The better to carry into effect these treasonable and sanguinary designs, the most opulent and respectable Roman Catholics assembled at Kilkenny, having the title of "the Supreme Council of the confederate Catholics of Ireland." They assumed the form of Parliament, consisting of two houses, in one of which sat the estate spiritual, composed of titular bishops, together with the temporal lords; and, in the other, the Commons, who were representatives chosen by the counties and cities. They usurped all the power and authority of the legislative and of the executive government; and having a great seal, they authenticated therewith all their acts of sovereignty, and their credentials in the course of their negociations with foreign princes, to whom they sent, and from whom they received ambassadors.† They framed a code of laws, under thirty-three heads, for regulating all the affairs civil and military of the kingdom, which was entitled "Orders made and established by the Lords spiritual and temporal, and the rest of the General Assembly for the Kingdom of Ireland, met at the City of Kilkenny." By the same it was ordained, that their treasonable combination, like that of the United Irishmen, should be cemented by an oath of association, which all parish priests were required to administer to their flocks, after confession and taking the sacrament, to receive subscriptions from them, and to enter in a roll the names of all those who were sworn, and to send the same, signed and sealed, to their respective bishops.§ They ordained that all commanders of armies, military officers and civil magistrates, should obey their orders and decrees, and should do nothing contrary to their directions; that no temporal government or jurisdiction should be assumed or exercised within the kingdom, except such as should be approved of by the general assembly or supreme council; that the King's revenue should be received, and the rents, estates and profits of the lands, and the goods and chattels of the enemies which are, or shall be declared such, by the supreme council, shall be collected and disposed of for his Majesty's use that the possessions of all the A learned writer, the Rev. Dr. Ledwich, in his History of the Antiquities of Ireland, has given the names of all the members, and the places which they represented; pp. 467, 8, 9, 470. Borlase, p. 130. #Ibid. § Idem, p. 134. # Ibid. Idem p. 133. It appears that the United Irishmen resolved to confiscate the property of all enemies, in 1798, that is, of all loyal persons.-Report of the Secret Committee of the House of Commons, 1797; Appendix, II. p. 20.—They meant also to have massacred them, and the first list of proscribed persons amounted to 30,000.-Same of the Lords, Appendix III. p. 49. Protestant clergy should be transferred to and enjoyed by those of the Romish church.* They raised numerous armies, appointed Viscount Gormanstown commander in chief, the Earl of Fingal general of horse, and four provincial generals. They professed the most inviolable faith and allegiance to the King, in their oaths, edicts and proclamations; though they continued to seize his forts; to massacre his loyal subjects; of whom they destroyed as heretics, 100,000; to solicit assistance from foreign princes, to whom they more than once offered his kingdom of Ireland; and to make war against his viceroy the Marquis of Ormond, who seemed to be peculiarly the object of their envenomed hatred. In the first part of their cath of association.† they "promise, protest, and swear, that during their lives they will bear true faith and allegiance to their sovereign Lord Charles, and to his heirs and lawful successors, and defend his just rights and prerogatives;" and in the same breath they swear, that they will obey and ratify all the orders and decrees made or to be made by the supreme council of the confederate Catholics, that they would defend all those who should take said oath, and perform the contents thereof; that they would not seek or receive any pardon or protection for any act done, or to be done, touching said cause, nor consent to any peace made, or to be made, without the approbation of the majority of said supreme council." Lord Orrery observed, that all those who took this oath were involved in gross perjury and in palpable contradictions.