After the landing of Cromwell, when to any sensible man there no longer remained hope of serving the cause of the king, when the desire which is natural to every human heart, of saving what can be saved, might, not only without dishonor, but with justice and right, have dictated the necessity of coming to terms with the parliamentarians, and of abandoning a cause which was hopeless, "on the 4th of December, 1649, Eber McMahon, Bishop of Clogher, a mere Irishman by name, by descent, by enthusiastic attachment to his country, exerted his great abilities to rouse his countrymen to a persevering resistance to Cromwell, and to unite all hearts and hands in the support of Ormond's administration. . . . All the bishops concurred in his views, and subscribed a solemn declaration that they would, to the utmost of their power, forward his Majesty's rights, and the good of the nation. . . . Ormond, at last, either sensible that no reliance could be placed on them, or that the treachery of Inchiquin's troops was, at least, on the part of the Irish, a fair ground of distrust and suspicion of the remainder, consented to their removal."— ("Irish Catholics.")
"At last!" will be the reader's exclamation, while he wonders if another people could be found forbearing enough to wait eight years for the adoption of such a necessary measure.
And the only reward for their fidelity to King Charles I. could under the circumstances be destruction. They waited with resignation for the impending gloom to overshadow them. Terrible moment for a nation, when despair itself fails to nerve it for further resistance and possible success! Such was the position of the Irish at the death of Charles.
Who shall describe that loyalty? After Ormond had met with the defeat he deserved in the field; after the cities had fallen one after another into the hands of the destroyer, who seldom thought himself bound to observe the conditions of surrender; after the chiefs, who might have protracted the struggle, had disappeared either by death or exile, the doom of the nation was sealed; yet it shrank not from the consequences.
The barbarities of Cromwell and his soldiers had depopulated large tracts of territory to such an extent that the troops marching through them were compelled to carry provisions as through a desert. The cattle, the only resource of an agricultural country, had been all consumed in a ten years' war. It was reported that, after every successful engagement, the republican general ordered all the men from the age of sixteen to sixty to be slaughtered without mercy, all the boys from six to sixteen to be deprived of sight, and the women to have a red- hot iron thrust through their breasts. Rumors such as these, exaggerated though they may be, testify at least to the terror which Cromwell inspired. As for the captured cities, there can be no doubt of the wholesale massacres carried out therein by his orders. Of the entire population of Tredagh only thirty persons survived, and they were condemned to the labor of slaves. Hugh Peters, the chaplain of Fairfax, wrote after this barbarous execution: "We are masters of Tredagh; no enemy was spared; I just come from the church where I had gone to thank the Lord."
The same fate awaited Wexford, and, later on, Drogheda. Cromwell, when narrating those bloody massacres, concluded by saying, "People blame me, but it was the will of God."
The Bible, the holy word of God, misread and misunderstood by those fanatics, persuaded them that it would be a crime not to exterminate the Irish, as the Lord punished Saul for having spared Agag and the chief of the Amalekites. Whoever wishes for further details of these sickening atrocities, committed in the name of God, may find them in a multitude of histories of the time, but chiefly in the "Threnodia" of Friar Morrison.
Certain modern Irish historians would seem not to understand the heroism of their own countrymen. "Bitterly," says A. M. O'Sullivan, "did the Irish people pay for their loyalty to an English sovereign. Unhappily for their worldly fortunes, if not for their fame, they were high-spirited and unfearing, where pusillanimity would certainly have been safety, and might have been only prudence."
But the verdict of posterity, always a just one, calls such a high-spirited and unfearing attitude true heroism, and spurns pusillanimity even when it insures safety and may be called prudence, if its result is the surrender of holy faith and Christian truth. Safety and prudence characterized the conduct of the English nation under the iron rule of Cromwell, as under the tyranny of the Tudors. Can the reader of history admire the nation on that account? Who shall affirm that the result of the craven spirit of the English was the prosperity which ensued, and that of Irish heroism destruction and gloom? The history of either nation is far from ended yet; and bold would be the man who dare assert that the prosperity of England is everlasting, and the humiliation of Ireland never to know an end.
However that may be, this at least is undeniable: the opinion current of the Irish character is demonstrated to be altogether an erroneous one by the incontrovertible facts cursorily narrated above. Determination of purpose, adherence to conscience and principle, consistency of conduct, are terms all too weak to convey an idea of the magnanimity displayed by the people, and of their heroic bearing throughout those stirring events.
At last, after a bloody struggle with Cromwell and Ireton, on May 12, 1652, "the Leinster army of the Irish surrendered at Kilkenny on terms which were successively adopted by the other principal bodies of troops, between that time and the September following, when the Ulster forces came to composition." Then began the real woes of Ireland. Never was the ingenuity of man so taxed to destroy a whole nation as in the measures adopted by the Protector for that purpose. It is necessary to present a brief sketch of them, since all that the Irish suffered was designed to punish them for their attachment to their religion, and, be it borne in mind, their devotion to the lawful dynasty of the Stuarts.
First, then, to render easy of execution the stern and cruel resolve of the new government, the defenders of the nation were not only to be disarmed, but put out of the way. Hence Cromwell was gracious enough to consent that they be permitted to leave the country and take service in the armies of the foreign powers then at peace with the Commonwealth. Forty thousand men, officers and soldiers, adopted this desperate resolution.
