own.

Persecution of the catholics.

303

But whatever may have been the tendency of her own unbiassed feelings, whatever anxiety she may have felt to befriend those who had befriended her father in his utmost need, she, like King William, was alternately the sport and victim of the two great parties that then divided the court, the senate, and the country. There was still another cause, which operated, and powerfully operated, in producing that strong determination on the part of the English legislature to cripple and disable the Irish catholics by penal statutes. Though James II. was dead, there was his son living, and it was not unknown that he entertained hopes of succeeding to the crown of his father. While such a calamity hung threatening over the destinies of England, she could not be unmindful of the disposition of Ireland to befriend and assist the family of Stuart; and as a preventive system, calculated to debilitate and enfeeble any efforts in that country to shake the yet recent structure founded upon the principles of the Revolution in 1688, it seemed a matter of just and necessary policy to disqualify the catholics of Ireland as much as law and persecution could do it. In assigning this as the probable and likely reason for those statutes which passed during this and the succeeding reign, it must be confessed, that the only reason is assigned on which can hinge the slightest justification of them. The just terror which the nation and the parliament had of a papal king and a papal ascendancy might make

304 Some reasons justificatory of this persecution.

both the one and the other more willing, in their eagerness to secure themselves, to oppress those from whom the danger was apprehended. In the tumultuous alarm of fear and consternation, reason and religion are alike dumb; and not being able to know at once how far it is necessary to go in order to protect ourselves, we more commonly exceed than fall short of the necessary means. But with whatever plausibility these arguments may be made to apply to the motives which produced those penal laws, they utterly fail when it is attempted to press them into the service of modern persecution: the horrors of a pretender are gone for ever: the roots of the royal lineage of the house of Hanover have struck deep into the soil of our constitution, and the authority of the papal see, disarmed, despoiled, and degraded, as the sovereign pontiff now is, exists only as a shadow of what it was, as the wreck of a mighty name. We prop and fence the tender sapling from the rude storm that may assail and lay it low; but we throw those fences by as useless when the tree acquires vigour, when the roots strike into the soil, when the branches spread themselves abroad, and the whole tree stands firm against every shock of the elements. Let those, then, who still talk of the danger of catholic emancipation, who still talk of the pernicious character of the catholic faith, who still dread catholic dogmas, and still fear catholic ascendancy as the probable issue of freedom to the catholics

Burke's opinion of the catholic penal code. 305

of Ireland, shew that England, that Rome, that Europe, is in the same situation as when those penal laws were enacted; that the same just alarms exist; that the same evils threaten us; and that if we repeal those laws, a jacobite pretender will start up, or a popish aristocracy, a popish landed commonalty, will overthrow the constitution. Upon them lies the onus; let them prove these things, and the most lukewarm man in England will be roused to resistance, the most zealous advocate of the Irish catholics will withdraw from the cause, and rally round the throne, the constitution, and the church. But till they do shew this, till they prove it, till they do something more than merely assert it, and appeal to past ages for their proofs and the illustrations of their arguments, their hostility will look like bigotry, and their consistency like ignorance. That great man, Edmund Burke, speaking of the penal code enacted during the reign of Queen Anne, says, in his admirable Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe, "You abhorred it, as I did, for its vicious perfection. For I must do it justice. 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 oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man."

306 Act for preventing the growth of popery.

The first step in this progression was the Act for preventing the further growth of popery, in which new severities were enacted against the catholics. This act passed in the Irish parliament in 1703; and did we not remember that by the abrogation of the oath of supremacy in Ireland, and the substitution of another, catholics were virtually excluded from parliament, it might seem surprising that such an act should pass. Nor was there one man in either house who stood up in their defence. Some members, indeed, who affected a regard for their interests, seceded from parliament altogether, because they would not be a party to the passing of the law; but had they been the real friends of the catholics, they would rather have remained at their post, and endeavoured by their authority, their example, and their persuasion, to operate upon those who were favourable to the measure. Resignations, however, became so common on this account that the house passed a resolution, declaring the practice to be of dangerous consequence, and tending to the subversion of the constitution of parliament. There is a curious piece of political history belonging to this act which deserves to be related, as unfolding some of the arcana of ministerial intrigues. At the time this measure was in agitation there prevailed so violent a prepossession against the catholics in Ireland by the protestants there, that the English ministers knew not how to stem, the torrent of animosity though they con

Political intrigues of the English ministers. 307 demned its impetuous character. It happened also that at the moment we are speaking of, Queen Anne, who was in alliance with the Emperor of Germany, had been interceding with him in behalf of his protestant subjects, and it would appear peculiarly ungracious in her majesty's government to persecute her own subjects on the score of religion at the very moment when she was endeavouring to mediate in behalf of the subjects of another state. Yet the ministers feared to reject the bill of the Irish parliament, because it was supported by many dissenters of great political weight. What did they do? They endeavoured to accomplish their aim by stratagem; they tacked to it, by way of clause, a provision which enacted, that no person in Ireland should be eligible to fill any place under the crown, or to accept any corporate magistracy, who did not receive the sacrament according to the usage of the church of Ireland. This, it was justly thought, would render the whole bill unacceptable to its projectors in Ireland, as it excluded many of them from places of trust and profit as effectually as the catholics; but the dissenters were filled with some vague hope that the clause would soon after be repealed, and the bill received no opposition in either house, but passed into a law, notwithstanding the pleadings against it at the bars of both houses by Sir Theobald Butler, Sir Stephen Rice, and Mr. Malone, as counsel for the catholics. The dissenters were grievously disappointed,