158 Chichester supports the protestant ascendancy. parliament in 1609 he very kindly admonishes. them not to meddle with the main points of government; "that is my craft," says he, "tractent fabrilia fabri, to meddle with that were to admonish me."

Meanwhile his pliant tool, Chichester, was diligently pursuing his plan for establishing the protestant ascendency in Ireland. He continued to increase the number of new boroughs, to represent which only court candidates were elected, till at last he found himself at the head of a decided majority, who were prepared to carry any measures which he should dictate. When this parliament assembled, violent altercations took place between the court and country members; of the former, the greater part were protestants, and among the latter were to be found the catholic representatives, or recusants, as they were then termed. The number of members returned was 232; six were absent; of the remainder, 125 were protestants, and 101 formed the recusant party. The upper house consisted of 16 temporal barons, 25 protestant prelates, five viscounts, and four earls, of which a considerable number, says Leland, were friends to the administration. Such a factitious majority as this would necessarily excite indignation in the catholic party, and for a time they seceded altogether from the house till they were assured that nothing should be propounded to the parliament at that moment, except a bill for recognizing the king's title. The

Arbitrary proceeding of the English. 159 parliament was soon prorogued, and the catholic party sent agents to lay their grievances at the foot of the throne. The lord deputy did not fail to dispatch his agents also to counteract those of the catholics. When the former arrived in London, two of them were imprisoned by James, and the rest received from him a most ungracious reception. The claims of the catholics on this occasion were referred to the final decision of the English privy council, by whose advice James dismissed the catholic agents, with a total rejection of their demands. He also imprisoned one of them (Sir James Gough) on his return to Ireland, because he had boasted of the king's promise to grant redress; and as a further proof of his hostility to their wishes, he remunerated Chichester with fresh grants. A modern Englishman, who feels and knows what a limited being the King of England is, must experience no small degree of surprise at the contumelious conduct of James towards the deputies representing the bulk of his Irish subjects. In his speech to the lords of the council, and while the deputies were present, he thus taunted themselves and their mission: he called them a body without a head; a headless body; you would be afraid to meet such a body in the streets: a body without a head to speak. Nay, half a body. IVhat a monster was this a very bugbear !— and-What is it to you whether I make many or few boroughs? My council may consider the fitness, if I require it; but if I made 40 noblemen

160 Contumelious conduct of James to the Irish.

and 400 boroughs-the more the merrier-the fewer the better cheer. And again-You that are of a contrary opinion must not look to be lawmakers: you are but half subjects, and should have but half privileges.-Ab uno disce omnes: this alone is characteristic of the man, and sufficient to make us execrate the monarch.

Flushed with the success of his first scheme of colonization, James proceeded to extend the system, and issued a commission of enquiry to scrutinize the titles and determine the rights of all the lands in Leinster and the adjoining districts; and such a convenient scrutiny did these convenient commissioners institute, that James very soon found himself entitled, upon their report, to make a distribution of 385,000 acres in those counties, which acres were apportioned to English settlers,. and to some few of the natives, under regulations nearly similar to those by which he had settled the colony in Ulster. It may be observed, however, that the most atrocious violations of justice were committed, and private property infringed in the most shameless manner, merely to gratify. the colonizing wishes of the king. This attempt, however, was the last act of any importance which marked the reign of James; for the remainder of it, according to Plowden, was an uninterrupted scene of vexatious oppression of the recusants, grievous extortions of the soldiery and their officers upon the people, the execution of martial law in time of peace, the abusive exactions

Reflections upon the policy of England. 161

of the clergy and ecclesiastical courts, the 'unconstitutional interference of the privy council and castle-chamber in causes which ought to have been determined by common law, the invasion of property in different plantations, and extreme rigour in executing the penal laws."

In pausing to look back upon the period of Irish history which has been gone through, one conclusion immediately offers itself to the mind, that from the time of its first attempt to be conquered in the reign of Henry II. down to that of the first of the Stuarts, one invariable system of tyranny and coercion was observed; one fixed and settled determination to treat the inhabitants as a subjugated people, and to exasperate their sense of servitude by the most open and avowed oppression. The fatal policy, begun in the dark ages of despotism and superstition, was continued through those times when the divine right of kings produced an arbitrary sway, even worse than undisguised despotism, and is still perpetuated by a timid or a corrupt adherence to the prescription of long-established custom. Removed from the immediate seat of government, the people have always been the prey of rapacious or perfidious deputies, or, at least, of insincere ones; because, prepared to carry into execution the views and wishes of the crown, however hostile to the interests of the nation, and which interests, from local knowledge, they have commonly had sufficient means of ascertaining. Every remonstrance

162 Reflections upon the policy of England.

against their oppressors has been thought insolent, and every determination to assert their rights has been pronounced rebellion. They have been deluded with a mockery of freedom, only calculated to make their slavery more bitter; and though the present age has departed a little from the haughty and imperious tone assumed by preceding monarchs towards that country, there is very little in its actual practice which differs from the conduct of the Tudors and the Stuarts. They are still, emphatically speaking, an oppressed people. Something, it might have been hoped, would have been effected in their favour by the union, and something certainly has been effected in the way of amelioration. But much yet remains to be done before she will reap all the advantages which she promised herself, and which England promised her also, as derivable from that measure.