opinion that these difficulties will be Overcome, arguing from its being the interest of all parties to have "a good settlement," and interest can never lie;" but, at the same time, hints that there are "some members of the Privy Council, and judges," whose private interest lies the other way, and who, therefore, threaten to oppose their Majesties in Parliament, in order that it may not be assembled. This points at Porter and Cox, as events subsequently showed; and the Deputy artfully places them before the royal pair in the light of men who wilfully stand in the way of "a good agreement" between them and their people.

Having thus depreciated the motives of both parties, he approaches the Articles; and instead of acknowledging that he was himself pledged to those who sought to relax them, he merely glances at the likelihood of the first and sixth meeting with some opposition," putting, in fact, into the mouths of imaginary objectors those very arguments he had, no doubt, at the time sanctioned as his own-arguments, too, which by no means embraced all that he was ready to concede to the party. He leaves it to be understood, by the concluding sentence of the passage, that even these points would not be pressed, which is the obvious meaning of his statement, that members would have "a due regard to the King's honour," since it consisted, according to the King's own interpretation, in maintaining the Articles inviolate.

Finally, he suggests, as likely to be agreeable to their Majesties, that Parliament might meet as soon as convenient, for the passing of the most pressing measures, such as moneybills; and be adjourned, if it exhibited a refractory disposition, until after the meeting of the English Parliament, which might then exercise due control, if necessary, over any extravagancies.

What effect these conflicting letters produced upon the royal mind at the time we are not informed. But it is certain that in the interval between this period and the following spring, Capel was assiduously occupied in strengthening and organising his own

party, in opposition to that of the other Lords Justices; while they, on their side, continued as inflexibly opposed as ever to all those who sought, under the cover of Protestant zeal, to aggrandise themselves at the expense of the public faith. The Chancellor and Sir Richard Cox, their most powerful supporters, themselves possessed considerable personal influence. They were known and esteemed by the king, and had energetic friends amongst his closest favourites. Lord Romney, who had knighted the latter in the Castle of Dublin, had not forgotten his services in the crisis of 1691,* and kept alive in William's breast the recollection of one who had borne the sword of a soldier, as well as of justice, in his service; and Sir Robert Southwell, "than whom," says Harris, "the world could not show a man of more religion, virtue, and wisdom," and whose influence in Irish affairs was always considerable, constantly patronised a man whose efforts for the encouragement of Irish trade and manufactures brought him into familiar contact, as well with him as with that indefatigable industrial economist, Sir Thomas Southwell. Against such a weight of integrity it needed the exercise of all Capel's ingenuity to maintain an effective resistance. But he had two potent engines at his disposal. An intense feeling of fear and insecurity pervaded the mass of Protestants in Ireland, kept alive by the recollection of recent dangers and recent escapes; so that men who possessed less firmness and elevation of character than Porter and his associates, scarcely dared even to be just. And in the breasts of William and Mary an equally active desire existed to relieve England from the prospect of being obliged to bear the burden of the Irish establishment, which the want of parliamentary supplies would at last render unavoidable. By making both of these work in the same direction, Capel hoped to bear down the national assumption, on the one hand, and the royal scruples on the other. This was only to be done by pursuing to extremity the policy he had struck out at first. By no other means could he expect to obtain a majority in the

Commons for the purposes of Government, than by yielding the Articles of Limerick to parliamentary revision, for the purposes of those individuals of which the House was composed.

It was impossible, Capel saw probably with some satisfaction, to effect these objects without greater powers than he possessed. These powers he saw equally clearly could not be obtained without personal exertions, only to be made on the spot; but it was, nevertheless, the spring of the next year (1695) before we find him passing over, by license, into England, and repairing to Kensington to the presence of their Majesties. Harris, by some strange mistake, states, in mentioning this journey of the Lord Justice, that during his absence the Government, by the King's command, was placed in the hands of Sir Charles Porter and Sir Cyril Wyche, and even speaks of the great moderation and justice with which they acted, and of the "mortification" their popularity caused to the prevailing party. There is no record of any such appointment amongst the official documents of the time; and as Wyche and Duncombe were already associated as Lords Justices with Capel, there would be no necessity for a delegation of power, in the absence of one out of the three to whom it had already been committed.*

