas with each male, into Protestant families. The society give a portion of five pounds to every person educated in these schools, upon his or her marrying a Protestant.

In Sept. 1806, the number of children in the schools were 2130.

The funds of the society consist in lands, funded property, and an annual grant of Parliament. They amount to about 34,000l. per annum. From the year 1754, 31 Geo. II. c. 1. to the 1st January, 1808, there has been granted by Parliament to this society 491,3267. besides certain duties on hawkers and pedlars, from 1754 to 1786.

By the 23rd G. II. c. 11. the society may appoint persons to take up beggar children, and send them to the charter schools, and when old enough bind them apprentices.

By the same act, §. 8. a child received with the parent's consent, is deemed a child of the public, and may be disposed of though claimed by the parent. 2 The first act on this head is 6 Anne, c. 16. 1, &c. 8 Anne, c. 3. Sect. 26. 3 "The measures that have hitherto been taken to prevent the growth of Popery, have, I hope, had some, and will still have a greater effect; however I leave it to your consideration whether nothing further can be done, either by new laws, or by more effectual execution of those in being, to secure the nation

and of stimulating with provocatives the wearied and half exhausted bigotry of the Parliament of Ireland. They set to work, but they were at a loss what to do; for they had already almost gone through every contrivance which could waste the vigor of their country: but, after much struggle, they produced a child of their old age, the shocking and unnatural act about marriages, which tended to finish the scheme for making the people not only two distinct par. ties for ever, but keeping them as two distinct species in the same land. Mr. Gardiner's humanity was shocked at it, as one of the worst parts of that truly barbarous system, if one could well settle the preference, where almost all the parts were outrages on the rights of humanity and the laws of nations."

Of the conduct of the Catholics during the Scotch rebellion of 1745, fortunately for them, but greatly to the shame of those who accuse them of being actuated by religious principles inconsistent with their duty to their sovereign, there is on record an irrefutable document. In the year 1762, upon a debate in the House of Lords, about the expediency of raising five regiments of Catholics for the King of Portugal, the Primate, Dr. Stone, in answer to the usual objections that were urged on all occasions against the good faith and loyalty of that body, declared in his place, "that in the year 1747, after that rebellion was entirely suppressed, happening to be in England, he had an opportunity of perusing all the papers of the rebels, and their correspondents, which were seized in the custody of Murray, the Pretender's secretary; and that, after having spent much time, and taken great pains in examining them, not without some share of the then common suspicion, that there might be some private understanding and intercourse between them and the Irish Catholics, he could not discover the least trace, hint, or intimation of such intercourse or correspondence in them, or of any of the latter's favoring or abetting, or having been so much as made acquainted with the designs or proceedings of these rebels. And what," he said, "he wondered at most of all was, that in all his researches, he had not met with any passage in any of these papers, from which he could infer, that either their holy father, the pope, or any of his cardinals, bishops, or other dignitaries of that church, or any of the Irish clergy, had either directly, or indirectly, encouraged, aided, or approved of the commencing or carrying on of that rebellion."2

against the greater number of Papists, whose speculative errors would only deserve pity if their pernicious influence upon civil society did not both require and authorise restraint."-Speech to both Houses of Parliament, October 8, 1745.-Com. Jour. 7. 642.

Letter to a Peer in Ireland.

2 Curry, Rev. of the civil wars of Ireland, 2. 261.