one of the most extraordinary we ever remember to have been introduced into any act of Parliament. very same bill, he abrogates the few impediments that emain to universal mendicity. The present law says, Before you can turn beggar in the place of your resi dence, you must have been born there, or you must townships now burdened with the maintenance of the poor And whereas it may happen, that in several parishes or have rented a farm there, or served an office;' but Mr. settled and residing therein, the owners of lands or inhabitScarlett says, 'You may beg anywhere where you ants may, in order to remove the residence of the labouring happen to be. I will have no obstacles to your turn-poor from such parishes or places, destroy the cottages and ing beggar; I will give every facility and every allure-habitations therein, now occupied by the labourers and their ment to the destruction of your independence.' We families: And whereas, also, it may happen, that certain towns are quite confident that the direct tendency of Mr. Scarlett's enactments is to produce these effects. La bourers living in one place, and settled in another, are uniformly the best and most independent characters in the place. Alarmed at the idea of being removed from the situation of their choice, and knowing they have nothing to depend upon but themselves, they are alone exempted from the degrading influence of the poor-laws, and frequently arrive at independence by their exclusion from that baneful privilege which is of fered to them by the inconsistent benevolence of this bill. If some are removed, after long residence in parishes where they are not settled, these examples only insure the beneficial effect of which we have been speaking. Others see them, dread the same fate, quit the mug, and grasp the flail. Our policy, as we have explained in a previous article, is directly the reverse of that of Mr. Scarlett. Considering that a poor man, since Mr. East's bill, if he asks no charity, has a right to live where he pleases, and that a settlement is now nothing more than a beggar's ticket, we would gradu. ally abolish all means of gaining a settlement, but those of birth, parentage, or marriage; and this method would destroy litigation as effectually as the method proposed by Mr. Scarlett.* of the and villages, maintaining their own poor, may, by the residence therein of labourers employed and working in other pacharged with the burden of maintaining those who do not rishes or townships lying near the said towns and villages, be work, and before the passing of this act were not settled therein; For remedy thereof, be it enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that, in either of the above cases, it shall be lawful for the justices, at any quarter-sessions of the peace held for the county in which such places shall be, upon the complaint by reason of either of the causes aforesaid, the rates for the reof the overseers of the poor of any parish, town or place, that lief of the poor of such parish, town or place, have been materially increased, whilst those of any other parish or place have been diminished, to hear and fully to inquire into the matter of such complaint; and in case they shall be satisfied of the truth thereof, then to make an order upon the overseers diminished by the causes aforesaid, to pay to the complainants poor of the parish or township, whose rates have been such sum or sums from time to time, as the said justices shall adjudge reasonable, not exceeding, in any case, together with the existing rates, the amount limited by this act, as a contribution towards the relief of the poor of the parish, town, or place, whose rates have been increased by the causes aforesaid; which order shall continue in force until the same shall be discharged by some future order of sessions, upon the apoccasion for it no longer exists: Provided always, that no plication of the overseers paying the same, and proof that the such order shall be made, without proof of notice in writing of such intended application, and of the grounds thereof having been served upon the overseers of the poor of the parish or place, upon whom such order is prayed, fourteen days at the least before the first day of the quarter-sessions, nor unless the justices making such order shall be satisfied that no money has of the poor praying for such order; and that a separate and been improperly or unnecessarily expended by the overseers distinct account has been kept by them of the additional burden which has been thrown upon their rates by the causes alleged.' (Bill, pp. 4, 5.) Mr. Scarlett's plan, too, we are firmly persuaded, would completely defeat his own intentions; and would inflict a greater injury upon the poor than this very bill, intended to prevent their capricious removal. If this bill had passed, he could not have passed. His postchaise on the northern circuit would have been impeded by the crowds of houseless villagers, driven from their cottages by landlords rendered merciless by the bill. In the mud-all in the mud (for such cases made Now this clause, we cannot help saying, appears to and provided) would they have rolled this most excel- us to be a receipt for universal and interminable litilent counsellor. Instigated by the devil and their own gation all over England-a perfect law-hurricane-a malicious purposes, his wig they would have polluted, conversion of all flesh into plaintiffs and defendants. and