BOOK V. usage was exasperating into disaffection. A section of the Catholics, in return-the educated men of business, the more temperate of the bishops, the noblemen of Norman-English blood, the Fingals, the Kenmares, the Trimlestons, who had preserved their estates and were allowed their titles by courtesy-were willing enough to meet advances to them with cordiality and gratitude. By the side of these, within the same communion, were the irreconcilable spirits who inherited the past traditions the representatives of the dispossessed chiefs who nursed in secret their unappeased resentment, and revenged their wrongs when opportunity offered, as ravishers of women, cattle-houghers, incendiaries, and agrarian assassins. To them England was the cause of all the woes which they suffered, and was and should be to the end a loathed and execrated enemy. They were themselves the descendants of the men who had fought at Aghrim, and been cheated at Limerick. In the French brigade they had still an army on the Continent, which they recruited annually from their own ranks, and to which they looked as their future avenger. The first section accepted their situation, and made the best of it. The second brooded over their wrongs, and fed themselves with dreams of vengeance. Both, perhaps, were at bottom of the same nature, and were working towards the same end; but their outward attitude was markedly different. The English Government, accepting the distinction as real, made it the basis of its Irish policy, and the rule of the Castle statesmanship was to conciliate the more reputable Catholics, and to assume that the Catholic creed, as such, no longer forbade or interfered with alle I. giance to a Protestant sovereign. The first open sign CHAP. of the approaching change was in the viceroyalty of the Duke of Bedford, who, while in office in 1757, spoke in terms so unambiguous of a relaxation of the penal laws, that public thanks were bestowed on him from the altars of the Catholic chapels. It might have been well to relax the penal laws had the causes for which they were imposed been clearly asserted and admitted. Unhappily the desire of conciliation was pressed so far as to disfigure and conceal the facts of history. An annual sermon, preached before the House of Commons on the 23rd of October, was designed to keep alive the memory of the rebellion and massacres of 1641. Dr. Curry, a Catholic physician of eminence, ventured boldly on the same ground. In a memoir of the period he revived the plea which was alleged to Charles the Second in bar of the Act of Settlement, that the rebellion was no rebellion, but the innocent and cruelly misrepresented effort of a loyal people to defend the Crown against Puritan usurpation; that half of the alleged cruelties were the invention of fanatical bigots; that the rest were enormously exaggerated; and that so far as blood had been shed at all, it was only in self-defence against a deliberate design to exterminate the Catholic population. Dr. Curry's story will not bear examination, but it was well contrived to fall in with the growing sentiment that the past had better be forgotten; and thus a legend was allowed to re-establish itself unreproved, which teaches the Irish Catholics to regard themselves as victims of an atrocious conspiracy-a conspiracy to rob them of their lands, and to justify it by blackening their reputation. BOOK V. Bedford proposed to repeal the bill against the clergy, and to allow an adequate supply of priests, ordained abroad, to be systematically introduced and registered. The Catholics declined an offer which, in legalising the presence of their clergy, would have deprived them of their bishops; but they were too shrewd to refuse to recognise the good intentions of the Government, and they made haste to display in other ways their willingness to meet them. The splendid triumphs of Chatham's foreign policy-the conquest of India, the expulsion of the French from the Canadas, and the victories of the English everywhere, as unexpected as they were brilliant, provoked Louis XV. to aim a blow in return at England's vulnerable side. The officers of the Irish brigade held out the usual hope that an invasion of Munster would be followed by a rising of the people. The intention becoming known, the Dublin Catholics came forward with a demonstration of loyalty. Under Dr. Curry's guidance a declaration of allegiance, signed by three hundred Catholic merchants, was presented to the Viceroy, received graciously, and published in the 'Gazette.' The supineness of the Protestants played into their hands. The French 1 It seems, from a letter of Dr O'Connor to Dr. Curry, that the offer was not refused without hesitation. They offer us a Registry Bill,' he writes, which is calculated to extirpate our very remains. Nothing can be better known than that our spiritual economy cannot be exercised without the spiritual jurisdiction of our bishops. Yet the jurisdiction of Catholic bishops is totally overturned by this blessed boou which is to destroy Popery by Popery itself. I. fleet sailed. It was destroyed by Hawke at Belleisle,' CHAP. and the opportunity of proving the sincerity of their professions was not afforded them; but their outward conduct contrasted not a little to their advantage with the languor of the Lords and Commons and the Irish Executive. The Catholics, though disarmed, were at least outwardly zealous. The colonists were snarling over the initiation of money bills, or dishonestly manoeuvring with Septennial Acts. Dr. Curry pursued his advantage. He established a permanent committee in Dublin to watch over Catholic interests in communication with the Government. For some unexplained reason, Spanish influence was thought more powerful for evil in Ireland than the French, and when, in 1761, Spain was added to the number of England's enemies, the committee thought the time. was come to sue for distinct recognition. The conduct,' wrote Lord Halifax, in explaining the overture which was made to him, which the Roman Catholics of this country are likely to observe in the course of the war with France and Spain is of great consequence. The French interest would, I believe, never have found any essential support; but a different effect might be apprehended from the Spanish connection. I have, therefore, watched the Catholics carefully, and I have now the pleasure of transmitting professions which I trust will give as much satisfaction to you as to me. Lord Trimleston3 is the most sensible man belonging to the Catholics in this country. His weight with them is great, and 1 November 20, 1759. 2 Halifax and Egremont Correspondence, 1762.' S. P. O. 3 Robert Barnewalle, descended from Sir Robert Barnewalle, created Lord Trimleston by Edward IV. 1761. |