"Soon agents from the King of Spain, the King of Poland, and the Prince de Conde, were contending for the service of the Irish troops. Don Ricardo White, in May, 1672, shipped seven thousand in batches from Waterford, Kinsale, Galway, Limerick, and Bantry, for the King of Spain. Colonel Christopher Mayo got liberty in September to beat his drums, to raise three thousand more for the same destination. Lord Muskerry took with him five thousand to the King of Poland. In July, 1654, three thousand five hundred went to serve the Prince de Conde. Sir Walter Dungan and others got liberty to beat their drums in different garrisons for various destinations."—(Prendergast.)
To prove that the desperate resolution of leaving their country did not originate with the Irish, notwithstanding what some have written to the contrary, it is enough to remark that their expatriation was made a necessary condition of their surrender by the new government. For instance, Lord Clanrickard, according to Matthew O'Connor, "deserted and surrounded, could obtain no terms for the nation, nor indeed for himself and his troops, except with the sad liberty of transportation to any other country in amity with the Commonwealth."
To prove, if necessary, still further that the expatriation of the Irish troops was part of a scheme already resolved upon, it is enough to remember the indisputable fact that from the surrender at Kilkenny in 1652, until the open announcement in the September of 1653, that the Parliament had assigned Connaught for the dwelling-place of the Irish nation, whither they were to be "transplanted" before the 1st of May, 1654, the various garrisons and small armies which had fought so gallantly for Ireland and the Stuarts were successively urged (and urged by Cromwell meant compelled) to leave the country; and it was only when the last of the Irish regiments had departed that the doom of the nation was boldly and clearly announced.
But these forced exiles were not restricted to the warrior class. "The Lord Protector," says Prendergast, "applied to the Lord Henry Cromwell, then major-general of the forces of Ireland, to engage soldiers . . . . and to secure a thousand young Irish girls to be shipped to Jamaica. Henry Cromwell answered that there would be no difficulty, only that force must be used in taking them; and he suggested the addition of fifteen hundred or two thousand boys of from twelve to fourteen years of age. . . . The numbers finally fixed were one thousand boys and one thousand girls."
The total number of children disposed of in the same way, from 1652 to 1655, has been variously estimated at from twenty thousand to one hundred thousand. The British Government at last was compelled to interfere and put a stop to the infamous traffic, when, the mere Irish proving too scarce, the agents were not sufficiently discriminating in their choice, but shipped off English children also to the Tobacco Islands.
At last the island was left utterly without defenders, and sufficiently depopulated. It is calculated that, when the last great measure was announced and put into execution, only half a million of Irish people remained in the country, the rest of the resident population being composed of the Scotch and English, introduced by James I., and the soldiers and adventurers let in by Cromwell.
The main features of the celebrated "act of settlement" are known to all. It was an act intended to dispose quietly of half a million human beings, destined certainly in the minds of its projectors to disappear in due time, without any great violence— to die off —and leave the whole island in the possession of the "godly."
Connaught is famed as being the wildest and most barren province of Ireland. At the best, it can support but a scanty population. At this time it had been completely devastated by a ten years' war and by the excesses of the parliamentary forces. This province then was mercifully granted to the unhappy Irish race; it was set apart as a paradise for the wretched remnant to dwell in all Connaught, except a strip four miles wide along the sea, and a like strip along the right bank of the Shannon. This latter judicious provision was undoubtedly intended to prevent them from dwelling by the ocean, whence they might derive subsistence or assistance, or means of escape in the event of their ever rising again; and, on the other hand, from crossing the Shannon, on the east side of which their homes might still be seen. This cordon of four miles' width was drawn all around what was the Irish nation, and filled with the fiercest zealots of the "army of the Lord" to keep guard over the devoted victims.
Surely the doom of the race was at last sealed!
But let all justice be done to the Protector. The act was to the effect that, on the first day of May, 1654, all who, throughout the war, had not displayed a constant good affection to the Parliament of England in opposition to Charles I., were to be removed with their families and servants to the wilds of a poor and desolated province, where certain lands were to be given them in return for their own estates. But, who of the Irish could prove that they had displayed a "constant good affection" to the English Parliament during a ten years' war? The act was nothing less than a proscription of the whole nation. The English of the Pale were included among the old natives, and even a few Protestant royalists, who had taken of the cause of the fallen Stuarts. The only exception made was in favor of "husbandmen, ploughmen, laborers, artificers, and others of the inferior sort." The English and Scotch—constituted by this act of settlement lords and masters of the three richest provinces of Ireland— could not condescend to till the soil with their own hands and attend to the mechanical arts required in civil society. Those duties were reserved for the Irish poor. It was hoped that, deprived of their nobility and clergy, they might be turned to any account by their new masters, and either become good Protestants or perish as slaves. Herein mentita est iniquitas sibi.
The heart-rending details of this outrage on humanity may be seen in Mr. Prendergast's "Cromwellian Settlement." There all who read may form some idea of the extent of Ireland's misfortunes.
