of Nantes, the dragonnades, and the expul sion of the French Huguenots were wise and righteous measure, may approve of a similar policy in Ireland, tliough even they may remember that there was one distinction between the cases: -- The Protestants were a small minority of the people of France, the Catholics were the overwhelming majority of the people of Ireland. tude of that unb-ppy nation could account | finding necessary in France?"* For our for the existence of disloyalty. He hints own part, we can readily admit that those very intelligibly that the better policy in whose eyes the revocation of the Edict would have been to transport them generally to other lands, or steadily decimate them till the unruly spirit had been broken;t but he adds, that such "excess of severity" was not absolutely necessary. The line of policy which in his opinion was imperatively required, was substantially that of Cromwell; the complete suppression by law of the Catholic religion, the exile of the whole Catholic hierarchy, the We do not desire to dwell further on stringent prohibition of the importation this matter, but there is another point to of all priests from abroad. Catholicism which we must briefly refer. Mr. Froude should have been universally made a penal warmly advocates the policy of depriving offenc, and at the same time the native or the Catholics of ownership in land. Ow Catholic faction should have been re-ing to many confiscations, and to the slow duced to a state of complete subjugation. operation of the penal code, this end has This being done, and the Protestants be- been in a great degree accomplished. As ing entirely in the ascendant, every meas- a rule the Irish landlords are Protestants ure should have been taken to encourage while their tenants are Catholics, and evmaterial prosperity, to provide for Prot- ery practical statesman knows that this estant education and the free develop- very fact is one of the greatest difficulties ment of Protestant churches, and to efface and dangers he has to encounter. Owing the traces of distinct Irish nationality.* to the events of its history, class divisions In support of these humane and enlight-in Ireland are naturally peculiarly menacened views Mr. Froude favours us with a ing, and it is one of the gravest misfordisquisition on the reasons for persecut- tunes of the country that they coincide ing Catholics. He is very sarcastic about with and are intensified by the difference the modern Liberal, who, in matters of of creed. To this fact, too - which is the persecution, "finds excuses for the Cath- direct consequence of the acts he so warmolic which he refuses to the Calvinist " ly extols may be ascribed. in a great dewho, in other words, maintains that those gree, those very features of Irish Catholic whose creed rests avowedly upon the as-policy to which Mr. Froude most strongly sertion of the right of private judgment objects. If a considerable body of Cathoare peculiarly criminal if they refuse the lic gentry existed, they would be the nat exercise of that right to others; and about ural leaders of their co-religionists. They "the sacred rights of conscience to choose do not exist, and the field is left open to its own religion, and in its own wisdom to priests and demagogues. believe whatever theories of divine things Mr. Froude is not indulgent to modern it happens to prefer." He assures us once statesmen. He speaks with much lofty more, in direct and flagrant contradiction scorn of "constitutional commonplaces," not only to all other historians but even of "the cant of toleration," of "the child to his own narrative of facts, that the re-ish prate about Irish ideas." Echoing the bellious under Elizabeth and under Charles language of the great persecutors of the 1. were due to the partial tolerance of past, he tells us that "true liberty means Catholicism. Ile again represents the the being governed by just laws, laws conduct of the Irish in taking part with which are in harmony with the will of the the King in the struggle of the revolution, Maker and Master of the world." and the as a rebellion as a rebellion which was whole tenor of his book is a sufficient comthe consequence of the religious toleration ment upon his meaning. Ile utterly rethat hal followed the Restoration - -as a jects the notion that the will of the nation rebellion which constitutes the third great should, on political questions, be consulted, historic proof of their inveterate ingrati- or that there is anything unrighteous or tude: and he asks,What was there in criminal in forcing upon a people a form the circumstances of Ireland that, when it of governinent which they hate. "So long was once more subdued, the English Gov-as the consent of the governed is recog ernment should have hesitated to apply the nized as essential to the legitimacy of ausame rule there which Louis XIV. was thority, so long and so far Ireland will pos Pp. 207-218. ↑ P. 601. " sess a grievance which only complete sep- emoluments and all the privileges of the aration will remove." We hope these Church, multitudes of Protestants lapsed words are much exaggerated, and should into Catholicism for want of the common be much qualified. If they are true, we ordinances of religion. On the other hand, cannot but regard them as the most strik- the Presbyterians were subject to a Test ing condemnation of the past government Act, which was first sent over from Engof Ireland, and as supplying one of the land, and was afterwards maintained in strongest reasons why English writers in spite of English influence by the ascendspeaking on Irish questions should employ ancy of the bishops in the Irish House of a language of moderation and conciliation. Lords. They were perpetually molested A government of pure despotism has, how-and harassed in their worship, and they at ever, nothing revolting in it to Mr. Froude. last fled in numbers to America, where His views of the relation of the governed they contributed their full share to the to their rulers are much the