ably in future; those who exercise their professions, trades, and callings quietly, shall not be required to take any other oath than the oath of Allegiance to the government? Again I say, can it be supposed that such an Article gave to the Roman Catholics of the whole kingdom a right by implication to eligibility to all civil functions and privileges, of Corporations, of the Bench, and of Parliament; an eligibility which had been asked distinctly by the same parties, and had been refused decisively, the very same day, by the same victorious general.

"Limited as this Article is by all analogy, by all fair rules of construction, and by much contemporary evidence, as I am prepared to show, it still conveyed so much more to the Roman Catholics of Ireland, than the Protestants of the empire thought them entitled to receive, that it gave great dissatisfaction. We, your Majesties' most dutiful and loyal subjects' (this is the Commons to King

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address of the House of William, 4th March, 1692) crave leave to represent to your Majesty, that the addition made to the Articles of Lymerick,' (I will call the attention of the House to this point presently,)

after the same were finally agreed to, signed, and the town thereupon surrendered, hath been a very great encouragement to the Irish Papists, and a weakening to the English interest there. And as to the additional Article' (the words above referred to) which opens so wide a

passage to the Irish Papists to come in, and repossess themselves of the estates which they had forfeited by their rebellion, we most humbly beseech that the Articles of Lymerick, with the said addition, may be laid before your Commons in Parliament, that the manner of obtaining the same may be inquired into, to the end it may appear by what means the said Articles were so enlarged; and to what value the estates thereby claimed do amount.' There is not one word said here about the grievance of power being granted to the Roman Catholics; there is not an allusion to any thing but property restored: that is to say, within a few months after the date of the Treaty, the House of Commons of England present an address to the Crown, recording their deliberate condemnation of that Treaty :-here, therefore, if any where, would have been exposed that aggravation of the evil of the Treaty, as it would have been felt, if by any article of it any Roman Catholic could have claimed political power in Ireland.

"This was the opinion of the House of Commons of England, almost at the very time when the treaty received its ratification from the Crown. A few years afterwards, in 1697, the whole Parliament of Ireland concurred in the same conclusion; and, by the Act passed for the confirmation of the Articles of Limerick, distinctly proved, that in their judgment, political power was not, and could not be conveyed by any one,

or by all of its articles, to the Roman Catholics of Ireland.

"The other great party interested in the surrender of Limerick, King James II., speaks with considerable satisfaction of the favourable terms which his garrison had obtained; but in the specification of them, he does not seem, even for one moment, to have assumed that those terms included any concession of political privileges. He appears indeed to think that the recognition of the freedom of the religious worship of the Roman Catholics was itself a sufficient advantage, secured as it was, not for the garrison only but for the whole kingdom. His words after describing the siege, are these:- Notwithstanding the ill situation they were in, their forts taken, a breach made, and their condition in short desperate, yet they had the courage to insist upon, and the dexterity to obtain, Articles not only for their own security, but which had a respect to the whole kingdom, consulting in the first place the king's honour and advantage, in getting permission to go,' &c. (then follows a passage about the numbers so going, 30,000 mer;) ' in the next place, they articled for as free an exercise of the Catholic religion as in King Charles the Second's time, and a promise to procure a further security from any disturbance on that account: that all the inhabitants of Limerick, all officers, soldiers, &c. in the army, garrisons, or counties of Limerick, Clare, Kerry, Cork,

Mayo, should upon submission, be restored to the estates they were in possession of in King Charles the Second's time; all persons to exereise their trades, and follow their professions, possess their goods, cattles, &c., as before the

war.'

"It is sometimes said, it may be said again, that even if the Treaty of Limerick did not necessarily bear the full construction now put upon it, the benefit of a doubt ought to be given to those who surrendered an impregnable city to a despairing besieger; * and by so doing, fixed the succession of the crown in a Protestant line: and that the Roman Catholics of this day are entitled to claim, if not from our justice, yet at least from our generosity, a large and liberal interpretation of articles so gained by their predecessors. Bishop Burnet, appears to assume that such a clause, giving the benefit of a doubt to the Irish, really existed; and Mr. O'Connell argues upon it as if he had read it. No such clause exists; nor did the Irish entitle themselves to any thing but the letter of their bond. I have shown their distresses: let me add, that when in a dispute with De Ginckel pending the negociation, Sars

"They treated," says O'Connell, of the English generals, "with soldiers having arms in their hands, and being the masters of an impregnable fortress." (Speeches, 1828, p. 54.)

+ "The articles of capitulation," says Burnet, "were punctually executed, and some doubts that arose out of some ambiguous words, were explained in favour of the Irish."

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field said, we are in your power,' intimating that De Ginckel was taking advantage of him, he was answered, not so: but you shall go in (again) and then do the best you can.'-(See Story II. 257). But Mr. O'Connell says, that 'before the treaty was actually signed, the French fleet appeared off the coast.' Here,' it was said, is the succour; drive these invaders back to Dublin; the deed has not yet received seal or signature. Let none of its stipulations be fulfilled.'No,' said the Irish chieftains, the bond is certainly not executed, but Irish honour is plighted for the performance of its conditions; that honour has hitherto been untarnished; it shall remain so :' (Speeches, 1828, p. 55). Now, what are the facts? In the first place, let me ask what is the merit of any man, or any body of men, not breaking their honour? But, in the next place, let me remind the House, first, that the fleet did not arrive till after one half of the city was in the hands of the English; and secondly, that the Irish, so far from not taking any advantage of it, did forthwith, in consequence,' says Story, of the presence of the French fleet in the Shannon,' urge the English general to introduce into the treaty those words-so few but so comprehensive-those words, of which the House of Commons of England complained, as I have already shown;those words, which restored the forfeited estates to all such as were under the protection of the

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