It is a wonder which cannot fail to strike the reader, how, after so many precautions had been taken, not only against the further increase of the race, but for its speedy demolition, how, reduced to a bare half million, penned off on a barren tract of land, left utterly at the mercy of its persecutors, without priests, without organization of any kind, it not only failed to perish, but, from that time, has gone on, steadily increasing, until to-day it spreads out wide and far, not only on the island of its birth, but on the broad face of two vast continents.
In the space at our disposal, it is impossible to satisfy the curiosity of the reader on this very curious and interesting topic. A few remarks, however, may serve to broadly indicate the chief causes of this astonishing fact, taken apart from the miraculous intervention of God in their favor.
First, then, Connaught became more Irish than ever, and a powerful instrument, later on, to assist in the resurrection of the nation. In fact, as will soon be seen, it preserved life to it. Again, the outcasts, who were allowed to remain in the other three provinces as servants, or slaves, rather, were not found manageable on the score of religion; and, although new acts of Parliament forbade any bishop or priest to remain in the island, many did remain, some of them coming back from the Continent, whither they had been exported, to aid their unfortunate countrymen in this their direst calamity.
As Matthew O'Connor rightly says : "The ardent zeal, the fortitude and calm resignation of the Catholic clergy during this direful persecution, might stand a comparison with the constancy of Christians during the first ages of the Church. In the season of prosperity they may have pushed their pretensions too far"—this is M. O'Connor's private opinion of the Confederation of Kilkenny— "but, in the hour of trial, they rose superior to human infirmities. . . . Sooner than abandon their flocks altogether, they fled from the communion of men, concealed themselves in woods and caverns, from whence they issued, whenever the pursuit of their enemies abated, to preach to the people, to comfort them in their afflictions, to encourage them in their trials;. . . their haunts were objects of indefatigable search; bloodhounds, the last device of human cruelty, were employed for the purpose, and the same price was set on the head of a priest as on that of a wolf."—(Irish Catholics.)
But, the expectation that the Irish of the lower classes, bereft of their pastors as well as of the guidance of their chieftains, would fall a prey to proselytizing ministers, and lose at once their nationality and their religion, was doomed to meet with disappointment.
Perhaps the cause more effective than all others in preserving the Irish nation from disappearing totally, came from a quarter least expected, or rather the most improbable and wonderful.
No device seemed better calculated to succeed in Protestantizing Ireland than the decree of Parliament which set forth that not only the officers, but even the common soldiers of the parliamentary army should be paid for their services, not in money, but in land; and that the estates of the old owners should be parcelled out and distributed among them in payment, as well as among those who, in England, had furnished funds for the prosecution of the war. Although many soldiers objected to this mode of compensation, some selling for a trifle the land allotted to them and returning to their own country, the great majority was compelled to rest satisfied with the government offer, and so resolved to settle down in Ireland and turn farmers. But a serious difficulty met them: women could not be induced to abandon their own country and go to dwell in the sister isle, while the Irish girls, being all Catholics, a decree of Parliament forbade the soldiers to marry them, unless they first succeeded in converting them to Protestantism. After many vain attempts, doubtless, the Cromwellian soldiers soon found the impossibility of bringing the "refractory" daughters of Erin to their way of thinking, and could find only one mode of bridging over the difficulty—to marry them first, without requiring then to apostatize; and secure their prize after by swearing that their wives were the most excellent of Protestants. Thus while perjury became an every-day occurrence, the victorious army began to be itself vanquished by a powerful enemy which it had scarcely calculated upon, and was utterly unprepared to meet, and finally resting from its labors, enjoyed the sweets of peace and the fat of the land.
But woman, once she feels her power, is exacting, and in course of time the Cromwellian soldiers found that further sacrifices still were required of them, which they had never counted upon. Their wives could, by no persuasion, be induced to speak English, so that, however it might go against the grain, the husbands were compelled to learn Irish and speak it habitually as best they might. Their difficulties began to multiply with their children, when they found them learning Irish in the cradle, irresistible in their Irish wit and humor, and lisping the prayers and reverencing the faith they had learned at their mothers' knees. So that, from that time to this, the posterity of Cromwell's "Ironsides," of such of them at least as remained in Ireland, have been devoted Catholics and ardent Irishmen.
The case was otherwise with the chief officers of the parliamentary army, who had received large estates and could easily obtain wives from England. They remained stanch Protestants, and their children have continued in the religion received with the estates which came to them from this wholesale confiscation. But the bulk of the army, instead of helping to form a Protestant middle class and a Protestant yeomanry, has really helped to perpetuate the sway of the Catholic religion in Ireland, and the feeling of nationality so marked to-day. This very remarkable fact has been well established and very plainly set forth, a few years ago, by eminent English reviewers.
Meanwhile, Ireland was a prey to all the evils which can afflict a nation. Pestilence was added to the ravages of war and the woes of transplantation, and it raged alike among the conquerors and the conquered. Friar Morrisson's "Threnodia" reads to-day like an exaggerated lament, the burden of which was drawn from a vivid imagination. Yet can there be little doubt that it scarcely presented the whole truth; an exact reproduction of all the heart-rending scenes then daily enacted in the unfortunate island would prove a tale as moving as ever harrowed the pitying heart of a reader.