tossed to a thousand winds the parchment bicker- The parish A. has pulled down houses, and burthened ings of Doe and Roe. Mr. Scarlett's bill is so power- the parish B.; B. has demolished to the misery of C.; ful a motive to proprietors for the depopulation of a which has again misbehaved itself in the same manner village for preventing the poor from living where they to the oppression of other letters of the alphabet. All wish to live, that nothing but the conviction that such run into parchment, and pant for revenge and exonera bill would be suffered to pass, has prevented those ation. Though the fact may be certain enough, the effects from already taking place. Landlords would causes which gave rise to it may be very uncertain; in the contemplation of such a bill, pull down all the and assuredly will not be admitted to have been those cottages of persons not belonging to the parish, and against which the statute has denounced these penaleject the tenants; the most vigorous measures would ties. It will be alleged, therefore, that the houses be taken to prevent any one from remaining or com- were not pulled down to get rid of the poor, but being who was not absolutely necessary to the lord of cause they were not worth repair-because they obthe soil. At present, cottages are let to any body; structed the squire's view-because rent was not paid. because, if they are burthensome to the parish, the All these motives must go before the sessions, the last tenants can be removed. But the impossibility of do- resource of legislators-the unhappy quarter-sessions ing this would cause the immediate demolition of cot-pushed to the extremity of their wit by the plump con. tages; prevent the erection of fresh ones where they tradictions of parish perjury. are really wanted; and chain a poor man forever to Another of the many sources of litigation, in this the place of his birth, without the possibility of mo-clause, is as follows:-A certain number of workmen ving. If every body who passed over Mr. Scarlett's live in a parish M., not being settled in it, and not threshold were to gain a settlement for life in his working in it before the passing of this act. After the house, he would take good care never to be at home. passing of this act, they become chargeable to M., We all boldly let our friends in, because we know we whose poor-rates are increased. M. is to find out the can easily get them out. So it was with the residence parishes relieved from the burthen of these men, and of the poor. Their present power of living where they to prosecute at the quarter-sessions for relief. But please, and going where they please, entirely depends suppose the burthened parish to be in Yorkshire, and upon the possibility of their removal when they be the relieved parish in Cornwall, are the quarter-sessions come chargeable. If any mistaken friend were to take in Yorkshire to make an order of annual payment upon from them this protection, the whole power and jeal- a parish in Cornwall? and Cornwall, in turn, upon ousy of property would be turned against their loco-Yorkshire? How is the money to be transmitted? motive liberty; they would become adscripti gleba, What is the easy and cheap remedy, if neglected to be no more capable of going out of the parish than a tree paid? And if all this could be effected, what is it, af is of proceeding, with its roots and branches, to a neighbouring wood. The remedy here proposed for these evils is really * This has since been done. ter all, but the present system of removal rendered ten times more intricate, confused, and expensive! Perhaps Mr. Scarlett means, that the parishes where these men worked, and which may happen to be within the jurisdiction of the justices, are to be taxed in aid of the parish M., in proportion to the benefit they | tious; and all the good expected from the ab have received from the labour of men whose distresses olition of the poor-laws will begin to appear. But they do not relieve. We must have, then, a detailed these expectations will be entirely frustrated, account of how much a certain carpenter worked in and every advantage of Mr. Scarlett's bill deone parish, how much in another; and enter into a stroyed, by this fatal facility of eluding and repealing specíes of evidence absolutely interminable. We hope it. Mr. Scarlett will not be angry with us; we entertain for his abilities and character the highest possible respect; but great lawyers have not leisure for these trifling details. It is very fortunate that a clause so erroneous in its view should be so inaccurate in its coustruction. If it were easy to comprehend it, and pos-imum,' will be the clamour in every village; and woe sible to execute it, it would be necessary to repeal it. The shortest way, however, of mending all this, will be entirely to omit this part of the bill. We earnestly, but with very little hopes of success, exhort Mr. Scarlett not to endanger the really important part of his project, by the introduction of a measure which has little to do with it, and which any quarter-session country squire can do as well or better than himself. The real question introduced by his bill is, whether or not a limit shall be put to the poor-laws; and not only this, but whether their amount shall be gradually diminished. To this better and higher part of the law, we shall now address ourselves. The danger of insurrection is a circumstance worthy of the most serious consideration, in discussing the propriety of a maximum. Mr. Scarlett's bill is an in. fallible receipt for tumult and agitation, whenever corn is a little dearer than common, 'Repeal the max. be to those members of the village vestry who should oppose the measure. Whether it was really a year of scarcity, and whether it was a proper season for expanding the bounty of the law, would be a question constantly and fiercely agitated between the farmers and the poor. If the maximum is to be quietly submitted to, its repeal must be rendered impossible but to the legisiature. 