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 remain to universal mendicity. The present law says, Before you can turn beggar in the place of your residence, 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 youants 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. and villages, maintaining their own poor, may, by the resiScarlett's enactments is to produce these effects. La- rishes or townships lying near the said towns and villages, be dence therein of labourers employed and working in other pabourers living in one place, and settled in another, are charged with the burden of maintaining those who do not uniformly the best and most independent characters work, and before the passing of this act were not settled in the place. Alarmed at the idea of being removed therein; For remedy thereof, be it enacted, by the authority from the situation of their choice, and knowing they aforesaid, that, in either of the above cases, it shall be lawful have nothing to depend upon but themselves, they are for the justices, at any quarter-sessions of the peace held for alone exempted from the degrading influence of the the county in which such places shall be, upon the complaint poor-laws, and frequently arrive at independence by 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 their exclusion from that baneful privilege which is of-lief of the poor of such parish, town or place, have been mafered to them by the inconsistent benevolence of this terially increased, whilst those of any other parish or place bill. If some are removed, after long residence in have been diminished, to hear and fully to inquire into the parishes where they are not settled, these examples matter of such complaint; and in case they shall be satisfied only insure the beneficial effect of which we have been of the truth thereof, then to make an order upon the overseers speaking. Others see them, dread the same fate, quit diminished by the causes aforesaid, to pay to the complainants of the poor of the parish or township, whose rates have been the mug, and grasp the flail. Our policy, as we have such sum or sums from time to time, as the said justices shall explained in a previous article, is directly the reverse adjudge reasonable, not exceeding, in any case, together with of that of Mr. Scarlett. Considering that a poor man, the existing rates, the amount limited by this act, as a contrisince Mr. East's bill, if he asks no charity, has a right bution towards the relief of the poor of the parish, town, or to live where he pleases, and that a settlement is now place, whose rates have been increased by the causes aforenothing more than a beggar's ticket, we would gradu- said; which order shall continue in force until the same shall ally abolish all means of gaining a settlement, but be discharged by some future order of sessions, upon the application of the overseers paying the same, and proof that the those of birth, parentage, or marriage; and this me- occasion for it no longer exists: Provided always, that no thod would destroy litigation as effectually as the me- such order shall be made, without proof of notice in writing of thod proposed by Mr. Scarlett.* 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 been improperly or unnecessarily expended by the overseers of the poor praying for such order; and that a separate and distinct account has been kept by them of the additional burden which has been thrown upon their rates by the causes alleged.' 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, pp. 4, 5.) 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 are really wanted; and chain a poor man forever to the place of his birth, without the possibility of moving. If every body who passed over Mr. Scarlett's threshold were to gain a settlement for life in his house, he would take good care never to be at home. We all boldly let our friends in, because we know we can easily get them out. So it was with the residence of the poor. Their present power of living where they please, and going where they please, entirely depends upon the possibility of their removal when they become chargeable. If any mistaken friend were to take from them this protection, the whole power and jealousy of property would be turned against their locomotive liberty; they would become adscripti gleba, no more capable of going out of the parish than a tree 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. tradictions of parish perjury. Another of the many sources of litigation, in this clause, is as follows:-A certain number of workmen live in a parish M., not being settled in it, and not working in it before the passing of this act. After the passing of this act, they become chargeable to M., whose poor-rates are increased. M. is to find out the parishes relieved from the burthen of these men, and to prosecute at the quarter-sessions for relief. But suppose the burthened parish to be in Yorkshire, and the relieved parish in Cornwall, are the quarter-sessions in Yorkshire to make an order of annual payment upon a parish in Cornwall? and Cornwall, in turn, upon Yorkshire? How is the money to be transmitted? What is the easy and cheap remedy, if neglected to be paid? And if all this could be effected, what is it, af 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 abhave 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 species of evidence absolutely interminable. We hope it. Mr. Scarlett will not be angry with us; we entertain The danger of insurrection is a circumstance worthy for his abilities and character the highest possible res- of the most serious consideration, in discussing the pect; but great lawyers have not leisure for these propriety of a maximum. Mr. Scarlett's bill is an intrifling details. It is very fortunate that a clause so fallible receipt for tumult and agitation, whenever erroneous in its view should be so inaccurate in its con- corn is a little dearer than common, 'Repeal the max. struction. 