An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 Part 49

FOOTNOTES:

[538] _Command_.--Mountcashel gave the word "right face;" it was repeated "right about face." Colonel Hamilton and Captain Lavallin were tried in Dublin by court-martial for the mistake, and the latter was shot.

[539] _Arrived_.--The journals of two officers of the Williamite army have been published in the _Ulster Arch. Jour_., and furnish some interesting details of the subsequent campaign. One of the writers is called Bonnivert, and was probably a French refugee; the other was Dr.

Davis, a Protestant clergyman, who obtained a captaincy in William's army, and seemed to enjoy preaching and fighting with equal zest.

[540] _Sick_.--Harris' _Life of King William_, p. 254, 1719. Macaulay's account of the social state of the camp, where there were so many divines preaching, is a proof that their ministrations were not very successful, and that the lower order of Irish were not at all below the English of the same cla.s.s in education or refinement. "The moans of the sick were drowned by the blasphemy and ribaldry of their companions.

Sometimes, seated on the body of a wretch who had died in the morning, might be seen a wretch destined to die before night, cursing, singing loose songs, and swallowing usquebaugh to the health of the devil. When the corpses were taken away to be buried, the survivors grumbled. A dead man, they said, was a good screen and a good stool. Why, when there was so abundant a supply of such useful articles of furniture, were people to be exposed to the cold air, and forced to crouch on the moist ground?"--Macaulay's _History of England_, People's Ed. part viii. p.

88.

[541] _Eminence_.--Journal of Captain Davis, published in the _Ulster Archaeological Journal_, vol. iv.

[542] _Twenty thousand_.--Captain Davis' Journal.

[543] _Shoulder_.--Davis' Journal The coat was exhibited at the meeting of the British a.s.sociation in Belfast, in 1852. It had descended as an heirloom through Colonel Wetherall, William's aide-de-camp, who took it off him after the accident.

[544] _Career_.--_History of the King's Inns_, p. 239.

[545] _Been.--Life of William III_. p. 327.

[546] _Charge_.--See the _Green Book_, p. 231, for some curious stories about this engagement, and for a detailed account of St. Ruth's death.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

Formation of the Irish Brigade--Violation of the Treaty of Limerick--Enactment of the Penal Laws--Restrictions on Trade--The Embargo Laws--The Sacramental Test introduced--The Palatines--The Irish forbidden to enlist in the Army--Dean Swift and the Drapier's Letters--Attempts to form a Catholic a.s.sociation--Irish Emigrants defeat the English in France, Spain, and America--The Whiteboys--An Account of the Cause of these Outrages, by an English Tourist--Mr. Young's Remedy for Irish Disaffection--The Peculiar Position and Difficulties of Irish Priests--The Judicial Murder of Father Nicholas Sheehy--Grattan's Demand for Irish Independence--The Volunteers--A Glimpse of Freedom.

[A.D. 1691-1783.]

St. John's Gate and the Irish outworks were surrendered to the English; the English town was left for the Irish troops to occupy until their departure for France. The men were to have their choice whether they would serve under William III. or under the French. A few days after they were mustered on the Clare side of the Shannon, to declare which alternative they preferred. An Ulster battalion, and a few men in each regiment, in all about 1,000, entered the service of Government; 2,000 received pa.s.ses to return home; 11,000, with all the cavalry, volunteered for France, and embarked for that country in different detachments, under their respective officers. They were warmly received in the land of their adoption; and all Irish Catholics to France were granted the privileges of French citizens, without the formality of naturalization. And thus was formed the famous "Irish Brigade," which has become a household word for bravery and the glory of the Irish nation.