'Burn your ships, Mr. Scarlett.You are doing a wise and necessary thing; don't be afraid of yourself. Respect your own nest. clause A repeal clause B. Be stout. Take care that the rat lawyers on the treasury bench do not take the oysters out of your bill, and leave you the shell. Do not yield one particle of the wisdom and philosophy of your measure to the country gentlemen of the In this, however, as well as in the former part of his bill, Mr. Scarlett becomes frightened at his own enact. ments, and repeals himself. Parishes are first to re-earth.' lieve every person actually resident within them. This is no sooner enacted, than a provision is introduced to relieve them from this expense, tenfold more burthensome and expensive than the present system of removal. In the same manner, a maximum is very wisely and bravely enacted; and in the following clause is immediately repealed. Don't let We object to a maximum which is not rendered a decreasing maximum. If definite sums were fixed for each village, which they could not exceed, that sum would, in a very few years, become a minimum, and an established claim. If 80s. were the sum allotted for a particular hamlet, the poor would very soon come to imagine that they were entitled to that precise sum,— Any maximum established should be a decreasing, but and the farmers that they were compelled to give it.a very slowly decreasing maximum,-perhaps it should not decrease at a greater rate than 10s. per cent. per annum. aim at repealing more than 20 per cent. of the present It may be doubtful, also, whether the first bill should amount of the poor-rates. This would be effected in forty years. Long before that time, the good or bad effects of the measure would be fairly estimated; if it is wise that it should proceed, let posterity do the rest. It is by no means necessary to destroy, in one moment, upon paper, a payment which cannot, without violating every principle of justice, and every consideration of safety and humanity, be extinguished in less than two centuries. he will make the operation of his bill immediate, or whole of which ought to be expunged:- Provided also, and be it further enacted, that if, by reason of any unusual scarcity of provisions, epidemic disease, or any other cause of a temporary or local nature, it shall be deemed expedient by the overseers of the poor, or other persons having, by virtue of any local act of Parliament, the authority of overseers of the poor of any parish, township, or place, to make any addition to the sum assessed for the relief of the poor, beyond the amount limited by this act, it shall be lawful for the said overseers, or such other persons, to give public notice in the several churches, and other places of worship, within the same parish, township, or place, and if there be no church or chapel within such place, then in the parish church or chapel next adjoining the same, of the place and time of ageneral meeting of the inhabitants paying to the relief of the poor within such parish, township, or place, for the purpose of considering the occasion and the amount of the proposed addition; and, if it shall appear to the majority of the persons assembled at such meeting, that such addition shall be necessary, then it shall be lawful to the overseers, or other persons having power to make assessments, to increase the assessment by the additional sum proposed and allowed, at such meeting, and for the justices, by whom such rate is to be allowed, upon due proof upon oath to be made before them, of the resolution of such meeting, and that the same was held after sufficient public notice to allow such rate with the proposed addition, specifying the exact amount thereof, with the rea'And be it further enacted that it shall not be lawful for any sons for allowing the same, upon the face of the rate. church-warden, overseer, or guardian of the poor, or any (Bill, p. 2). other person having authority to administer relief to the poor, It would really seem, from these and other qualify-relief to any person whatsoever, who shall be married after the to allow or give, or for any justice of the peace to order, any ing provisions, as if Mr. Scarlett had never reflected passing of this act, for himself, herself, or any part of his or upon the consequences of his leading enactments till her family, unless such poor person shall be actually, at the he had penned them; and that he then set about find time of asking such relief, by reason of age, sickness, or ing how he could prevent himself from doing what he bodily infirmity, unable to obtain a livelihood, and to supmeant to do. To what purpose enact a maximum, if thing in this clause contained shall be construed so as to port his or her family by work: Provided always, that nothat maximum may at any time be repealed by the authorize the granting relief, or making any order for remajority of the