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. be to those members of the village vestry who should The shortest way, however, of mending all this, will oppose the measure. Whether it was really a year of be entirely to omit this part of the bill. We earnestly, scarcity, and whether it was a proper season for exbut with very little hopes of success, exhort Mr. Scar-panding the bounty of the law, would be a question lett not to endanger the really important part of his constantly and fiercely agitated between the farmers project, by the introduction of a measure which has and the poor. If the maximum is to be quietly sublittle to do with it, and which any quarter-session mitted to, its repeal must be rendered impossible but country squire can do as well or better than himself. to the legislature.Burn your ships, Mr. Scarlett.— The real question introduced by his bill is, whether or You are doing a wise and necessary thing; don't be not a limit shall be put to the poor-laws; and not only afraid of yourself. Respect your own nest. this, but whether their amount shall be gradually di- clause A repeal clause B. Be stout. Take care that minished. To this better and higher part of the law, the rat lawyers on the treasury bench do not take the we shall now address ourselves. 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 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,and the farmers that they were compelled to give it.Any maximum established should be a decreasing, but a very slowly decreasing maximum,-perhaps it should not decrease at a greater rate than 10s. per cent, per annum. 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 It may be doubtful, also, whether the first bill should aim at repealing more than 20 per cent. of the present 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 conside ration of safety and humanity, be extinguished in less than two centuries. he will make the operation of his bill immediate, or It is important for Mr. Scarlett to consider whether interpose two or three years between its enactment and first operation. We entirely object to the following clause; the 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 a general 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 reaAnd 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, to allow or give, or for any justice of the peace to order, any It would really seem, from these and other qualify-relief to any person whatsoever, who shall be married after the 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 meant to do. To what purpose enact a maximum, if that maximum may at any time be repealed by the majority of the parishioners? How will the compassion and charity which the poor laws have set to sleep 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 bodily infirmity, unable to obtain a livelihood, and to supthing in this clause contained shall be construed so as to port his or her family by work: Provided always, that noauthorize the granting relief, or making any order for relief, in cases where the same was not lawful before the pas sing of this act.' Nothing in the whole bill will occasion so much abuse and misrepresentation as this clause. It is 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 poorlaws will be the first cured. 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 volume 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 compassion. 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 enter 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 never carried his soul to the treasury, and said, What will you give me for this?-he has never sold the warm feelings and honourable motives of his youth and manhood for an annual sum of money and an office he has never taken a price for public liberty 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 to-morrow what he has blessed to-day. Living in the midst of men who have disgraced it, he has cast 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. have the wisdom of our rulers, at the end of near six centuries, "Read"Orange Faction" (says Captain Rock) here, and you in statu quo-The grand periodic year of the stoics, at the close of which everything was to begin again, and the same events to be all reacted in the same order, is, on a miniature scale, represented in the history of the English government in bulence that disgraced the former. But "Vive l'enemi!" say lution of the same follies, the same crimes, and the same turI: whoever may suffer by such measures, Captain Rock, at least, will prosper. 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 tain of my family; and as the proffered handle of the sword had been rejected, made their inexorable masters at least feel its edge' (pp. 23-25,) MEMOIRS OF CAPTAIN ROCK. 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 Re 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, bethe same skilful and friendly hands. sides innumerable smaller insurrections, gave rise to 'Henry the Seventh appears to have been the first monarch 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 advantages 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 balled 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 Such was the importance of Irish rebellions two centubeen tried, without making them in the least degree in love ries before the time in which we live. Sir G. Carew with their rulers. 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! 