The lever by which Capel was to work his purpose with the royal couple, was the assembling of a Parliament. But, if he had expressed his real sentiments in the letter of the preceding July, circumstances must have occurred in the meantime materially to diminish his confidence in his own ability to accomplish his designs; for he now urged it upon his Majesty to remove Porter and Cox from their judicial seats, in order to pave the way, with other changes, for success. And although the king refused to listen to the proposal, it is plain that he saw the necessity of acting with vigour, and to that end, of seeming to repose more confidence in his servant than he would ungrudgingly do; for on the tenth day of May in that year (1695) twelve let

ters were signed by him at Kensington, containing dismissals and appointments in the Irish department,t to be placed in the hands of Lord Capel, now, by letters patent, passed only the day previous, Lord Deputy of Ireland.

Capel

Invested with this dignity, so long the object of his ambition, and armed with the authority of the king's letter, besides carte blanche to make what further changes their Majestie's inte rests might require, Lord Capel returned in triumph to Ireland, and was sworn Lord Deputy at the Castle of Dublin, on the 27th of May. The changes sanctioned by the king's sign manual were made at once. They included the dismissal of Sir Richard Cox from the Privy Council. had besought his Majesty to have him and the Chancellor removed from the bench. This William steadily resisted. They might be excluded from the councils of those whose policy and acts were at variance with their known principles; but to strip such men of their judicial authority would imply a censure on their administration of the law, unfair, if groundless, and would, if called for, involve a violation of the legitimate course of proceeding, namely, by parliamentary inquiry. Cox's disgrace was looked upon by independent men as a triumph. Harris, his biographer, in a memoir which partakes too much of the panegyrical style to be relied upon on all points without corroboration, has given us the very words in which Sir Robert Southwell condoled with him — words of noble encouragement, addressed to the object of unmerited persecutionBona agere, et mala pati, regium est.

The Lord Deputy was determined to push his advantages to the uttermost. Writs were issued at once, and Parliament assembled the 27th of August. Whether from a recollection of the sudden prorogation of the last parliament, or from a terror of the recent exercise of the royal power in the official changes, the House of Commons exhibited from the outset a very satis factory spirit of tractability. It is thus they express themselves in the address

of thanks for his excellency's speech :"We take leave to assure your Excellency that we will avoid all heats and animosities in our debates, and apply ourselves to what shall be agreeable to his Majesty's expectation, and for the service of the publick, by supplying the deficiency of the revenue," &c. Such being the temper of the House, it was not difficult for the Deputy, once he had obtained his supplies, which were secured early, to have an inquiry into the conduct of the most dangerous of his adversaries set on foot. Porter was the first object singled out for attack. Eleven articles of impeachment were exhibited against him. Eleven members of the House undertook to justify them. A complete victory was anticipated, in a House constituted as this was.

But

the Chancellor, if he was not to be seduced at first, was not to be intimidated now. He sought and obtained permission to defend himself in person; and so ably and eloquently did he plead his own cause, that not even the terrors of courtly displeasure could force from the House a vote to his prejudice. He was honourably acquitted of the charges, being raised rather than lowered in the public estimation by this abortive attempt to ruin him.† Burnet has lightly charged him with beginning at this time "to set a Tory humour on foot in Ireland;"‡ but Harris has shown good reasons for exonerating him from this vague censure, and moreover asserts, what is not so directly stated elsewhere, that "the Lord Deputy assisted all in his power to bear him down."§

The next attack was upon Cox, whose daily increasing popularity and influence rendered him peculiarly obnoxious to a Government that feared him. Taking warning from experience, however, and perhaps recollect ing his former achievements in the field, his enemies forbore to make their approaches directly. They carried their zig-zag, by attempting to get a vote that the Irish forfeitures had been mismanaged. But here, too, they broke down as signally as in Porter's instance. Cox succeeded in obtaining

leave to be heard before the Committee; and having suffered Sir Richard Bulkeley to produce his charges in full, he replied at the moment with such spirit and effect, that not a shred of argument was left in the hands of his accusers. The consequence was, that the vote grounded on the charges was lost, and the party whose interests it served to deprive Cox of power, were fain to accomplish their real objects under the cloke of frugality, and dissolve the Commission as a profitless and unnecessary expense.

