Ireland, had, from the opulence of its metropolis, and the unbounded hospitality of the people of fashion, formed very unjust ideas of the real state of the kingdom: it was reduced by oppressive laws to a wretched situation; their loyalty was, however, superior to every other selfish consideration; they saw nothing but our danger; and though our acts had banished into foreign countries numbers of their brethren, and left them in a miserable state, still they were willing to strain every nerve to serve us in the moment of distress: a braver, more generous, and more loyal people was not to be found; he flattered himself, therefore, that they would be treated by the house according to their high deserts.

Mr. T. Townshend expressed his warm approbation of the motion; was happy to see the mist of prejudice begin to disperse; would be happy to give the measure a broader bottom; though as steadfast a Protestant as any gentleman in the house, he declared he should be glad to see some means adopted to grant such indulgences to the Roman Catholics of Ireland, as might attach that great body of men to the present government: their affections had been alienated; he wished to recal them by indulgent behaviour.

Lord North, adverting to what Mr. Townshend had said, declared he would with all his heart concur in any measure, that could tend to answer so desirable an end; but it was not their province; it was the province of the parliament of Ireland; the laws which were so severe against the Roman Catholics had originated there, and redress of domestic grievances should of right originate likewise from them; and he was of opinion, that the Irish parliament would see where the grievance lay, and redress it, for there was not any where a people of more liberal sentiments than the Irish. The penal laws of Ireland were the consequences of apprehension, which, however groundless, always adopts the most cruel and severe policy. The Irish complained, and complained with justice; but it must be left to the candour of their own parliament to grant such indulgence to the Roman Catholics as their loyalty deserved: he requested the house would agree to that, which was in their power, and their province to relax the trade laws would benefit the Irish, and ultimately enrich ourselves; embarked in the same cause with us, they cannot be called our rivals in trade, but their rivals were our rivals. The exceptions of woollen cloth he would say nothing to; it might not, perhaps, be just; but it was a point given up by the Irish, and confirmed by an ancient compact: if it should be found in the course of the proceedings on this bu siness that any other exceptions were necessary, the house no doubt would make them. Upon the whole, the motion should meet his hearty concurrence.

Thus did the British minister in the most public manner declare his cordial and unequivocal wishes, that his majesty's Catholic subjects of Ireland should be relieved from what he' admitted they complained of with justice: but it was to be effected by the Irish parliament, in which it is lamentable to say, bigotry and prejudice still held a sway, long since banished from the walls of St. Stephen's. The principle of toleration applied both to Great Britain and Ireland; but the political necessity of reducing that principle into action operated upon the two kingdoms in the inverse ratio of the respective dispositions of the two parliaments to effect it. In Great Britain scarcely one hundredth part of the population 'professed the Roman Catholic religion: and that body had long enjoyed a sort of tacit protection from the rigour of the penal laws. *Yet as Lord Ashburton observed on seconding the motion of Sir George Savile," the mildness of government had hitherto "softened the rigour of the law in the practice, but it was to be "considered, that the Roman Catholic priests were still left "at the mercy of the lowest and basest of mankind; for on the "complaint of any informing constable, the magisterial and "judicial powers were bound to enforce all the shameful penal"ties of the `act.” On the 14th of May, 1778, Sir George Savile moved for leave to bring in a bill for the repeal of certain penalties and disabilities provided in an act of the 10th and 11th of William III. intituled," An Act to prevent the further growth "of popery." In proposing this repeal, the honourable baronet observed, that he meant to vindicate the honour and assert the principles of the Protestant religion, to which all persecution was foreign and adverse: that the penalties in question were disgraceful not only to religion, but to humanity: they were calculated to loosen all the bands of society, to dissolve all social, moral, and religious obligations and duties: to poison the sources of domestic felicity, and to annihilate every principle of honour. Such was the liberality of the house, that the motion was carried without a dissentient voice. Lord Ashburton, then Mr. Dunning, seconded the motion with his usual ability, and Mr. Thurlow, the attorney general, explained and strongly supported the bill. Lord Beauchamp, in expressing his extreme satisfaction at the motion, observed that it gave him the more pleasure at that time, as he thought the commercial advantages, which parliament then meant to bestow on Ireland