And all this suffering was the direct consequence of two things— the attachment of the Irish to the Catholic religion, and their devotion to the Stuart dynasty. Modern historians, in considering all the circumstances, express themselves unable to understand the constancy of this people's affection for a line of kings from whom they had invariably experienced, not only neglect, but positive opposition, if not treachery. In their opinion, only the strangest obliquity of judgment can explain such infatuation. Some call it stupidity; but the Irish people have never been taxed with that. Even in the humblest ranks of life among them, there exists, not only humor, but a keenness of perception, and at times an extraordinary good sense, which is quick to detect motives, and find out what is uppermost in the minds of others.
There is but one reading of the riddle, consistent with the whole character of the people: they clung to the Stuarts because they were obedient to the precepts and duties of religion, and labored under the belief, however mistaken, that from the Stuarts alone could they hope for any thing like freedom. Their spiritual rulers had insisted on the duty of sustaining at all hazard the legitimate authority of the king, and they were firmly convinced that they could expect from no other a relaxation of the religious penal statutes imposed on them by their enemies. The more frequent grew their disappointments in the measures adopted by the sovereigns on whom they had set their hopes, the more firmly were they convinced that their intentions were good, but rendered futile by the men who surrounded and coerced them.
Religion can alone explain this singular affection of the Irish people for a race which, in reality, has caused the greatest of their misfortunes.
The subsequent events of this strange history are in perfect keeping with those preceding. A few words will suffice to sketch them.
On the death of Oliver Cromwell, his son Richard, being unable and indeed unwilling to remain at the head of the English state, the nation, tired of the iron rule of the Protector, fearful certainly of anarchy, and preferring the conservative measures of monarchy to the ever-changing revolutions of a commonwealth, recalled the son of Charles I. to the throne.
But a kind of bargain had been struck by him with those who disposed of the crown; and he undertook and promised to disturb as little as possible the vested interests created by the revolution, that is to say, he pledged himself to let the settlement of property remain as he found it. In England that promise was productive of little mischief to the nation at large, though fatal to the not very numerous families who had been deprived of their estates by the Parliament. But, in Ireland, it was a very different matter; for there the interests of the whole nation were ousted to make room for these "vested interests" of proprietors of scarcely ten years' standing.
The Irish nobility and gentry, at first unaware of the existence of this bargain, were in joyful expectation that right would at last be done them, as it was for loyalty to the father of the new king that they had been robbed of all their possessions. They were soon undeceived. To their surprise, they learned that the speculators, army-officers, and soldiers already in possession of their estates, were not to be disturbed, short as the possession had been; and that only such lands as were yet unappropriated should be returned to their rightful owners, provided only they were not papists, or could prove that they had been "innocent papists."
The consequences of this bargain are clear. The Irish of the old native race who had been, as now appeared, so foolishly ardent in their loyalty to the throne, were to be abandoned to the fate to which Cromwell had consigned them, and could expect to recover nothing of what they had so nobly lost. So flagrantly unjust was the whole proceeding, that after a time many Englishmen even saw the injustice of the decision, and lifted up their voices in defence of the Irish Catholics who alone could hope for nothing from the restoration of royalty. To put a stop to this, the infamous "Oates" fabrication was brought forward, which destroyed a number of English Catholic families and stifled the voice of humanity in its efforts to befriend the Irish race; and so sudden, universal, and lasting, was the effect of this plot in closing the eyes of all to the claims of the Irish, that when its chief promoter, Shaftesbury, was dragged to the Tower and there imprisoned as a miscreant, and Oates himself suffered a punishment too mild for his villany, nevertheless no one thought of again taking up the cause of the Irish natives.
It is almost impossible in these days to realize what has occupied our attention in this chapter. The unparalleled act of spoliation by which four-fifths of the Irish nation were deprived of their property by Cromwell because of their devotion to Charles I., for the alleged reason that they could not prove a constant good affection for the English regicide Parliament, that spoliation was ratified by the son of Charles within a few years after the rightful owners, who had sacrificed their property for the sake of his father, had been dispossessed, while the parliamentarians, who by force of arms had broken down the power of Charles and enabled the members of the Long Parliament to try their king and bring him to the block, those very soldiers and officers were left in possession of their ill- gotten plunder, at a time when many of the owners were only a few miles away in Connaught, or even inhabiting the out-houses of their own mansions, and tilling the soil as menial servants of Cromwell's troopers.
The case, apparently similar, which occurred in after-years, of the French emigrant nobility, cannot be compared with the result of this strange concession of Charles II. In fact, it may be said that the spoliations of 1792-'93 in France would probably never have taken place but for the successful example held up to the eyes of the legislators of the French Republic by the English Revolution.
As for the share which Charles II. himself bore in the measure, it is best told by the fact that the work of spoliation was carried on so vigorously during the reign of the "merry monarch," that when a few years later William of Orange came to the throne there was no land left for him to dispose of among his followers save the last million of acres. All the rest had been portioned off. Well might Dr. Madden say: "The whole of Ireland has been so thoroughly confiscated that the only exception was that of five or six families of English blood, some of whom had been attainted in the reign of Henry VIII., but recovered flourished ever since. Yet did they not refuse the accessory with the principal. Deluded men they may be called by many; but people cannot ordinarily understand the high motives which move men swayed only by the twofold feeling of religion and nationality.