§ In the course of this destructive rebellion, they never hesitated to violate the most solemn engagements entered into with the Marquis of Ormond." In the years 1641,|| 1645,¶ and 1648,** they made peace with him,' and each time uniformly violated it, for the sole purpose (observes Lord Orrery), to take him by surprise, when lulled into a state of supine security; for his Lordship remarks on their perfidy in 1646,-" that year, after a peace concluded with them, they attempted, by a treachery not.. paralleled by any but themselves, to cut off the Lord Lieutenant and the army with him, who marched out of Dublin on the security and confidence of that peace. The supreme council bound their General Doctor M'Nevin, one of the most enlightened members of the Catholic committee;; who had even been sent as their ambassador to France, confessed upon oath, that they meant to have overturned the Established Church.-Examination before the Lords, 7th August 1798; Appendix, III. p. 133.—Borlase. + Idem p. 127. Who had usurped the government. Idem, p. 217. ** Idem, p. 263. Preston, by an oath, "to exercise all acts of hostility against the Lord Marquis of Ormond, by name, and his party, and to assist the Lieutenant General in Ulster, employed in the same expedition." "This horrid oath was aggravated by the dissimulation of General Preston, who had promised to serve the King; and the only excuse he could make for violating his promise was, that his army was not Nuncio-proof." "By which it appears, whether the Irish Papists are subject to the Pope or the King, this cath reduced the taker of it to a sad dilemma, to rebellion or perjury."* Soon after the peace made in the year 1648, in the most solemn manner, with the supreme council of Kilkenny, the congregation of the clergy, with their usual perfidy, compelled them to violate it, by that irresistible influence which they maintain over persons of their order, how respectable soever; on which Lord Orrery observes: "in the year 1648, another peace was concluded with the Irish Papists, but after that, they disowned, discharged, opposed, conspired to murder, excommunicated and banished his Majesty's Viceroy."+ During this dreadful rebellion the supreme council offered Ireland to the Pope, and the Kings of France and Spain, and finally invested the Duke of Lorraine,§ with it, by a regular instrument. That illustrious statesman, the Marquis of Ormond, whose zealous loyalty no dangers or difficulties could abate, returned to Ireland with the hope of promoting Rinuccini, the Pope's Nuncio, and the congregation of the clergy, both at Kilkenny and Waterford, excommunicated all persons who should submit to the peace solemnly made by the supreme council with the Viceroy; and they so implicitly obeyed the Nuncio, that they treacherously bound by oath Preston their General, to violate it, and to attack the Viceroy unawares. The supreme council were so much influenced by that assembly of fanatics, "that they committed and delegated the entire and absolute power of governing and commanding, as well in secular as ecclesiastical affairs, to the Pope's Nuncio, who began his empire by committing to prison the commissioners, who had been instrumental in the treaty, and in making that peace by order of the general assembly."-Borlase, pp. 21,214. - Rinuccin's denunciation is headed thus: "A Decree of Excommunication against such as adhere to the late Peace, and bear Arms for the Heretics of Ireland."-Borlase, p. 217. This shows how dangerous the unbounded influence of the Popish clergy may be, under a Protestant state, which they are bound to overturn by the fundamental principles of their religion, and by their canonical oath ; and all these horrible perjuries prove, that the dogma authorised by their Church," that no faith is to be kept with heretics," has been practically illustrated in so many flagrant instances, that, to deny it, is as vain as it is audacious. Answer to Peter Welsh in his State Letters. Borlase, pp. 127, 8, 9. § Idem 351. the interest of his master's son (Charles II.), but all his hopes and plans were frustrated by the folly, the arrogance, and the unreasonable demands of the supreme council of Kilkenny; entirely swayed by the bigotted Popish Ecclesiastics, whose conduct materially contributed to the death of Charles I. The Popish Prelates and Clergy, on the 12th of August 1650, issued an excommunication against any person who should aid, abet, or assist the Marquis of Ormond, in any manner whatsoever; and by the same, they ordered all persons, "to observe in the mean time, the form of government the said congregation should prescribe ;"* by which they, ipso facto, usurped the government of the kingdom. By this engine of l'opish superstition, they accomplished what they could not effect by force of arms, the expulsion of the Marqois of Ormond, who left them to that