same as those of Bishop Horsley, whose famous saying, that "he knew not what subjects had to say to the laws except to obey them," was long cited as a supreme example of the servility of a certain class of Anglican divines, and of their hatred of the free constitution under which they live. "The consent of man," says Mr. Froude, "was not asked when he was born into the world; his consent will not be asked when his time comes to die. As little has his consent to do with the laws which, while he lives, he is bound to obey." We must acknowledge ourselves unable to understand why the fact that a man is not consulted at his birth or at his death should preclude him from having any voice in the laws which dispose of his property and regulate his destiny while he lives; but the general meaning of the passage is at least sufficiently manifest. It is the theory of despotism stated in the barest and most emphatic form; and that such a doctrine should be propounded by an English writer of the eminence of Mr. Froude is certainly a fact well worthy of record. revolution. Above all, we agree with Mr. Froude in the gross impolicy as well as the gross injustice of the commercial disabilities by which almost every form of Irish industry was deliberately and selfishly crushed. The history of those laws is well worthy of the attention of all who would study the social condition of Ireland, and it has been written by Mr. Froude with consummate power. Until the time of Charles I. Ireland was placed commercially on all points on a level with England, but Wentworth, imagining that the Irish woollen manufacturers might undersell those of England, took some measures to discourage them. This proceeding appears to have been purely arbitrary, and is, wo think, rather exaggerated by Mr. Froude, perhaps in order that he may heighten the merit of Cromwell, who restored matters to their former state. With Charles II., however, legislative prohibitions began. Ireland was a great pasture country, and her chief source of wealth was the impor tation of her cattle into England. The English landowners complained of the rivalry, and the importation of Irish cattle We have been compelled to dwell at to England, as well as of salt beef, bacon, such length upon the points on which we butter, and cheese, was absolutely prohib differ from Mr. Froude, that we are glad ited. By her omission from the amended to mention some on which we agree with Navigation Act of 1663, Ireland was at the him. We agree with him that one of the same time excluded from all direct trade great evils of English government of Ire- with the British Colonies. Her two chief land has been its perpetual change of sys- sources of wealth were thus utterly and tem and tendency-the cold fits of rigour wilfully annihilated. One chance, howand the hot fits of indulgence that have so ever, still remained. The Irish, when forrapidly succeeded each other. We agree bidden to export their cattle, turned their with him also in deploring the extreme fa- laud into sheep-walks, and it soon aptuity of the policy which, while endeavour-peared that, in spite of the poverty of the ing to crush the Catholics by penal laws, took no single step to invigorate or to unite the Protestants. The Established Church was made a great field for jobbery. Its highest positions became the rewards of political services in England, and the system of pluralities was carried to such In extent that, notwithstanding all the people and the low condition of civilization, a great and flourishing woollen trade was likely to arise. Ireland possessed the advantages of unlimited water-power, of cheap labour and living, and, above all, of the best wool in Europe. Many English and even foreign manufacturers went over, and in the first years that followed the Revolution there was every probability of her becoming a considerable industrial na tion. Once more the selfish policy of and well disposed in all its parts; a maEnglish manufacturers prevailed. The ex- chine of wise and elaborate contrivance, port of unmanufactured wool to foreign and as well fitted for the oppression, imcountries had been already forbidden. poverishment, and degradation of a people, The Legislature now interposed and for- and the debasement in them of human bade the export of Irish manufactured nature itself, as ever proceeded from the wool, not only to England and the English perverted ingenuity of man." In the eyes dominions, but to every other country. of Mr. Froude, we need scarcely say, the The rising industry was thus completely great objection to this code was its failure annihilated. Thousands of manufacturers and the feebleness with which it was enand of workmen emigrated to the Continent forced. "The success which would have or to America. Whole districts were been the justification of these laws" was thrown into a condition of poverty verg- wanting. To sum up briefly their provis ing upon starvation, and the last chance ions, they excluded the Catholics from of developing a great Protestant popula- the Parliament, from the magistracy, tion was lost. The only resource that remained was a smuggling trade in wool with France, which accordingly assumed vast dimensions. All classes engaged in it and, under the circumstances, we cannot blame them and thus one more influence was set at work to educate the people into hostility to law. from the corporations, from the univer sity, from the bench and from the bar, from the right of voting at parliamenta ry elections or at vestries, of acting as constables, as sheriffs, or as jurymen, of serving in the army or navy, of becom ing solicitors, or even holding the position of game-keeper or watchman. They pro hibited them from becoming schoolmas ters, ushers, or private tutors; or from sending their children abroad to receive the Catholic education they were refused at home. They offered an annuity to every priest who would forsake his creed, pronounced a sentence of exile against the whole hierarchy, and restricted the right of celebrating the