Nothing in our opinion could better prove that the Irish were really a nation, at the time we speak of, than the remarks just set forth. When all minds are so unanimous, the wills so ready, the arms so strong and well prepared to strike together, it must be admitted that in the whole exists a common feeling, a national will. Self-government may be wanting; it may have been suppressed by sheer force and kept under by the most unfavorable state of affairs, but the nation subsists and cannot fail ultimately to rise.
In those eventful times shone forth too that characteristic which has already been remarked upon of a true conservative spirit and instinctive hatred for every principle which in our days is called radical and revolutionary. Had there existed in the Irish disposition the least inclination toward those social and moral aberrations, productive to-day of so many and such widespread evils, surely the period of the English Revolution was the fitting time to call them forth, and turn them from their steady adherence to right and order into the new channels, toward which nations were being then hurried, and which would really have favored for the time being their own efforts for independence. Then would the Irish have presented to future historians as stirring an episode of excitement and activity as was furnished by the English and Scotch at that time, by the French later on, and which to-day most European nations offer.
The temptation was indeed great. They saw with what success rebellion was rewarded among the English and Scotch. They themselves were sure to be stamped as rebels whichever side they took; and, as was seen, Charles II. allowed his commissioners in his act of settlement so to style them, and punish them for it— for supporting the cause of his father against the Parliament.
Would it not have been better for them to have become once, at least, rebels in true earnest, and reap the same advantage from rebellion which all around them reaped? Yet did they stand proof against the demoralizing doctrines of Scotch Covenanter and English republican. Hume, who was openly adverse to every thing Irish, is compelled to describe this Catholic people as "loyal from principle, attached to regal power from religious education, uniformly opposing popular frenzy, and zealous vindicators of royal prerogatives."
All this was in perfect accord with their traditional spirit and historical recollections. Revolutionary doctrines have always been antagonistic to the Irish mind and heart. This will appear more fully when recent times come under notice, and it may be a surprise to some to find that, with the exception of a few individuals, who in nowise represent the nation, the latest and favorite theories of the world, not only on religion, science, and philosophy, but likewise on government and the social state, have never found open advocates among them. They, so far, constitute the only nation untouched, as yet, by the blight which is passing over and withering the life of modern society. Thus, it may be said that the exiled nobility still rules in Ireland by the recollection of the past, though there can no longer exist a hope of reconstructing an ancient order which has passed away forever. The prerogatives once granted to the aristocratic classes are now disowned and repudiated on all sides; in Ireland they would be submitted to with joy tomorrow, could the actual descendants of the old families only make good their claims. It must not be forgotten that the Irish nobility, as a class, deserved well of their country, sacrificed themselves for it when the time of sacrifice came, and therefore it is fitting that they should live in the memory of the people that sees their traces but finds them not. The dream of finding rulers for the nation from among those who claim to be the descendants of the old chieftains, is a dream and nothing more; but, even still to many Irishmen, it is within the compass of reality, so deeply ingrained is their conservative spirit, and so completely, in this instance, at least, are they free from the influx of modern ideas.
The Stuarts, then, were supported by the Irish, not merely from religious, but also from national motives, inasmuch as that family was descended from the line of Gaelic kings, and, however unworthy they themselves may have been, their rights were upheld and acknowledged against all comers. But, the Stuarts gone, allegiance was flung to the winds.
The success of Cromwell and his republic was the doom of all prospects of the reunion of the two islands; and the subsequent Revolution of 1688, which commenced so soon after the death of the Protector, left the Irish in the state in which the struggles of four hundred years with the Plantagenets and Tudors had placed and left them in relation to their connection with England—a state of antagonism and mutual repulsion, wherein the Irish nation, the victim of might, was slowly educated by misfortune until the time should come for the open acknowledgment of right.
William III., of Orange, was inclined to observe, in good faith, the articles agreed upon at the surrender of Limerick, namely, to allow the conquered liberty of worship, citizen rights, so much as remained to them of their property, and the means for personal safety recognized before the departure of Sarsfield and his men.
The lords justices even issued a proclamation commanding "all officers and soldiers of the army and militia, and all other persons whatsoever, to forbear to do any wrong or injury, or to use unlawful violence to any of his Majesty's subjects, whether of the British or Irish nation, without distinction, and that all persons taking the oath of allegiance, and behaving themselves according to law, should be deemed subjects under their Majesties' protection, and be equally entitled to the benefit of the law."—(Harris, "Life of William.")
This first proclamation not having been generally obeyed, another was published denouncing "the utmost vengeance of the law against the offenders;" and the author above quoted adds that "the satisfaction given to the Irish was a source of lasting gratitude to the person and government of William."