memorable chastisement, which they received from Oliver Cromwell, a punishment, which for their disloyalty and crimes they so well merited. After having given such woeful proofs of their di loyalty to Charles I., and afterwards to his son and successor, they manifested an inviolable attachment to the republic; for they presented two addresses to the Rump Parliament, who had cut off the King's head, one in 1652, the other in 1655; in which were the following paragraphs: "That they did really subject and put their consciences, lives, and fortunes, as in a sanctuary, under this commonwealth, having ever since walked peaceably, and in due conformity to the government, without the least defection therein; and that the petitioners are able to make appear their constant good affection and adherence to the commonwealth."+ Previously to this rebellion, the Irish Papists enjoyed the full benefit of the constitution, having had peers and commoners in Parliament, sheriffs, justices of the peace, barris ters, and attornies, who were not required to take those oaths of supremacy, and allegiance, which were not dispensed with as to Protestants.‡ Leland tells us, that when they had acquired strength and confidence, by their successful rebellion," they refused the least toleration of the Established Church in any place subject to their power; and, in the extravagance of their expectations, disputed, whether the King should be allowed even one chapel in the capital, when their dominion was to extend over the * Borlase, pp. 326, 327. This affords another strong proof of the danger of entrusting Papists with political power in a Protestant state, from the unbounded influence which their Clergy invariably maintain over them. + Lord Ortery's answer to Peter Welsh, &c. p. 382. Lord Chief Justice Lowther's Speech on Sir Phelim O'Neil's Trial, State Trials. Vol. I. [Prot. Adv. Feb. 1813.] 2 I 7 whole kingdom.* Lord Orrery states the following instance of Popish intolerance;" Dean York, a reverend Minister of God's word, during his residence at Galway, was not allowed to pay the last duties of Christian burial to those Protestants who died in that town, but was forced to bury them, nay his own children, privately in his garden."+ When James II. after his abdication, in the year 1689, went to Ireland, the Popish Convention appointed by him in Dublin, which assumed all the powers and forms of Parliament, passed one law for making Ireland independent of England; another for repealing the Act of Settlement, in the preamble of which the horrid rebellion of 1641 was justified; and a third for attainting every Protestant, whom they could discover to be possessed of any property. In this bloody proscription there were 2 Archbishops, 1 Duke, 17 Earls, 7 Countesses, 29 Viscounts, 2 Viscountesses, 7 Bishops, 19 Barons, 38 Baronets, 51 Knights, 2182 Esquires ;§ all of whom, UNHEARD, were adjudged to suffer the penalties of DEATH and CONFISCATION, for no other crime than that of being PROTESTANTS. The venerable Duke of Ormond, who suffered much from Popish vengeance in 1641, was attainted on this occasion; and yet, strange to relate, the noble Lord who inherits his title and estates, and all his brothers, though Protestants, are among the most zealous propagandists of Popery, that deadly enemy of pure religion and rational liberty! No fewer than six persons]] of the name of Ponsonby were in that bloody roll of proscriptions, one of whom was the lineal ancestor of the Earl of Besborough and the Honourable and Reverend Richard Ponsonby; and yet his Lordship, and every person who bears his name, with one exception only, are strenuous advocates for unqualified concession to Papists. When his Lordship's health was drunk, he said, "that he considered the meeting as sacred and patriotic, that he was ever a friend to religious liberty, that the Catholics asked nothing but their rights, which ought to be, and would soon be granted by Parliament, and that he would be always at his post to support them." When the Rev. Richard Ponsonby's health was given, he said" that he was a friend to religious liberty, and that in supporting their claims, he * Book V. chap. 7, and Lord Orrery's answer, &c. + Idem. In this, as in the rebellion of 1641, they endeavoured to effect two objects, of which they never will lose sight, a separation from England, and an extirpation of Pretestants, as heretics. They made another attempt to do so in 1798. § Complete History of England, by Kennet, published in London in 1706. Harris's Life of King William, where that Act of Parliament is to be seen. |