parishioners? How will the compas- lief, in cases where the same was not lawful before the pas sion and charity which the poor laws have set to sleep sing of this act.' be awakened, when such a remedy is at hand as the repeal of the maximum by a vote of the parish? Will ardent and amiable men form themselves into voluntary associations to meet any sudden exigency of famine and epidemic disease, when this sleepy and sluggish method of overcoming the evil can be had recourse to? As soon as it becomes really impossible to increase the poor fund by law-when there is but little, and there can be no more, that little will be administered with the utmost caution; claims will be minutely inspected; idle manhood will not receive the scraps and crumbs which belong to failing old age; distress will make the poor provident and cau-laws will be the first cured. abuse and misrepresentation as this clause. It is Nothing in the whole bill will occasion so much upon this that the radicals will first fasten. It will, of course, be explained into a prohibition of marriage to the poor; and will, in fact, create a marked distinction between two classes of paupers, and become a rallying point for insurrection. In fact, it is wholly unnecessary. As the funds for the relief of pauperism decrease, under the operation of a diminishing maximum, the first to whom relief is refused will be the young and the strong; in other words, the most absurd and extravagant consequences of the present poor. Such, then, is our conception of the bill which ought to be brought into Parliament-a maximum regulated by the greatest amount of poor-rates ever paid, and annually diminishing at the rate of 10s. per cent. till they are reduced 20 per cent. of their present value; with such a preamble to the bill as will make it fair and consistent for any future Parliament to continue the reduction. If Mr. Scarlett will bring in a short and simple bill to this effect, and not mingle with it any other parochial improvements, and will persevere in such a bill for two or three years, we believe he will carry it; and we are certain he will confer, by such a measure, a lasting benefit upon his country-and upon none more than upon its labouring poor. narrative should produce conviction and pity—shame, abhorrence, and despair! England seems to have treated Ireland much in the same way as Mrs. Brownrigg treated her apprentice for which Mrs. Brownrigg is hanged in the first vo lume of the Newgate Calendar. Upon the whole, we think the apprentice is better off than the Irishman: as Mrs. Brownrigg merely starves and beats her, without any attempt to prohibit her from going to any shop, or praying at any church, her apprentice might select; and once or twice if we remember rightly, Brownrigg appears to have felt some compas sion. Not so Old England, who indulges rather in a steady baseness, uniform brutality, and unrelenting oppression. Let us select from this entertaining little book a short history of dear Ireland, such as even some profligate idle member of the House of Commons, voting as his master bids him, may perchance throw his eye upon, and reflect for a moment upon the iniquity to which he lends his support. For some centuries after the reign of Henry II, the Irish were killed like game, by persons qualified or unqualified. Whether dogs were used does not appear quite certain, though it is probable they were, spaniels as well as pointers; and that, after a regular point by Basto, well backed by Ponto and Cæsar, Mr. O'Donnel or Mr. O'Leary bolted from the thicket, and were bagged by the English sportsman. With Henry II. came in tithes, to which, in all probability, about one million of lives may have been sacrificed in Ireland. In the reign of Edward I. the Irish who were settled near the English requested that the benefit of the English laws might be extended to them; but the remonstrance of the barons with the hesitating king was in substance this: You have made us a present of these wild gentlemen, and we particularly request that no measures may be adopted to check us in that full range of tyranny and oppression in which we consider the value of such a gift to consist. You might as well give us sheep, and prevent us from shearing the wool, or roasting the meat.' This reasoning prevailed, and the Irish were kept to their barbarism, and the barons preserved their live stock. We presume there are very few persons who will imagine such a measure to be deficient in vigour. That the poor-laws should be stopped in their fatal encroachment upon property, and unhappy multiplication of the human species-and not only this, but that the evil should be put in a state of diminution, would be an improvement of our condition almost beyond hope. The tendency of fears and objections will all lie the other way; and a bill of this nature will not be accused of inertness, but of rashness, cruelty, and innovation. We cannot now euter into the question of the poor-laws, of all others that which has undergone the most frequent and earnest discussion. Our whole reasoning is founded upon the assumption, that no system of laws was ever so completely calculated to destroy industry, foresight, and economy in the poor; to extinguish compassion in the rich; and, by destroying the balance between the demand for, and supply of, labour, to spread a degraded population over a ruined land. Not to attempt the cure of this evil, would be criminal indolence; not to cure it gradually and compassionately, would be very wicked. To Mr. Scarlett belongs the real merit of introducing the bill. He will forgive us the freedom, perhaps the severity, of some of our remarks. We are sometimes not quite so smooth as we ought to be; but we hold Mr. Scarlett in very high honour aud estimation. He is the greatest advocate, perhaps, of his time; and without the slightest symptom of tail or whiskersdecorations, it is reported, now as characteristic of the English bar as wigs and gowns in days of old-he has "Read" Orange Faction" (says Captain Rock) here, and you never carried his soul to the treasury, and said, What have the wisdom of our rulers, at the end of near six centuries, will you give me for this?