It is even asserted that, not only did the new monarch thus ratify the treaty of Limerick, but that "he inserted in the ratification a clause of the last importance to the Irish, which had been omitted in the draught signed by the lords justices and Sarsfield. That clause extended the benefits of the capitulation to "all such as were under the protection of the Irish army in the counties of Limerick, Clare, Kerry, Cork, and Mayo. A great quantity of Catholic property depended on the insertion of this clause in the ratification, and the English Privy Council hesitated whether to take advantage of the omission. The honesty of the king declared it to be a part of the articles."
The final confirmation was issued from Westminster on February 24, 1692, in the name of William and Mary.
But the party which had overcome the honest leanings of James I., if he ever had any, and of his son and grandson, was at this time more powerful than ever, and could not consent to extend the claims of justice and right to the conquered. This party was the Ulster colony, which Cromwell's settlement had spread to the two other provinces of Leinster and Munster, and which was confirmed in its usurpation by the weakness of the second Charles. The motives for the bitter animosity which caused it to set its face against every measure involving the scantiest justice toward its fellow-countrymen may be summed up in two words—greed and fanaticism.
Until the time when the first of the Stuarts ascended the English throne, all the successive spoliations of Ireland, even the last under Elizabeth, at the end of the Geraldine war, were made to the advantage of the English nobility. Even the younger sons of families from Lancashire, Cheshire, and Dorsetshire, who "planted" Munster after the ruin of the Desmonds, had noble blood in their veins, and were consequently subject more or less to the ordinary prejudices of feudal lords. The life of the agriculturist and grazier was too low down in the social scale to catch their supercilious glance. The consequence of which was, that the Catholic tenants of Munster were left undisturbed in their holdings. Instead of the "dues" exacted by their former chieftains, they now paid rent to their new lords.
But the rabble let loose on the island by James I. was afflicted with no such dainty notions as these. To supercilious glances were substituted eyes keen as the Israelites', for the "main chance." The new planters, intent only on profit and gain, thought with the French peasant of an after-date, that, for landed estate to produce its full value, "there is nothing like the eye of a master." The Irish peasant was therefore removed from at least one-half the farms of Ulster, and driven to live as best he might among the Protestant lords of Munster. And in order to have an entirely Protestant "plantation," it became incumbent on the new owners so to frame the legislation as to deprive the Irish Catholics of any possibility of recovering their former possessions. Thus, laws were passed declaring null and void all purchases made by "Irish papists."
Who has not witnessed, at some period in his life, the effect produced on the people in his neighborhood by one avaricious but wealthy man, intent only on increasing his property, and profiting by the slavish labor of the poor under his control? Who has not detested, in his inmost soul, the grinding tyranny of the miser gloating over the hard wealth which he has wrung from the misery and tears of all around him, and who boasts of the cunning shrewdness, the success of which is only too visible in the desolation that encircles him? Imagine such scenes enacted throughout a large territory, beginning with Ulster, spreading thence to Munster and Connaught, and finally through the whole island, and we have an exact picture of the effects of the Protestant "plantation." Each year, almost, of the seventeenth century witnessed fresh swarms of these foreign adventurers settling on the island, interrupted in their operations only by the Confederation of Kilkenny, but multiplying faster and faster after the destruction of that truly national government, until at the time now under our consideration, "Scotch thrift," as it is called, had become the chief virtue of most of the owners of land—Scotch thrift, which is but another name for greed.
It were easy to show, by long details, that this great characteristic of the new "plantation" would suffice to explain that general and terrible pauperism which has since become the striking feature of once-happy Ireland. But only a few words can be allowed.
It is the fanaticism of the new "planters" which will chiefly occupy our attention. These were composed, first, of the Scotch Presbyterians of Knox, whom James I. had dispatched, and afterward of the ranting soldiers and officers of Cromwell's army, more Jew than Christian, since their mouths were ever filled with Bible texts of that particular character wherein the wrath of God is denounced against the impious and cruel tribes of Palestine. It is doubtful whether the ideas of God and man, promulgated and spread among the people by Calvin and Knox, have ever been equalled in evil consequences by the most superstitious beliefs of ancient pagans. Let us look well at those teachings. According to them, God is the author of evil: he issues forth his decrees of election or reprobation, irrespective of merit or demerit; inflicting eternal torments on innumerable souls which never could have been saved, and for whom the Son of God did not die. What any rational being must consider as the most revolting cruelty and injustice, these men called acts of pure justice executed by the hand of God. God saves blindly those whom he saves, and takes them home to his bosom, though reeking with the unrepented and unexpiated crimes of their lives—unexpiable, in fact, on the part of man—merely because they persuade themselves that they are of "the elect."
In that system, man is a mere machine, unendowed with the slightest symptom of free-will, but inflated with the most overbearing pride; deeming all others but those of his sect the necessary objects of the blind wrath of God, cast off and reprobate from all eternity in the designs of Providence; for whom "the elect" can feel no more pity or affection than redeemed men can for the arch-fiend himself, both being alike redeemless and unredeemed.
No system of pretended religion, invented by the perverted mind of man, under the inspiration of the Evil One, could go further in atrocity than this.
Yet such was the pure, undiluted essence of Calvinism in its beginning. In our times its doctrines have been radically modified, as its adherents could not escape the soothing operations of time and calm reason. But, at the period of which we speak, its absurd and revolting tenets were fresh, and taken religiously to the letter.