The Treaty, as I have said, was signed on the 3rd of October, 1691. The preamble states that the contracting parties were Sir Charles Porter and Thomas Coningsby, Lords Justices, with the Baron de Ginkell as Commander-in-Chief, on the part of William and Mary; Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, Viscount Galmoy, Colonel Purcell, Colonel Cusack, Sir J. Butler, Colonel Dillon, and Colonel Brown, on the part of the Irish nation. The articles were fifty-two in number. They guaranteed to the Catholics (1) the free exercise of their religion; (2) the privilege of sitting in Parliament; (3) freedom of trade; (4) the safety of the estates of those who had taken up arms for King James; (5) a general amnesty; (6) all the honours of war to the troops, and a free choice for their future destination. The articles run to considerable length, and cannot, therefore, be inserted here; but they may be seen _in extenso_ in MacGeoghegan's _History of Ireland_, and several other works. So little doubt had the Irish that this Treaty would be solemnly observed, that when the accidental omission of two lines was discovered in the clean copy, they refused to carry out the arrangements until those lines had been inserted. The Treaty was confirmed by William and Mary, who pledged "the honour of England" that it should be kept inviolably, saying: "We do, for us, our heirs and successors, as far as in us lies, ratify and confirm the same, and every clause, matter, and thing therein contained." Two days after the signing of the Treaty, a French fleet arrived in the Shannon, with 3,000 soldiers, 200 officers, and 10,000 stand of arms. Sarsfield was strongly urged to break faith with the English; but he n.o.bly rejected the temptation. How little did he foresee how cruelly that nation would break faith with him!

Two months had scarcely elapsed after the departure of the Irish troops, when an English historian was obliged to write thus of the open violation of the articles: "The justices of the peace, sheriffs, and other magistrates, presuming on their power in the country, dispossessed several of their Majesties' Catholic subjects, not only of their goods and chattels, but also of their lands and tenements, to the great reproach of their Majesties' Government."[547] These complaints were so general, that the Lords Justices were at last obliged to issue a proclamation on the subject (November 19, 1691), in which they state that they had "received complaints from all parts of Ireland of the ill-treatment of the Irish who had submitted; and that they [the Irish]

were so extremely terrified with apprehensions of the continuance of that usage, that some of those who had quitted the Irish army and went home, with the resolution not to go to France, were then come back again, and pressed earnestly to go thither, rather than stay in Ireland, where, contrary to the public faith, as well as law and justice, they were robbed in their persons and abused in their substance." Let it be remembered that this was an official doc.u.ment, and that it emanated from the last persons who were likely to listen to such complaints, or relieve them if they could possibly have been denied.

The men who had hoped for confiscations that they might share the plunder, now began to clamour loudly. It was necessary to get up a popular cry against Papists, as the surest means of attaining their end.

Individuals who had as little personal hatred to the Pope as they had to the Grand Turk, and as little real knowledge of the Catholic Faith as of Mahometanism, uttered wild cries of "No Popery!" and "No Surrender!"

William, whose morals, if not his professions, proclaimed that he was not troubled with any strong religious convictions, was obliged to yield to the faction who had set him on the throne. Probably, he yielded willingly; and was thus able, in some measure, to make a pretence of doing under pressure what he really wished to do of his own will.

On the 28th of October, 1692, the Parliament in Dublin rejected a Bill which had been sent from England, containing restrictions on certain duties, solely to proclaim their independence. A few days after they were taught a lesson of obedience. Lord Sidney came down to the House unexpectedly, and prorogued Parliament, with a severe rebuke, ordering the Clerk to enter his protest against the proceedings of the Commons on the journals of the House of Lords. The hopes of the English were raised, and the Parliament brought forward the subject of the Limerick articles, with torrents of complaints against the Irish in general, and the Irish Catholics in particular. William received their remonstrance coolly, and the matter was allowed to rest for a time. In 1695 Lord Capel was appointed Viceroy. He at once summoned a Parliament, which sat for several sessions, and in which some of the penal laws against Catholics were enacted. As I believe the generality even of educated persons, both in England and Ireland, are entirely ignorant of what these laws really were, I shall give a brief account of their enactments, premising first, that seven lay peers and seven Protestant bishops had the honorable humanity to sign a protest against them.