8 Eng. Deb. p. 228. Speech of Mr. Dunning. Some time before this period the penal laws had been enforced against two priests, a Mr. Malony, and Mr. Talbot, the brother of the Earl of Shrewsbury. But to the humanity of the British nation it must be recorded, that these proceedings had been resorted to by a solitary individual, one Pain, a carpenter, who having two daughters, little business, much bigotry, and more covetousness, had formed the singular speculation of acquiring 20,000l. apiece for his daughters fortunes by informations under the penal statutes against the Catholics.

would be of very little use to that country, unless they were accompanied by a repeal of the penal laws, which had long depressed three fourths of the people there; and that bill he hoped would, when passed, be an example to the Irish parliament, in whose power it was to give that relief to their brethren; and he was sorry to say he thought, though their faith were in some degree pledged for the effect of some such measure, nothing had yet been done for that people. They had begged to have a test of loyalty and obedience to the government given them: that test was made, and taken by a large and respectable number of Roman Catholics; yet nothing had been granted them in return. Nay more; when a bill had been brought into the Irish parliament to allow Papists to take building leases in corporate towns, that most reasonable indulgence was ungenerously refused them. Something, he said, might be suggested in excuse with relation to the late disturbances in the south west part of Ireland; but he assured the house, that he never knew a Roman Catholic of property in that country who did not express the greatest abhorrence of those violences; and he was convinced, that it was want of employment, want of industry, and want of reward for labour, that caused them; and he concluded with a declaration, that he did not think the little indulgence, which was then proposed to be given to the Roman Catholics of this kingdom, should be accompanied by any test, as he was sure, that any member, who read over the act of King William (which he then held in his hand) would think that in repealing it he was not so much employed in conferring favours on the Catholics as in rescuing the statutes from disgrace.

The real policy of relaxing the penal code of the Irish had universally pervaded not only the British cabinet, but the British senate; not one morose, bigotted, or fanatical voice was heard in discord, to this truism advanced by Mr. Burke on Lord Nugent's first motion for a committee to consider the trade of Ireland, That Ireland was now the chief dependance of the British crown, and that it particularly behoved this country to admit the Irish nation to the privileges of British citizens.* For although a considerable opposition were afterwards made to the bill for opening the trade, the strongest opposers of that measure admitted the necessity of passing a bill for the relief of the Roman Catholics in Ireland. On the eleventh day after. the British House of Commons had given the liberal example

8 Eng. Deb. p. 185. viz. 1 April, 1778.

+ Thus Sir Cecil Wray, one of the most violent opposers of the extension of Irish trade said, he well knew the grievances of Ireland, and lamented them; amongst which were the Irish Pension Bill....the sinecure offices, the Roman Catholic Bills, the Absentees, and various others; and assured the house he would gladly join the house in redressing them.

of universal assent to Sir George Savile's motion in favour of the Roman Catholics of England, Mr. Gardiner on the 25th of May, 1778, made a motion in the Irish House of Commons, and the question being put, that leave be given to bring in heads of a bill for the relief of his majesty's Roman Catholic subjects of Ireland, and that Mr. Gardiner, the Hon. Barry Barry, and Mr. Yelverton, do prepare and bring in the same, and it was carried in the affirmative. At the same time the Presbyterians of Ireland bearing in mind, that the sacramental test had been imposed upon their ansestors by their lying by, when new severities were imposed upon their Roman Catholic brethren, came forward on this occasion to partake of the first symptoms of tolerancy in an Irish parliament. In order not to be excluded from the indulgences about to be dispensed to the Catholics, Sir Edward Newnham on the same day moved, that leave might be given to bring in heads of a bill for the relief of his majesty's subjects the Protestant Dissenters of that kingdom and Sir Edward Newnham and Sir Boyle Roche were ordered to prepare and bring in the same. But whether from a conviction, that the relief to the Dissenters was not of equal urgency with that proposed to be granted to the Roman Catholics, or that the British cabinet had hitherto expressed no opinion or inclination in their favour, the measure was remitted to another session.