The new colonists, therefore, believed, and acted on the belief, that all men outside of their own body were the enemies of God and had God for their enemy. What a convenient doctrine for men of an "itching palm! " The papists, in particular, were worse than idolaters, and to "root them out" was only to render a service to God. In the event of this holy desire not being altogether possible of execution, the nearest approach to the goodly work was to strip them of all rights, and render the life of such reprobates more miserable than the death which was to condemn them to the eternal torments planned out for them in the eternal decrees, and so give them a foretaste here of the life destined for them hereafter.
The reader, then, may understand how the Scotch Presbyterians of the time, overflowing as they were with free and republican ideas as far as regarded their own welfare, when it came to a question of extending the same to their Catholic fellow-men, if they would have admitted the term, scouted such a preposterous and ungodly idea. These latter were unworthy the enjoyment of such benefit. And thus the hoot of Protestant ascendancy, "Protestant liberty and right! " came up as war-cries to stifle out all efforts tending to extend even the most ordinary privileges of the liberty which is man's by nature, to any but Protestants of the same class as themselves.
Here a curious reflection, full of meaning, and causing the mind almost to mock at the type of a free constitution, presents itself. The eighteenth century witnessed the development of the British Constitution as now known. It embraced in its bosom all British citizens, raising up the nation to the pinnacle of material prosperity, while at the same time and all through it, whole classes of citizens of the British Empire, both in Great Britain and Ireland, were openly, unblushingly, legally, without a thought of mercy or pity—not to mention such an ugly word as logic—denied the protection of the common charter and the common rights.
Under Cromwell the doctrines of Calvin and Knox did not show themselves quite so obtrusively. The officers and soldiers of his armies, in common with their general, thought the Presbyterian Kirk too aristocratic and unbending. They formed a new sect of Independents, now called Congregationalists. But the chief feature of the new religious system became as productive of evil to Ireland as the stern dogmas of Calvin ever could be. The principle that the Scriptures constituted the only rule of faith was beginning to bear its fruits. It is needless to remark that Holy Scripture, when abandoned to the free interpretation of all, becomes the source of many errors, as it may be the source of many crimes. The historian and novelist even have ere now frequently told us to what purpose the "Word of God " was manipulated by Scottish Covenanter and Cromwellian freebooter.
The Covenanter, or freebooter, saw in the antagonists of his "real rebellion" and opposers of the designs of his dark policy, only the enemies of God and the adversaries of his Providence. He believed himself divinely commissioned to destroy Catholics and butcher innocent women and children, as the armies of Joshua were authorized to fight against Amalek, and possess themselves of a country occupied by a people whose cruel idolatry was ineradicable, and rendered them absolutely irreconcilable. Thus to the stern and odious tenets of Calvinism the new invaders joined the fanaticism of self-deluded Jews, never having received any commission from the God whom they blasphemed, yet bearing themselves with all the solemnity of his instruments.
There is consequently nothing to surprise us in the atrocities committed by the Scotch troops in 1641, when they first invaded the island from the north, as little as there is in the numerous massacres which first attended the march of the troops of Cromwell, Ireton, and other leaders, and which were only discontinued when the voice of Europe rose up in revolt at the recital, and they themselves became thoroughly convinced that the complete destruction of the people was impossible, and the only next best thing to be done was to export as many as could be exported and reduce the rest to slavery.
Thus did the new colony commence its workings, and it is easy to comprehend how such intensely Protestant doctrines, remaining implanted in the breasts of the people who came to make Ireland their home, could not fail to oppose an insurmountable barrier to the fusion of the new and the old inhabitants, and impart a fearful reality to the theory of "Protestant ascendancy" and "Protestant liberty and right "—the liberty and right to oppress those of another creed.
These watchwords form the key to the understanding of all the miseries and woes of Irishmen during the whole of the eighteenth century. We now turn to contemplate the commencement of the workings of this fanatic intolerance which ushered in the century of gloom.
The lords justices had just returned, after concluding the treaty of peace with Sarsfield, when the first mutterings of the thunder were heard that presaged the coming storm. Dr. Dopping, the Protestant Bishop of Meath, while preaching before them on the Sunday following their return to Dublin, reproached them openly in Christ Church for their indulgence to the Irish, and urged that no faith was to be kept with such a cruel and perfidious race. This sort of doctrine has been heard before, and from men of the stamp of Dr. Dopping; it is still heard every day, but it is generally thrown into the teeth of Catholics and saddled on them as their doctrine, however frequently refuted.
The doctor stated broadly that with such people no treaties were binding, and that therefore the articles of Limerick were not to be observed.
William and his Irish government endeavored to check this intemperance; but the feelings of the sectarians were too ardent to be thus easily smothered, and the greater the opposition they encountered, the more they insisted on proclaiming their views, to which naturally they gained many adherents among the colonists of the Protestant plantation.
The Irish Parliament soon assembled in Dublin. The majority, imbued with the gloomy Calvinism of the times, and fearing to face the opposition of the respectable minority of Catholic members, who had come to take their seats, passed an act imposing a new oath, in contradiction to one of the articles of the treaty. That oath included an abjuration of James's right de jure, a renunciation of the spiritual authority of the Pope, and (as though that were not enough to exclude Catholics) a declaration against the doctrine of transubstantiation and other fundamental tenets of their creed. Persons who refused to take this oath were debarred from all offices and emoluments, as well as from both Houses of the Irish Parliament.