mass to registered priests, whose number, according to the first intention of the Legislature, was not to be renewed. The Catholics could not buy land, or inherit or receive it as a gift from Protestants, or hold life annuities, or leases for more than thirty-one years, or any lease on such terms that the profits of the land exceeded one-third of the rent. A Catholic, except in the linen trade,. could have no more than two apprentices He could not have a horse of the value of more than 5l., and any Protestant on giving him 51. might take his horse. He was compelled to pay double to the militia. In case of the war with a Catholic Power, he was obliged to reinburse the damage done by the enemy's privateers. To convert a Protestant to Catholicism was a capital Among the consequences of this prohibition were two political movements of great significance. The Irish Parliament, impotent before the Legislature of England, and despairing of the material prosperity of the country, began to long for a legislative union with England, which would at least secure the advantages of free trade. The impending Union with Scotland turned the thoughts of Irishmen to such a measure, and in 1704 the House of Commons petitioned for it. The opportunity was in some respects peculiarly favourable. The Protestants desired the measure; the Catholics were hopelessly crushed, and it was then a settled maxim that they were to have no voice in disposing of their destiny of the country. The English Government, however, actuated chiefly by commercial jealousy, rejected the opportunity and refused the boon. The other movement was that for legislative independence. Raised by Molyneux, and powerfully supported by Swift, the claim of the Irish became louder and louder, and the extreme malevolence with which in commercial matters the English supremacy was exerted powerfully sustained it. The offence. No Catholic might marry a Protcauses of free trade and of an independent Parliament were indissolubly connected, and they at last triumphed through the efforts of the Volunteers. estant. Into his own family circle the elements of dissension were ingeniously introduced. A Catholic landowner might not bequeath his land as he pleased. It While the prosperity of the Protestants was divided equally among his children, was being crushed by the commercial laws, unless the eldest son became a Protestant, the Catholics were suffering under the in which case the parent became simply a penal code. The space that is assigned to life tenant, and lost all power either of as will not permit of our entering at length selling or mortgaging it. If a Catholic's into the details of this code a code wife abandoned her husband's religion, she which Burke described as "well digested was immediately free from his control, and the Chancellor could assign her a certain | pelled to see all the highest positions, both proportion of her husband's property. If political and ecclesiastical, monopolized by his child, however young, professed itself Englishmen. If he was indifferent to theProtestant, it was taken from its father's ological differences and careless of politieare, and the Chancellor could assign it a cal honours, he still found himself in a portion of its father's property. No Cath-country where industrial and commercial olic could be guardian either of his own wealth was impossible, and where that children or to those of another. impossibility was deliberately and intenWe imagine that most of our readers tionally brought about by the Legislature. will consider Burke's description of this It is not surprising that great wretchedcode not overcharged. It is true that ness and great inertness prevailed, and penal laws still more severe were directed that a stream of emigration already against Catholics in England and against flowed from Ireland. From the earliest Protestants in most Catholic countries; period there has been something erratic but those of Ireland were peculiarly fitted, and nomadic in the Irish genius. In by the bribes they held out to apostasy, to the sixth and seventh centuries, when debase as well as to crush. They were the Irish monasteries had a world-wide directed not against a small sect, but reputation, Irish missionaries occupied against the bulk of the nation, and they a place second to that of no other nation were a distinct violation of the Treaty of Limerick. The blame of them may be very equally divided between the English and the Irish Parliaments; and the best that can be said of them is, that that portion which related to the Catholic worship soon became a dead letter, while a crowd of legal evasions and a great and creditable laxness of local tribunals in a great measure defeated the provisions about property. They had, however, abundantly the effect of associating in the minds of the Catholics the idea of law with that of hostility to their religion, of driving out of the country the ablest men, and of destroying all ambition and all energy in those who remained. double process a race was gradually in the great work of evangelizing Europe. From Lindisfarne and from Lnxeuil, from the banks of the Steinbach in Switzerland, and from the nonastry of Bobbio in Italy, they spread the light of Christianity over many lands which were destined in after-days to march in the forefront of civilization. At a later period we find the Irishman Scotus Erigena founding a rationalistic philosophy in France, and the Irishman St. Virgilius teaching the existence of the antipodes at Salzburg. In the eighteenth century Presbyterian talent and industrial energy took refuge in England or America, while most of the ability and ambition of the Catholics found its way to France, to Austria, or to Spain. There is a striking passage in Mr. Gal- Of the condition of affairs at home Mr. ton's very remarkable work on Hereditary Froude gives a vivid but, we think, a Genius, in which he endeavours to account somewhat over-coloured picture. He defor the marvellous efflorescence of genius votes a long chapter