(1) The Catholic peers were deprived of their right to sit in Parliament. (2) Catholic gentlemen were forbidden to be elected as members of Parliament. (3) It denied all Catholics the liberty of voting, and it excluded them from all offices of trust, and indeed from _all remunerative_ employment, however insignificant.[548] (4) They were fined 60 a-month for absence from the Protestant form of worship. (5) They were forbidden to travel five miles from their houses, to keep arms, to maintain suits at law, or to be guardians or executors. (6) Any four justices of the peace could, without further trial, banish any man for life if he refused to attend the Protestant service. (7) Any two justices of the peace could call any man over sixteen before them, and if he refused to abjure the Catholic religion, they could bestow his property on the next of kin. (8) No Catholic could employ a Catholic schoolmaster to educate his children; and if he sent his child abroad for education, he was subject to a fine of 100, and the child could not inherit any property either in England or Ireland. (9) Any Catholic priest who came to the country should be hanged. (10) Any Protestant suspecting any other Protestant of holding property[549] in trust for any Catholic, might file a bill against the suspected trustee, and take the estate or property from him. (11) Any Protestant seeing a Catholic tenant-at-will on a farm, which, in his opinion, yielded one-third more than the yearly rent, might enter on that farm, and, by simply swearing to the fact, take possession. (12) Any Protestant might take away the horse of a Catholic, no matter how valuable, by simply paying him 5.

(13) Horses and wagons belonging to Catholics, were in all cases to be seized for the use of the militia. (14) Any Catholic gentleman's child who became a Protestant, could at once take possession of his father's property.

I have only enumerated some of the enactments of this code, and I believe there are few persons who will not be shocked at their atrocity.

Even if the rights of Catholics had not been secured to them by the Treaty of Limerick, they had the rights of men; and whatever excuse, on the ground of hatred of Popery as a religion, may be offered for depriving men of liberty of conscience, and of a share in the government of their country, there can be no excuse for the gross injustice of defrauding them of their property, and placing life and estate at the mercy of every ruffian who had an interest in depriving them of either or of both. Although the seventeenth century has not yet been included in the dark ages, it is possible that posterity, reading these enactments, may reverse present opinion on this subject.

But though the Parliament which sat in Dublin, and was misnamed Irish, was quite willing to put down Popery and to take the property of Catholics, it was not so willing to submit to English rule in other matters. In 1698 Mr. Molyneux, one of the members for the University of Dublin, published a work, ent.i.tled _The Case of Irelands being bound by Acts of Parliament in England, stated_. But Mr. Molyneux's book was condemned by the English Parliament; and after a faint show of resistance, the Irish members succ.u.mbed. The next attention which the English Houses paid to this country, was to suppress the woollen trade.

In 1698 they pa.s.sed a law for the prevention of the exportation of wool and of manufactures from Ireland, "under the forfeiture of goods and ship, and a penalty of 500 for every such offence." The penal laws had made it "an offence" for a man to practise his religion, or to educate his children either in Ireland or abroad; the trade laws made it "an offence" for a man to earn[550] his bread in an honest calling. The lower cla.s.s of Protestants were the princ.i.p.al sufferers by the destruction of the woollen trade; it had been carried on by them almost exclusively; and it is said that 40,000 persons were reduced to utter dest.i.tution by this one enactment. In addition to this, navigation laws were pa.s.sed, which prohibited Irish merchants from trading beyond seas in any ships except those which were built in England. The embargo laws followed, of which twenty-two were pa.s.sed at different periods during forty years. They forbade Irish merchants, whether Protestant or Catholic, to trade with any foreign nation, or with any British colony, direct-to export or import _any article_, except to or from British merchants resident in England. Ireland, however, was allowed one consolation, and this was the permission to import rum duty free. I am certain that none of the honorable members who voted such laws had the deliberate intention of making the Irish a nation of beggars and drunkards; but if the Irish did not become such, it certainly was not the fault of those who legislated for their own benefit, and, as far as they had the power to do so, for her ruin, politically and socially.

William had exercised his royal prerogative by disposing, according to his own inclination, of the estates forfeited by those who had fought for the royal cause. His favourite, Mrs. Villiers, obtained property worth 25,000 per annum. In 1799 the English Parliament began to inquire into this matter, and the Commons voted that "the advising and pa.s.sing of the said grants was highly reflecting upon the King's honour."