:

The great object and important consequence, which the Catholics of Ireland obtained by this bill was the legislative avowal contained in the preamble of it, of those facts and assertions, which some few years back, it would have been considered little short of treason to have advanced: namely, that the severities of the act of Anne ought to be relaxed, that the Roman Catholics of Ireland were excluded from and ought to be admitted to the blessings of our free constitution, and that it would promote the prosperity and strength of all his majesty's dominions, that the Catholics should be bounden to the Protestants by mutual interest and affection. The establishment of this principle gave them a footing to stand upon in every future application to + Journ. Com. p. 475. The division is not given in the Journals.

17 and 18 Geo. III. c. 49. An act for the relief of his majesty's subjects of this kingdom professing the Popish religion. "Whereas by an act made "in this kingdom in the second year of her late Majesty Queen Anne, in"tituled, An Act to prevent the further Growth of Popery, and also by another "act made in the eighth year of her said reign for explaining and amending "the said act, the Roman Catholics of Ireland are made subject to several "disabilities and incapacities therein particularly mentioned: and whereas "from their uniform peaceable behaviour for a long series of years, it appears "reasonable and expedient to relax the same, and it must tend not only to "the cultivation and improvement of this kingdom, but to the prosperity and "strength of all his majesty's dominions, that his subjects of all denomina"tions should enjoy the blessings of our free constitution, and should be bound "to each other by mutual interest and mutual affection :"&c.

the crown or parliament for a full participation of every blessing of our free constitution. The advantages granted by this act were, that any Roman Catholic taking and subscribing the oath of allegiance and declaration prescribed by the 13th and 14th of Geo. III. c. 35. might take, enjoy, and dispose of a lease for 999 years certain, or determinable on the dropping of five lives, and that the lands then seized by Catholics should in future be descendible, deviseable, or alienable as fully, as if they were in the seizin of any other subject of his majesty: and that it should no longer be in the power of a child to fly in the face of his parent by demanding a present maintenance out of the father's personal estate, or by depriving him totally of the inheritance of his real estate, as he before had been enabled to do by the 2d Anne, c. 6. This was a qualified admission over the threshold of property, and the more welcome to the Catholics, from their conviction, that a breach once made in that penal fortress, it was impossible it should hold out much longer.*

Although less were in fact granted by Mr. Gardener's bill to the Irish, than by Sir George Savile's bill to the English Roman Catholics, yet widely different was the progress of each through the houses. The former was contested in every stage through the Irish House of Commons: on the 5th of June, 1778, five divisions took place upon it, though each were carried in the affirmative: and on the 15th of the same month three divisions in like manner were had.† On the 16th Mr.

Dillon, who took a very active part in the bill, reported progress from the committee, where it was warmly debated, and upon the motion for the house's resolving itself into a committee of the whole house to take the said heads of the bill into further consideration, on the 18th of June the house divided, 56 against 47. Mr. Tottenham and Mr. William Handcock were prominent in their opposition to the bill. On the 18th the house in committee sat in debate till three o'clock in the morning, and on the

Among other warm supporters of this bill was Sir Hercules Langrishe, to whom Mr. Burke thus wrote with reference to it (p. 87) "It is a thing humi"liating enough, that we are doubtful of the effect of the medicines we com"pound. We are sure of our poisons. My opinion ever was (in which I "heartily agreed with those, that admired the old code) that it was so con"structed, that if there was once a breach in any essential part of it, the ruin "of the whole, or nearly of the whole, was, at some time or other, a certainty. For that reason I honour, and shall for ever honour and love you, who first "caused it to stagger, crack, and gape. Others may finish, the beginners "have the glory; and, take what part you please at this hour, (I think you "will take the best) your first service will never be forgotten by a grateful "country."

+9 Com. Journ. p. 493. One of these was upon admitting a clause for repealing that part of the statute of Queen Anne, which requires the sacra mental test as a necessary qualification for holding offices and places of trust and profit under the crown. On this day also a petition from the mayor, sheriffs, common council, freemen, freeholders, and other Protestant inhabitants of the city of Cork, was presented against the bill.