-he has never sold the in statu quo-The grand periodic year of the stoics, at the warm feelings and honourable motives of his youth close of which everything was to begin again, and the same and manhood for an annual sum of money and an events to be all reacted in the same order, is, on a miniature office he has never taken a price for public liberty scale, represented in the history of the English government in and public happiness-he has never touched the poli-Ireland-every succeeding century being but a renewed revotical Aceldama, and signed the devil's bond for cursing lution of the same follies, the same crimes, and the same turto-morrow what he has blessed to-day. Living in the I: whoever may suffer by such measures, Captain Rock, at bulence that disgraced the former. But "Vive l'enemi!" say midst of men who have disgraced it, he has cast least, will prosper. honour upon his honourable profession; and has sought dignity, not from the ermine and the mace, but from a straight path and a spotless life. And such was the result at the period of which I am speaking. The rejection of a petition, so humble and so reasonable, was followed, as a matter of course, by one of those daring rebellions into which the revenge of an insulted people naturally breaks forth. The M'Cartys, the O'Briens, and all the other Macs and O's, who have been kept on the alert by similar causes ever since, flew to arms under the command of a chief(EDINBURGH had been rejected, made their inexorable masters at least feel tain of my family; and as the proffered handle of the sword its edge' (pp. 23-25,) MEMOIRS OF CAPTAIN ROCK. Edition. 12mo. London, 1824. Fifty years afterwards the same request was renewed and refused. Up again rose Mac and 0,-a just and necessary war ensued; and after the usual THIS agreeable and witty book is generally suppos- murders, the usual chains were replaced upon the ed to have been written by Mr. Thomas Moore, a gen- Irishry. All Irishmen were excluded from every spetleman of small stature, but full of genius, and a stea-cies of office. It was high treason to marry with the dy friend of all that is honourable and just. He has here borrowed the name of a celebrated Irish leader, to typify that spirit of violence and insurrection which is necessarily generated by systematic oppression, and rudely avenges its crimes; and the picture he has drawn of its prevalence in that unhappy country is at once piteous and frightful. Its effect in exciting horror and indignation is in the long run increased, we think, though at first it may seem counteracted, by the tone of levity, and even jocularity, under which he has chosen to veil the deep sarcasm and substantial terrors of his story. We smile at first, and are amused-and wonder, as we proceed, that the humourous Irish blood, and highly penal to receive the Irish into religious houses. War was waged also against their Thomas Moores, Samuel Rogerses, and Walter Scotts, who went about the country harping and singing against English oppression. No such turbulent guests were to be received. The plan of making them poetslaureate, or converting them to loyalty by pensions of £100 per annum, had not been thought of. They debarred the Irish even from the pleasure of running away, and fixed them to the soil like negroes. 'I have thus selected,' says the historian of Rock, 'cursorily and at random a few features of the reigns preceding the Ro formation, in order to show what good use was made of those three or four hundred years in attaching the Irish people to kidnapping of O'Donnel-all truly Anglo-Hibernian their English governors; and by what a gentle course of al-proceedings. The execution of the laws was rendered teratives they were prepared for the inoculation of a new re-detestable and intolerable by the queen's officers of ligion, which was now about to be attempted upon them by justice. The spirit raised by these transactions, be the same skilful and friendly hands. Henry the Seventh appears to have been the first monarch sides innumerable smaller insurrections, gave rise to to whom it occurred that matters were not managed exactly as the great wars of Desmond and Hugh O'Neal; which, they ought in this part of his dominions: and we find him-after they had worn out the ablest generals, discomfitwith a simplicity which is still fresh and youthful among our ed the choicest troops, exhausted the treasure, and rulers-expressing his surprise that "his subjects of this land embarrassed the operations of Elizabeth, were termin. should be so prone to faction and rebellion, and that so little ated by the destruction of these two ancient families, advantage had been hitherto derived from the acquisitions of and by the confiscation of more than half the territo his predecessors, notwithstanding the fruitfulness and natural rial surface of the island. The two last years of vantages of Ireland."