William had already began to see on what shifting sands the poor fabric of his popularity was erected. He probably thought of another case in which his honour had been really pledged, and in which he had been obliged to sacrifice it to the clamours of these very men. He had failed in the attempt to keep his Dutch Guards; his last days were embittered; and had not his death occurred soon after, it is just possible that even posterity might have read his life in a different fashion.

Anne succeeded to the throne in 1702; and the following year the Duke of Ormonde was sent to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant. The House of Commons waited on him with a Bill "to prevent the further growth of Popery." A few members, who had protested against this Act, resigned their seats, but others were easily found to take their places, whose opinions coincided with those of the majority. The Queen's Tory advisers objected to these strong measures, and attempted to nullify them, by introducing the clause known as the "Sacramental Test," which excludes from public offices all who refused to receive the sacrament according to the forms of the Established Church. As dissenters from that Church had great influence in the Irish Parliament, and as it was well known that their abhorrence of the Church which had been established by law was little short of their hatred of the Church which had been suppressed by law, it was hoped that they would reject the bill; but they were a.s.sured that they would not be required to take the test, and with this a.s.surance they pa.s.sed the Act. It seems to those who look back on such proceedings, almost a marvel, how men, whose conscience forbade them to receive the sacrament according to certain rites, and who, in many cases, certainly would have resigned property, if not life, sooner than act contrary to their religious convictions, should have been so blindly infatuated as to compel other men, as far as they had power to do so, to violate their conscientious convictions. The whole history of the persecutions which Catholics have endured at the hands of Protestants of all and every denomination, is certainly one of the most curious phases of human perversity which the philosopher can find to study.

Two of the gentlemen, Sir Toby Butler and Colonel Cusack, who had signed the Treaty of Limerick, pet.i.tioned to be heard by counsel against the Bill. But appeals to honour and to justice were alike in vain, when addressed to men who were dest.i.tute of both. The pet.i.tioners were dismissed with the insulting remark, that if they suffered from the Act it was their own fault, since, if they complied with its requirements, honours and wealth were at their command. But these were men who would not violate the dictates of conscience for all that the world could bestow on them, and of this one should think they had already given sufficient proof. The Bill was pa.s.sed without a dissentient voice; and men who would themselves have rebelled openly and violently if the Sacramental Test had been imposed on them, and who would have talked loudly of liberty of conscience, and the blasphemy of interfering with any one's religious convictions, now, without a shadow of hesitation, imposed this burden upon their fellow-men, and were guilty of the very crime of persecution, with which they so frequently charged their Catholic fellow-subjects.

One Act followed another, each adding some new restriction to the last, or some fresh incentive for persecution. In 1709 an attempt was made to plant some Protestant families from Germany in various parts of the country. These settlements obtained the name of Palatines. But it was labour lost. Sir John Chichester once observed, that it was useless to endeavour to root Popery out of Ireland, for it was impregnated in the very air. A few of the Palatines, like other settlers, still kept to their own religion; but the majority, as well as the majority of other settlers, learned to understand and then to believe the Catholic faith--learned to admire, and then to love, and eventually to amalgamate with the long-suffering and n.o.ble race amongst whom they had been established.

It would appear that Queen Anne wished her brother to succeed her on the throne; but he had been educated a Catholic, and he resolutely rejected all temptations to renounce his faith. Her short and troubled reign ended on the 1st of August, 1714. Before her death the Parliament had chosen her successor. Her brother was proscribed, and a reward of 50,000 offered for his apprehension. The rebellion in favour of James III., as he was called on the Continent, or the Pretender, as he was called by those who had no resource but to deny his legitimacy, was confined entirely to Scotland; but the Irish obtained no additional grace by their loyalty to the reigning monarch. A new proclamation was issued, which not only forbid them to enlist in the army, but offered rewards for the discovery of any Papist who had presumed to enlist, in order that "he might be turned out, and punished with the utmost severity of the law." In the next reign we shall see how the suicidal effect of this policy was visited on the heads of its promoters.