to Irish crime, aud, that adorned the great period of Athenian with that gratuitous offensiveness which history, by showing that the institutions is so painfully prominent in the present of Athens were peculiarly fitted to attract work, he entitles his chapter "Irish Ideas." men who were able, while the social life These "ideas" are chiefly the houghing of Athens was peculiarly fitted to repel of cattle and the abduction of heiresses. those who were not, and that by this We believe that in some of the least respectable of the Fenian newspapers it is formed far exceeding the average of hu- the custom to collect extracts from the man capacities. In Ireland, in the early Euglish police reports under such titles as part of the eighteenth century, a directly" English Civilization" or "English Ideas." opposite process appears to have been go- We must simply express our astonishment ing on. The most various influences con- and our deep regret that a great writer in spired to drive from the country all men a grave history should condescend to imiof energy, ability, and character. If an tate the example. able man arose among the Presbyterians, be at once found himself shut out by the test from the path of honour. If he were Catholic, he was excluded by the penal laws from every field of ambition and from almost every possibility of acquiring influence or wealth. If he belonged to the favoured Church, he was even then com That there should have been much violent crime was indeed inevitable. By three great confiscations about nine-tenths of the soil of Ireland had recently been wrested violently from its old proprietors. The religion of four-fifths of the people was persecuted, and almost every leading form of industry had been crushed by law. "Tories" and "Rapparees the qualities will rank but low in the scale c ejected proprietors and their adherents- virtues. A larger and a wiser philosophy swarmed over the land and waged a will acknowledge that no others do more chronic war with their successors. Smug- to soften and purify the character, to gling, too, called into being by the sup- lighten the burden of sorrow, and to pression of the wool-trade, and peculiarly throw a consoling lustre upon the darkfavoured by the configuration of the Irishness of the tomb. coast, was universal. Mr. Froude has de- This period was also remarkable for a voted an admirable chapter to describing gradual approximation of classes and the spirit of wild, lawless, and adventurous creeds. Few things in Irish history are romance which it engendered. Probably more curious than the manner in which in few countries was the empire of law so the atrocious penal laws against the Cath. feeble; but we must remember that in al- olics fell gradually into desuetude. At most all countries law was then weaker first, the High Church and Jacobite tenthan at present. The period concerning dencies of the bishops, who usually formed which Mr. Froude writes was that when a majority in the House of Lords, and the streets of London were almost impas- their antipathy to the Presbyterians, led sable at night through the outrages of the them to favour the Catholics; and dissenMohocks; when the country roads of Eng- sions between the English Goverument land were infested with highwaymen; and the Irish Parliament had a similar inwhen the horrors of the Fleet Prison and fluence. Gradually, however, and to a the scandals of Fleet marriages were at degree which is very remarkable and not their height; when hereditary jurisdiction sufficiently noticed, a spirit of toleration was still unshaken in Scotland; and when crept over the Irish Protestants. The sina journey through the Highlands was as gular power of the native Irish to assimiperilous as a journey would now be late to themselves the extraneous elements through Central Africa. planted in their midst had been long noticed. The complaint was older than the Reformation, and it was not arrested by it. The poet Spenser, after the Desmond rebellion, advocated the suppression of Irish insurrections by starvation. His grandson, during the Commonwealth, was exiled and deprived of his estate as an Irish Papist. A large proportion of the rebels in 1641 were of English blood. The Cromwellians themselves who settled on the soil succumbed to the same influence. Ireton, indeed, endeavoured to guard against the danger by stringent regulations against the intermarriage of his soldiers with the Irish; but although there were some few who, like the hero of a Cromwellian poem, Still there was a real and perceptible improvement in the nation. The loyalty of the Catholics to the crown is a striking fact and an eloquent comment upon Mr. Froude's estimate of their character. In the rebellion of 1715, in the rebellion of 1745, they remained absolutely passive. In the first case this may be ascribed to extre ne exhaustion, but in the second the Catholic priests took an active part in giv.ng the Government warning of plots for the Pretender. Still later, when the American Colonies had revolted against England, and at a time when the Presbyterians were profoundly disaffected, the Catholics were ardently loyal. To the long night of trial through which they passed, we may probably ascribe a great part of their noblest characteristics: a deep and lervent attachment to their creed, which no threats and no blandishments could shake; a spirit of reverence and simple piety, of cheerful content, and of mutual charity under extreme poverty, such as few nations in Europe can equal. In this period, too, was gradually formed that high tone of female purity which is their distinguishing and transcendent excellence; and which, in the words even of this bitter enemy, is "unparalleled, probably, in the civilized world."* To writers who judge the moral excellence of a race by its strength and by its success, all these P. 557. " rather than turne From English principles would sooner burne, this heroism was not common, and forty Prendergast, "Cromwelllan Settlement of Ireland," pp. 281-266. |