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 Clauricarde of Connaught most important to the English government, Lord Gormanstown, after the battle, in the first insolence of success, said, turning to the Earl of Kildare," We have now slaughtered our enemies, but to complete the good deed, we must proceed yet further, and-cut the throats of those Irish of our own party! Who can wonder that the Rock family were active in those times!-land means plantation acres, they constitute a twelfth (pp. 33-35.) By the rebellions of Dogherty in the reign of James I., six northern counties were confiscated, amounting to 500,000 acres. In the same manner, 64,000 acres were confiscated in Athlone. The whole of his confiscations amount to nearly a million acres; and if Le 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., suf. fered 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 elements 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 per materials. 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 fines levied upon the Catholics for non-attendance upon established worship. The Archbishop of Dublin went himself, at the head of a file of musketeers, to disperse a Catholic congregation in Dublin,—which object he effected, after a considerable skirmish with the priests. The favourite object,' (says Dr. Leland, a Protestant clergyman, and dignitary of the Irish church) of the Irish government and the English Parliament, was the utter extermination of all the Catholic inhabitants of Ireland.' The great rebellion took place in this reign, and Ireland was one scene of blood and cruelty and confiscation. Be not dismayed,' said Elizabeth, on hearing that O'Neal meditated some designs against her government; tell my friends, if he arise, it will turn to their advantage-there will be estates for those who want.' Soon after this prophetic speech, Munster was destroyed by famine and the sword, and near 600,000 acres forfeited to the crown, and distributed among Englishmen. Sir Walter Raleigh (the virtuous and good) butchered the garrison of Limerick in cold blood, after Lord Deputy Gray had selected 700 to be hanged. There were, during the reign of Elizabeth, three invasions of Ireland by the Spaniards, produced 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. wood complains peevishly, that the people do sof which the Lord will appear.' transport readily,'-but adds, it is doubtless a work in Ten thousand Irish were sent as recruits to the Spanish army. Fleet 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 iato 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 expeditif, qui aime a depécher ses malades; et quand on à mourir, sela, se fait avec lui 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!" have been placed, by those "marriage vows, false as di- "Hac gener atque socer coeant mercede suorum."-VIRGIL. In fact, most of the outlawries in Ireland were for treason committed the very day in which the Prince and Princess of Orange accepted the crown in the banqueting-house; Among other amiable enactments against the Catholics at though the news of this event could not possibly have this period, the price of five pounds was set on the head of a reached the other side of the Channel on the same day, and Romish priest-being exactly the same sum offered by the the lord-lieutenant of King James, with an army to enforce same legislators for the head of a wolf. The Athenians, we obedience, was at that time in actual possession of the goare told, encouraged the destruction of wolves by a similar re-vernment,-so little was common sense consulted, or the ward (five drachmas); but it does not appear that these hea-mere decency of forms observed by that rapacious spirit, thens bought up the heads of priests at the same rate-such which nothing less than the confiscation of the whole island zeal in the cause of religion being reserved for times of Chris- could satisfy; and which having, in the reign of James I. tianity and Protestantism.'-(pp. 97-99.) and at the restoration, despoiled the natives of no less than 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. 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 want. ing for the peopling of Jamaica. The answer of Henry 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. 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.) the free exercise of their religion; but from that periBy the articles of Limerick, the Irish were promised od till the year 1788, every year produced some fresh penalty against that religion-some liberty was abridged, some right impaired, or some suffering inI shall not need repeat any thing respecting the prevented from being solicitors. No Catholic was alcreased. By acts in King William's reign, they were girls, not doubting to auswer 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. to dwell in Limerick or Galway. No Papist is to take estate is to go to the next Protestant. No Papist is About the year 1652 and 1653,' says Colonel Law- Protestant to have a portion of the chattels of deceased an annuity for life. The widow of a Papist turning 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 all dead, or had quitted those desolate places. Our soldiers would tell stories of the places where they saw 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. to rank. Papists are to answer all questions respecting Catholics paid double, and were compelled to find Pro- 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 torn, 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 hounds where every one pulls and tears where he can for himselt.' 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 Wilthe success of the Jacobite forces in the North, very pruliam was proclaimed took to praying for him; but again, on dently prayed for King James once more, till the arrival of Schomberg, when, as far as his quarters reached, they reLturned to praying for King William again.' |