Contests of this nature assumed not unfrequently as much of a personal as of a strictly political aspect. Rancour and violence displayed their colours without reserve, and scenes which would now be considered disgraceful, were enacted during the most solemn conjunctures, without exciting surprise. Whether this tendency towards embodying points of controversy in the individual who raises them, is indigenous in the soil, or is to be ascribed to the peculiar circumstances of the country, it has remained prominently characteristic of the national character from the dawn of history up to recent times. Again and again has the scene been witnessed of contests of right and principle degenerating into personal altercation, and descending at last into rude encounters, out of which the victor has extricated himself with less credit than the vanquished. The usages of society, and a more refined sensibility and self-respect, have had their effect in discountenancing these indecencies they are out of fashion, and therefore nearly out of use; but as at the time we treat of neither custom nor taste were so rigorously opposed to them, they were of daily and hourly occurrence.

On the night in which the charges against Lord Chancellor Porter were rejected by the Commons, he was making his way homewards in his coach through the narrow thoroughfare called Essex-street. This avenue, which had been opened about twenty years before by the Lord Deputy's brother, Arthur Capel, entered the city by Essex-gate, and formed the leading

Harris, "Life of Cox," 218. § "William III,” 420. Comm. Journ. vol. 2.

line of communication between Chichester House, where the Parliament sat, and Chancery-lane, inhabited by the judges and principal law officers, whose mansions were congregated about the newly erected courts of justice in Christ-Church-lane. As the vehicle lumbered along, the coachman made an attempt to pass by a carriage before him, in which the Speaker of the House of Commons, a violent opponent of the Chancellor's, happened to be. The street was profoundly dark, no public lights being introduced in Dublin until the year after, when an Act was passed for the purpose; * but it is possible that the flambeaux of the Speaker's footman revealed the hostile liveries; for he instantly put his head out of the window and called upon the Chancellor's coachman to stop. The command not producing an immediate effect, he darted out of his carriage in his full costume, regardless of darkness and mire, and seizing hold of the Chancellor's horses, brought them upon their haunches in a moment. Then, lest there should be any mistake about the matter, he ordered his mace to be produced from the carriage, and held it up himself before the eyes of the astounded coachman, exclaiming"That he would be run down by noe man, and would justifie what he did!" The Chancellor, it is plain, had the worst of it in an encounter of this kind. He made no attempt to parade his mace in the kennel, and was obliged meekly to follow the Speaker as far as their way was the same." Vulgar as this fray might well be called, it was thought of sufficient importance at the time to be made the subject of a conference between the two Houses, Nay, Harris gravely asserts, that the prudence and good temper of the Lords alone prevented a stop being put thereby to the settlement of the kingdom!†

66

Such were the episodes which enlivened the session of a Parliament that had undertaken to banish "heats and animosities" from its debates. The bad consequences that ensued were such as might be expected. The public were the sufferers. We learn from the same historian who has recorded the foregoing incident, that in conse

* 9 William III., c. 17. § 9 William III., ch. 2.

quence of the impeachment, the Lord Deputy and the Chancellor could not be induced to unite for any public pur. pose; a stop was put to all business, and Parliament adjourned for five weeks.+

The Houses, nevertheless, proceeded, with such interruptions, to pass measures at the dictation and to the satisfaction of Government. The supplies, as has been said, were voted soon after the Parliament met. The Articles of Limerick, too, came early under discussion, An idea of the suc cess Lord Capel met with in prevailing on Parliament to tamper with them, may be formed from the words of the preamble to the Act which ratified them "That the said Articles, or so much of them as may consist with the welfare of your Majesties' subjects of this kingdom, may be confirmed," &c.§ As this Act purported to settle doubtful points, it gave rise to much statement and counter-statement, which might have been interminably prolonged, had private individuals been permitted, as was sought in one case, to be heard by counsel at the bar of the House. is very questionable how far particular claims should, under any circumstances, be taken into consideration, so as to modify questions involving general ininterests; but be this as it may, it is not just to make it matter of reflection on this Parliament, that it rejected the petition in question, since its reception would have established a precedent, on the authority of which any party considering himself aggrieved (and such there would have been under any interpretation) might claim the right to appear and offer his own construction of the Articles.