The Irish Parliament now came into collision with the English on a case of appellate jurisdiction, but they were soon taught their true position, and with becoming submission deferred to their fate. The Irish Parliament had long been such merely in name; and the only power they were allowed to exercise freely, was that of making oppressive and unjust enactments against their Catholic fellow-subjects. It is a poor consolation, but one which is not unfrequently indulged, when those who are oppressed by others become themselves in turn the oppressors of those who are unfortunate enough to be in their power.

A new phase in Irish history was inaugurated by the versatile talents, and strong will in their exercise, which characterized the famous Dr.

Jonathan Swift. The quarrels between Whigs and Tories were at their height. Swift is said to have been a Whig in politics and a Tory in religion. He now began to write as a patriot; and in his famous "Drapier's Letters" told the Government of the day some truths which were more plain than palatable.[551] An Englishman named Wood had obtained a patent under the Broad Seal, in 1723, for the coinage of copper halfpence. Even the servile Parliament was indignant, and protested against a scheme[552] which promised to flood Ireland with bad coin, and thus to add still more to its already impoverished condition.

There was reason for anxiety. The South Sea Bubble had lately ruined thousands in England, and France was still suffering from the Mississippi Scheme. Speculations of all kinds were afloat, and a temporary mania seemed to have deprived the soberest people of their ordinary judgment. Dr. Hugh Boulter, an Englishman, was made Archbishop of Armagh, and sent over mainly to attend to the English interests in Ireland. But he was unable to control popular feeling; and Swift's letters accomplished what the Irish Parliament was powerless to effect.

Although it was well known that he was the author of these letters, and though a reward of 300 was offered for the discovery of the secret, he escaped unpunished. In 1725 the patent was withdrawn, and Wood received 3,000 a year for twelve years as an indemnification--an evidence that he must have given a very large bribe for the original permission, and that he expected to make more by it than could have been made honestly.

One of the subjects on which Swift wrote most pointedly and effectively, was that of absentees. He employed both facts and ridicule; but each were equally in vain. He describes the wretched state of the country; but his eloquence was unheeded. He gave ludicrous ill.u.s.trations of the extreme ignorance of those who governed in regard to those whom they governed. Unfortunately the state of things which he described and denounced has continued, with few modifications, to the present day; but on this subject I have said sufficient elsewhere.

George I. died at Osnaburg, in Germany, on the 10th of June, 1727. On the accession of his successor, the Catholics offered an address expressing their loyalty, but the Lords Justices took care that it should never reach England. The next events of importance were the efforts made by Dr. Boulter, the Protestant Primate, to establish Charter Schools, where Catholic children might be educated; and his equally zealous efforts to prevent Catholics, who had conformed exteriorly to the State religion, from being admitted to practise at the Bar. It may be observed in pa.s.sing, that these men could scarcely have been as degraded in habits and intellect as some historians have been pleased to represent them, when they could at once become fit for forensic honours, and evinced such ability as to excite the fears of the Protestant party. It should be remarked that their "conversion" was manifestly insincere, otherwise there would have been no cause for apprehension.

The country was suffering at this period from the most fearful distress.

There were many causes for this state of dest.i.tution, which were quite obvious to all but those who were interested in maintaining it. The poorer cla.s.ses, being almost exclusively Catholics, had been deprived of every means of support. Trade was crushed, so that they could not become traders; agriculture was not permitted, so that they could not become agriculturists. There was, in fact, no resource for the majority but to emigrate, to steal, or to starve. To a people whose religion always had a preponderating influence on their moral conduct, the last alternative only was available, as there was not the same facilities for emigration then as now. The cultivation of the potato had already become general; it was, indeed, the only way of obtaining food left to these unfortunates. They were easily planted, easily reared; and to men liable at any moment to be driven from their miserable holdings, if they attempted to effect "improvements," or to plant such crops as might attract the rapacity of their landlords, they were an invaluable resource. The man might live who eat nothing but potatoes all the year round, but he could scarcely be envied or ejected for his wealth. In 1739 a severe frost destroyed the entire crop, and a frightful famine ensued, in which it was estimated that 400,000 persons perished of starvation.