-Surprising indeed, that a policy, such as we have been describing, should not have converted O'Neal's wars cost Elizabeth £140,000 per annum, the whole country into a perfect Atalantis of happiness-should though the whole revenue of England at that period not have made it like the imaginary island of Sir Thomas fell considerable short of £500,000. Essex, after the More, where "tota insula velut una familia est!"-most stub-destruction of Norris, led into Ireland an army of born, truly, and ungrateful must that people be, upon whom, above 20,000 men, which was totally batlled and deup to the very hour in which I write, such a long unvarying stroyed by Tyrone, within two years of their landing. course of penal laws, confiscations, and insurrection acts has been tried, without making them in the least degree in love Such was the importance of Irish rebellious two centu ries before the time in which we live. Sir G. Carew attempted to assassinate the Lugan earl,-Mountjoy compelled the Irish rebels to massacre each other. In the course of a few months, 3,000 men were starved to death in Tyrone. Sir Arthur Chichester, Sir Richard Manson, and other commanders, saw three child ren feeding on the flesh of their dead mother. Such were the golden days of good Queen Bess! with their rulers. Heloise tells her tutor Abelard, that the correction which he inflicted upon her only served to increase the ardour of her affection for him; but bayonets and hemp are no such" amoris stimuli." One more characteristic anecdote of those times, and I have done. At the battle of Knocktow, in the reign of Henry VII, when that remarkable man, the Earl of Kildare, assisted by the great O'Neal and other Irish chiefs, gained a victory over Clanricarde of Connaught most important to the English government, Lord Gormanstown, after the battle, in By the rebellions of Dogherty in the reign of James the first insolence of success, said, turning to the Earl of Kil- I., six northern counties were confiscated, amounting dare, "We have now slaughtered our enemies, but to com- to 500,000 acres. In the same manner, 64,000 acres plete the good deed, we must proceed yet further, and-cut were confiscated in Athlone. The whole of his confis the throats of those Irish of our own party!"'* Who can cations amount to nearly a million acres; and if Le wonder that the Rock family were active in those times!'-land means plantation acres, they constitute a twelfth (pp. 33-35.) of the whole kingdom according to Newenham, and a tenth according to Sir W. Petty. The most shocking and scandalous action in the reign of James, was his attack upon the whole property of the province of Connaught, which he would have effected, if he had not been bought off by a sum greater than he hoped to gain by his iniquity, besides the luxury of confisca tion. The Irish, during the reign of James I., suffered under the double evils of a licentious soldiery, and a religious persecution. Henry VIII. persisted in all these outrages, and aggravated them by insulting the prejudices of the people. England is almost the only country in the world (even at present) where there is not some favourite religious spot, where absurd lies, little bits of cloth, feathers, rusty nails, splinters, and other invaluable relics, are treasured up, and in defence of which the whole population are willing to turn out and perish as one man. Such was the shrine of St. Kieran, the whole treasures of which the satellites of that Charles the First took a bribe of £120,000 from his corpulent tyrant turned out into the street, pillaged the Irish subjects, to grant them what in those days were sacred church of Clonmacnoise, scattered the holy called graces, but in these days would be denominated nonsense of the priests to the winds, and burnt the the cleinents of justice. The money was paid, but the real and venerable crosier of St. Patrick, fresh from graces were never granted. One of these graces is the silversmith's shop, and formed of the most costly curious enough, That the clergy were not to be permaterials. Modern princes change the uniform of regi-mitted to keep henceforth any private prisons of their ments; Henry changed the religion of kingdoms, and own, but delinquents were to be committed to the was determined that the belief of the Irish should public jails.' The idea of a rector, with his own priundergo a radical and Protestant conversion. With vate jail full of dissenters, is the most ludicrous piece what success this attempt was made, the present state of tyranny we ever heard of. The troops in the begin of Ireland is sufficient evidence. ning of Charles's reign were supported by the weekly Be not dismayed,' said Elizabeth, on hearing that fines levied upon the Catholics for non-attendance O'Neal meditated some designs against her govern- upon established worship. The Archbishop of Dublin ment; tell my friends, if he arise, it will turn to their went himself, at the head of a file of musketeers, to advantage-there will be estates for those who want.' disperse a Catholic congregation in Dublin,-which Soon after this prophetic speech, Munster was de-object he effected, after a considerable skirmish with stroyed by famine and the sword, and near 600,000 the priests. The favourite object,' (says Dr. Leland, acres