It

It would have been well, indeed, if no more questionable measures had characterised this Parliament. But the spirit of the day was anti-Catholic ; and it was hoped that, without any direct violation of the treaty, the mass of the population of Ireland might be so cooped and caged within legislative disabilities, as to be forced either to a renunciation of their religion, or to an abandonment of their country. Acts were passed for restraining foreign education, for disarming Papists, for ba

+ Harris, ubi sup. That of Mr. Cusac and others.

nishing Popish regular clergy, &c., for preventing Protestants from intermarrying with Papists, and for preventing Papists from being solicitors. About these measures there was no hesitation

-no difference of opinion within the House. The Papist was the "enemy," and so termed whether he desired to be the friend or not. He was supposed to be so naturally, and was so, of course, because he was thought so. Those of his creed were the numerical majority of the population, and so an ascendancy of some kind must, of necessity, it was argued, be maintained by the minority over it. As the time had not arrived when that could be a moral ascendancy, it must, of course, be social and political; and the idea of political ascendancy then entertained was to degrade the condition and brutalise the nature of the subordinate class—to render it odious and despicable, so that one might be able to point to its degradation as a justification of its sufferings thereby creating the crime for the sake of punishing it. It was only endeavouring to carry out, by legislative means, the same theory of extermination which had been more literally and successfully practised in the case of the native tribes of the New Continent. Nevertheless, however false was this system, and however abhorrent to our juster and larger views of humanity and natural equity, we must be cautious how we pronounce too absolutely upon the criminality of those who put it in practice. The eye which looks back into history must, indeed, make use of the full illumination of the present for the examination of past political systems and acts, as they are to influence the systems and acts of today, but should ever survey them in their moral aspect under such light-or twilight-as the period afforded. It was the fixed and conscientious belief of Protestants, both in England and Ireland, that there was something radically untameable in the aboriginal Irish nature, and fundamentally treasonable in the Popish religion.

This

double taint, it was held, infected the mass, and rendered it dangerous. Safety demanded the coercion of this body of disaffection; and necessity was made to justify the means. Proofs of the com

*

patibility of this reasoning with perfect fairness and even generosity as regarded individuals, are of constant recurrence both during the war and after its termination. We have seen that Wych, Porter, Duncombe, and Cox, had successively incurred the displeasure of the dominant party by their advocacy of claims put forward by Roman Catholics; yet not one word of remonstrance, so far as the records of the time show, was uttered in assertion of the right of the subject in a free country to educate his children as he liked to follow a particular branch of legal practice; or to contract marriage with whomsoever he pleased,

The passions of the Protestant loyalists of Ireland were still further inflamed at this time, by the almost simultaneous discovery of a plot against the King's life, in which Sir George Barclay, a Scotchman, acted the part of principal conspirator; and of a meditated descent upon England by the abdicated monarch, James, who had marched an army to Calais, and was only prevented from transporting it across the channel by the presence of Admiral Russel, with a fleet of fifty sail.* An association instantly sprung up in England, pledged to the defence of his Majesty; and in Ireland a similar association was now formed, in which in particular every member of the House of Commons was required to enrol his name. Every member but one did so without hesitation-the recusant being Mr. Robert Saunderson, who was forthwith expelled. It is therefore to the credit of a Parliament, thus under the influence of a semireligious panic and excitement, that it did not altogether overlook the principles of justice in the framing of an Act so likely to be made the vehicle for the display of vindictive feeling as that "for the suppression of Tories, Robbers, and Rapparees." In directing that every barony or county should make full satisfaction and amends for injury to person or property committed within it an excellent measure in itself, it provided that where the Rapparees were Protestants, the Protestant inhabitants of the district should alone bear the fine imposed by the Act.

If we add the abolition of the old