In 1747 George Stone succeeded Dr. Hoadley as Primate of Ireland. His appointment was made evidently more in view of temporals than spirituals, and he acted accordingly. Another undignified squabble took place in 1751 and 1753, between the English and Irish Parliaments, on the question of privilege. For a time the "patriot" or Irish party prevailed; but eventually they yielded to the temptation of bribery and place. Henry Boyle, the Speaker, was silenced by being made Earl of Shannon; Anthony Malone was made Chancellor of the Exchequer; and the opposition party was quietly broken up.

An attempt was now made to form a Catholic a.s.sociation, and to obtain by combination and quiet pressure what had been so long denied to resistance and military force. Dr. Curry, a physician practising in Dublin, and the author of the well-known _Historical and Critical Review of the Civil Wars of Ireland;_ Charles O'Connor, of Belanagar, the Irish antiquary, and Mr. Wyse, of Waterford, were the projectors and promoters of this scheme. The clergy stood aloof from it, fearing to lose any liberty they still possessed if they demanded more; the aristocracy held back, fearing to forfeit what little property yet remained to them, if they gave the least excuse for fresh "settlements" or plunderings. A few Catholic merchants, however, joined the three friends; and in conjunction they prepared an address to the Duke of Bedford, who was appointed Lord Lieutenant in 1757. The address was favourably received, and an answer returned after some time. The Government already had apprehensions of the French invasion, and it was deemed politic to give the Catholics some encouragement, however faint. It is at least certain that the reply declared, "the zeal and attachment which they [the Catholics] professed, would never be more seasonably manifested than at the present juncture."

Charles Lucas now began his career of patriotism; for at last Irish Protestants were beginning to see, that if Irish Catholics suffered, Irish interests would suffer also; and if Irish interests suffered, they should have their share in the trial. A union between England and Ireland, such as has since been carried out, was now proposed, and violent excitement followed. A mob, princ.i.p.ally composed of Protestants, broke into the House of Lords; but the affair soon pa.s.sed over, and the matter was dropped.

George II. died suddenly at Kensington, and was succeeded by his grandson, George III. But I shall request the attention of the reader to some remarks of considerable importance with regard to foreign events, before continuing the regular course of history. The predilections of the late King for his German connexions, had led him into war both with France and Spain; the imprudence of ministers, if not the unwise and unjust policy of colonial government, involved the country soon after in a conflict with the American dependencies. In each of these cases expatriated Irishmen turned the scale against the country from which they had been so rashly and cruelly ejected. In France, the battle of Fontenoy was won mainly by the Irish Brigade, who were commanded by Colonel Dillon; and the defeat of England by the Irish drew from George II. the well-known exclamation: "Cursed be the laws that deprive me of such subjects!" In Spain, where the Irish officers and soldiers had emigrated by thousands, there was scarcely an engagement in which they did not take a prominent and decisive part. In Canada, the agitation against British exactions was commenced by Charles Thompson, an Irish emigrant, and subsequently the Secretary of Congress; Montgomery, another Irishman, captured Montreal and Quebec; O'Brien and Barry, whose names sufficiently indicate their nationality, were the first to command in the naval engagements; and startled England began to recover slowly and sadly from her long infatuation, to discover what had, indeed, been discovered by the sharp-sighted Schomberg[553] and his master long before, that Irishmen, from their habits of endurance and undaunted courage, were the best soldiers she could find, and that, Celts and Papists as they were, her very existence as a nation might depend upon their co-operation.

The agrarian outrages, the perpetrators of which were known at first by the name of Levellers, and eventually by the appellation of Whiteboys, commenced immediately after the accession of George III. An English traveller, who carefully studied the subject and who certainly could have been in no way interested in misrepresentation, has thus described the cause and the motive of the atrocities they practised. The first cause was the rapacity of the landlords, who, having let their lands far above their value, on condition of allowing the tenants the use of certain commons, now enclosed the commons, but did not lessen the rent.