forfeited to the crown, and distributed among a Protestant clergyman, and dignitary of the Irish Englishmen. Sir Walter Raleigh (the virtuous and church) of the Irish government and the English good) butchered the garrison of Limerick in cold Parliament, was the utter extermination of all the Cablood, after Lord Deputy Gray had selected 700 to be tholic inhabitants of Ireland.' The great rebellion hanged. There were, during the reign of Elizabeth, took place in this reign, and Ireland was one scene of three invasions of Ireland by the Spaniards, produced blood and cruelty and confiscation. principally by the absurd measures of this princess for the reformation of its religion. The Catholic clergy, in consequence of these measures, abandoned their cures, the churches fell to ruin, and the people were left without any means of instruction. Add to these circumstances the murder of M Mahon, the imprisonment of M'Toolef and O'Dogherty, and the * Leland gives this anecdote on the authority of an English man. Cromwell began his career in Ireland by massacreing for five days the garrison of Drogheda, to whom quarter had been promised. Two millions and a half of acres were confiscated. Whole towns were put up in lots, and sold. The Catholics were banished from three-fourths of the kingdom, and confined to Connaught. After a certain day, every Catholic found out of Connaught was to be punished with death. Fleetwood complains peevishly, that the people do not which the Lord will appear.' 'Ten thousand Irish were transport readily,'—but adds, it is doubtless a work in sent as recruits to the Spanish army. 6 There are not a few of the best and most humane Englishmen of the present day, who, when under the influence of fear or anger, would think it no great crime to put to death people whose names begin with O or Mac. The violent death of Smith, Green, or Thompson, would throw the neighbourhood but little would be really thought of the death of anybody into convulsions, and the regular forms would be adhered to-called O'Dogherty or O'Toole. Such was Cromwell's way of settling the affairs of Ireland, and if a nation is to be ruined, this method is, perhaps, as good as any. It is at least, more humane than the slow lingering process of exclusion, disappointment, and degradation, by which their hearts are worn out under more specious forms of tyranny; and that talent of despatch which Moliere attributes to one of his physicians, is no ordinary merit in a practitioner like Cromwell-"C'est un homme expéditif, qui aime a depêcher ses malades; et quand on à mourir, sela, se fait avec Jui le plus vite du monde." A certain military duke, who complains that Ireland is but half-conquered, would, no doubt, upon an emergency, try his hand in the same line of practice, and, like that "stern hero," Mirmillo, in the Dispensary, "While others meanly take whole months to slay, Despatch the grateful patient in a day!" Among other amiable enactments against the Catholics at this period, the price of five pounds was set on the head of a Romish priest-being exactly the same sum offered by the same legislators for the head of a wolf. The Athenians, we are told, encouraged the destruction of wolves by a similar reward (five drachmas); but it does not appear that these heathens bought up the heads of priests at the same rate-such zeal in the cause of religion being reserved for times of Christianity and Protestantism.'-(pp. 97-99.) Nothing can show more strongly the light in which the Irish were held by Cromwell, than the correspondence with Henry Cromwell, respecting the peopling of Jamaica from Ireland. Secretary Thurloe sends to Henry, the lord-deputy in Ireland, to inform him, that a stock of Irish girls, and Irish young men, are wanting for the peopling of Jamaica.' The answer of Hen. ry Cromwell is as follows:- Concerning the supply of young men, although we must use force in taking them up, yet it being so much for their own good, and likely to be of so great advantage to the public, it is not the least doubted but that you may have such a number of them as you may think fit to make use of on this account. Among the many anomalous situations in which the Irish have been placed, by those "marriage vows, false as di cers' oaths," which bind their country to England, the dilemma in which they found themselves at the Revolution was not the least perplexing or cruel. If they were loyal to the king de jure, they were hanged by the king de facto; and if they escaped with life from the king de facto, it was but to be plundered and proscribed by the king de jure afterwards. "Hac gener atque socer coeant mercede suorum."-VIRGIL. In fact, most of the outlawries in Ireland were for trea son committed the very day in which the Prince and Princess of Orange accepted the crown in the banqueting-house; reached the other side of the Channel on the same day, and though the news of this event could not possibly have the lord-lieutenant of King James, with an army to enforce obedience, was at that time in actual possession of the government, so little was common sense consulted, or the mere decency of forms observed by that rapacious spirit, which nothing less than the confiscation of the whole island and at the restoration, despoiled the natives of no less than could satisfy; and which having, in the reign of James I. ten million six hundred and thirty-six thousand eight hunther, (according to Lord Clare's calculation), of the whole dred and ninety-two acres more, being the amount, altogesuperficial contents of the island. Thus not only had all Ireland suffered confiscation in the course of this century, but no inconsiderable portion of it had been twice and even thrice confiscated. Well might Lord Clare say, "that the situation of the Irish nation, at the revolution, stands unparalleled in the history of the inhabited world."'—(pp. 111—113.) By the articles of Limerick, the Irish were promised the free exercise of their religion; but from that period till the year 1788, every year produced some fresh penalty against that religion-some liberty was abridged, some right impaired, or some suffering increased. By acts in King William's reign, they were I shall not need repeat any thing respecting the prevented from being solicitors. No Catholic was algirls, not doubting to answer your expectations to the lowed to marry a Protestant; and any Catholic who full in that; and I think it might be of like advantage sent a son to Catholic countries for education was to to your affairs there, and ours here, if you should think forfeit all his lands. In the reign of Queen Anne, any fit to send 1500 or 2000 boys to the place above men- son of a Catholic who chose to turn Protestant got tioned. We can well spare them; and who knows but possession of his father's estate. No Papist was althat it may be the means of making them Englishmen, lowed to purchase freehold property, or to take a I mean rather Christians. As for the girls, I suppose lease for more than thirty years. If a Protestant dies you will make provisions of clothes, and other accom-intestate, the estate is to go to the next Protestant heir, modations for them.' Upon this, Thurloe informs though all to the tenth generation should be Catholic. Henry Cromwell, that the council have voted 4000 In the same manner, if a Catholic dies intestate, his girls, and as many boys, to go to Jamaica. estate is to go to the next Protestant. No Papist is to dwell in Limerick or Galway. No Papist is to take an annuity for life. The widow of a Papist turning About the year 1652 and 1653,' says Colonel Law- Protestant to have a portion of the chattels of deceased rence in his Interests of Ireland, the plague and fa- in spite of any will. Every Papist teaching schools to mine had so swept away whole counties, that a man be presented as a regular Popish convict. Prices of might travel twenty or thirty miles and not see a liv-catching Catholic priests from 50s. to £10, according ing creature, either man or beast, or bird, they being to rank. Papists are to answer all questions respecting all dead, or had quitted those desolate places. Our soldiers would tell stories of the places where they w smoke-it was so rare to see either smoke by day, or fire or candle by night.' In this manner did the Irish live and die under Cromwell, suffering by the sword, famine, pestilence, and persecution, beholding the confiscation of a kingdom and the banishment of a race. So that there perished (says Sir W. Petty) in the year 1651, 650,000 human beings, whose blood somebody must atone for to God and the king!!! Every Catholic priest found in Ireland was hanged, and five pounds paid to the informer. other Papists, or to be committed to jail for twelve months. No trust to be undertaken for Papists. No Papist to be on grand juries. Some notion may be formed of the spirit of those times, from an order of the House of Commons, that the sergeant-at-arms should take into custody all Papists that should presume to come into the gallery! (Commons' Journal, vol in. iol. 976.) During this reign, the English Parliament legislated as absolutely for Ireland as they do now for Rutlandshire-an evil not to be complained of, if they had done it as justly. In the reign of George I. the horses of Papists were seized for the Catholics paid double, and were compelled to find Protestant substitutes. They were prohibited from voting or being high or petty constables. An act of the Eng lish Parliament in this reign opens as follows: In the reign of Charles II., by the Act of Settlement, four millions and a half of acres were for ever taken from the Irish. This country,' says the Earl of Es-militia, and rode by Protestants; towards which the sex, lord-lieutenant in 1675, has been perpetually rent and toru, since his majesty's restoration. I can compare it to nothing better than the flinging the reward on the death of a deer among the packs of houndswhere every one pulls and tears where he can for him. self.' All wool grown in Ireland was, by act of Parliament, compelled to be sold to England: and Irish cattle were excluded from England. The English, however, were pleased to accept 30,000 head of cattle, sent as a gift from Ireland to the sufferers in the great fire!-and the first day of the sessions, after this act of munificence, the Parliament passed fresh acts of exclusion against the productions of that country, *Among the persons most puzzled and perplexed by the two opposite royal claims on their allegiance, were the clergymen of the established church; who having first prayed for King James as their lawful sovereign, as soon as William was proclaimed took to praying for him; but again, on the success of the Jacobite forces in the North, very prudently prayed for King James once more, till the arrival of Schomberg, when, as far as his quarters reached, they returned to praying for King William again.' |