The bricks were to be made, but the straw was not provided; and the people were told that they were idle. The second cause was the exactions of the t.i.themongers, who were described by this English writer as "harpies who squeezed out the very vitals of the people, and by process, citation, and sequestration, dragged from them the little which the landlord had left them." It was hard for those who had been once owners of the soil, to be obliged to support the intruders into their property in affluence; while they, with even the most strenuous efforts, could barely obtain what would keep them from starvation. It was still harder that men, who had sacrificed their position in society, and their worldly prospects, for the sake of their religion, should be obliged to support clergymen and their families, some of whom never resided in the parishes from which they obtained t.i.thes, and many of whom could not count above half-a-dozen persons as regular members of their congregation.

Mr. Young thus suggests a remedy for these crimes, which, he says, were punished with a "severity which seemed calculated for the meridian of Barbary, while others remain yet the law of the land, which would, if executed, tend more to raise than to quell an insurrection. From all which it is manifest, that the gentlemen of Ireland never thought of a radical cure, from overlooking the real cause of disease, which, in fact, lay in themselves, and not in the wretches they doomed to the gallows. Let them change their own conduct entirely, and the poor will not long riot. Treat them like men, who ought to be as free as yourselves; put an end to that system of religious persecution, which, for seventy years, has divided the kingdom against itself--in these two circ.u.mstances lies the cure of insurrection; perform them completely, and you will have an affectionate poor, instead of oppressed and discontented va.s.sals."[554]

How purely these outrages were the deeds of desperate men, who had been made desperate by cruel oppression, and insensible to cruelty by cruel wrongs, is evident from the dying declaration of five Whiteboys, who were executed, in 1762, at Waterford and who publicly declared, and took G.o.d to witness, "that in all these tumults it never did enter into their thoughts to do anything against the King or Government."[555]

It could not be expected that the Irish priest would see the people exposed to all this misery--and what to them was far more painful to all this temptation to commit deadly sin--without making some effort in their behalf. There may have been some few priests, who, in their zeal for their country, have sacrificed the sacredness of their office to their indignation at the injury done to their people--who have mixed themselves up with feats of arms, or interfered with more ardour than discretion in the arena of politics; but such instances have been rare, and circ.u.mstances have generally made them in some degree excusable. The position of the Irish priest in regard to his flock is so anomalous, that some explanation of it seems necessary in order to understand the accusations made against Father Nicholas Sheehy, and the animosity with which he was hunted to death by his persecutors. While the priest was driven from cave to mountain and from mountain to cave, he was the consoler of his equally persecuted people. The deep reverence which Catholics feel for the office of the priesthood, can scarcely be understood by those who have abolished that office, as far as the law of the land could do so; but a man of ordinary intellectual attainments ought to be able to form some idea of the feelings of others, though he may not have experienced them personally; and a man of ordinary humanity should be able to respect those feelings, however unwise they may seem to him. When education was forbidden to the Irish, the priest obtained education in continental colleges; and there is sufficient evidence to show that many Irish priests of that and of preceding centuries were men of more than ordinary abilities. The Irish, always fond of learning, are ever ready to pay that deference to its possessors which is the best indication of a superior mind, however uncultivated. Thus, the priesthood were respected both for their office and for their erudition.

The landlord, the Protestant clergyman, the nearest magistrate, and, perhaps, the t.i.the-proctor, were the only educated persons in the neighbourhood; but they were leagued against the poor peasant; they demanded rent and t.i.thes, which he had no means of paying; they refused justice, which he had no means of obtaining. The priest, then, was the only friend the peasant had. His friendship was disinterested--he gained nothing by his ministration but poor fare and poor lodging; his friendship was self-sacrificing, for he risked his liberty and his life for his flock. He it was--

"Who, in the winter's night, When the cold blast did bite, Came to my cabin door, And, on the earthen floor, Knelt by me, sick and poor;"