The Catholic members were compelled to withdraw at once; and no Catholic ever took part in the legislation of his own country from that day until the Emancipation in 1829.
After this withdrawal, which in the times of the French Convention would have been called an epuration, the Irish Parliament became the bane of the country. In fact, it only represented parliamentary England, and subjected Ireland to every measure required by English ultraists for the attainment of their selfish purposes. Possessed by a gloomy fanaticism, its main object was to root out of the island every vestige that remained of the religion which had once flourished there. All its legislative spirit was concentrated in the two questions: Are the laws already in existence against the further growth of Popery rigidly enforced? and, cannot some new law be introduced to further the same object.?
Many a time were these two questions put in the assembly called the Irish Parliament, until near the end of the eighteenth thunder were heard that presaged the coming storm. Dr. Dopping, the Protestant Bishop of Meath, while preaching before them on the Sunday following their return to Dublin, reproached them openly in Christ Church for their indulgence to the Irish, and urged that no faith was to be kept with such a cruel and perfidious race. This sort of doctrine has been heard before, and from men of the stamp of Dr. Dopping; it is still heard every day, but it is generally thrown into the teeth of Catholics and saddled on them as their doctrine, however frequently refuted.
The doctor stated broadly that with such people no treaties were binding, and that therefore the articles of Limerick were not to be observed.
William and his Irish government endeavored to check this intemperance; but the feelings of the sectarians were too ardent to be thus easily smothered, and the greater the opposition they encountered, the more they insisted on proclaiming their views, to which naturally they gained many adherents among the colonists of the Protestant plantation.
The Irish Parliament soon assembled in Dublin. The majority, imbued with the gloomy Calvinism of the times, and fearing to face the opposition of the respectable minority of Catholic members, who had come to take their seats, passed an act imposing a new oath, in contradiction to one of the articles of the treaty. That oath included an abjuration of James's right de jure, a renunciation of the spiritual authority of the Pope, and (as though that were not enough to exclude Catholics) a declaration against the doctrine of transubstantiation and other fundamental tenets of their creed. Persons who refused to take this oath were debarred from all offices and emoluments, as well as from both Houses of the Irish Parliament.
The Catholic members were compelled to withdraw at once; and no Catholic ever took part in the legislation of his own country from that day until the Emancipation in 1829.
After this withdrawal, which in the times of the French Convention would have been called an epuration, the Irish Parliament became the bane of the country. In fact, it only represented parliamentary England, and subjected Ireland to every measure required by English ultraists for the attainment of their selfish purposes. Possessed by a gloomy fanaticism, its main object was to root out of the island every vestige that remained of the religion which had once flourished there. All its legislative spirit was concentrated in the two questions: Are the laws already in existence against the further growth of Popery rigidly enforced? and, cannot some new law be introduced to further the same object.?
Many a time were these two questions put in the assembly called the Irish Parliament, until near the end of the eighteenth Popery, and, in the next place, it makes evident the necessity there is of cultivating and preserving a good understanding among all Protestants in this kingdom."'
Let the reader bear in mind that language such as this, and its result in the shape of atrocious legislation, continued throughout the whole of the eighteenth century in Ireland, and he will find no difficulty in understanding the meaning of Edmund Burke's words when he said : "The code against the Catholics was a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance; and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man." And, elsewhere: "To render men patient under the deprivation of all the rights of human nature, every thing which could give them a knowledge and feeling of those rights was rationally forbidden. To render humanity fit to be insulted, it was fit that it should be degraded."
But it is very pertinent to our purpose to give a sketch of those good laws, as Wharton calls them, before seeing how the Irish preferred to submit to them rather than lose their faith by "conforming." The subject has been already investigated by many writers, and of late far more completely than formerly. But the authors never presented the laws as a whole, contenting themselves, for the most part, by transcribing them in the chronological order in which they were enacted, or, if occasionally they endeavored to combine and thus present a more striking idea of the effect which such laws must have produced on the people, they were never, as far as is known to the writer, reduced to a plan, and consequently fail to bring forth the effect intended to be produced by them.
It is impossible here to give the text of those various laws— impossible even to give a fairly accurate idea of the whole. They shall be classified, however, to the best of our ability, and as fully as circumstances permit.
Mr. Prendergast seems to consider their ultimate object always to have been the robbing of the Irish of their lands, or securing the plunder if already in possession. That this was one of the great objects always kept in view in their enactment, we do not feel inclined to contest; but that it was their only or even chief cause, we may be allowed to question, with the greatest deference to the opinion of the celebrated author of the often-quoted "Cromwellian Settlement."
We believe those laws to have been produced chiefly by sectarian fanaticism; or, if some of their framers, such as Lord Wharton, possessed no religious feelings of any kind, and could not be called fanatics, their intent was to pander to the real fanaticism of the English people, as it existed at the time, and particularly of the colony planted in Ireland, which hated Popery to the death, and would have given all its possessions and lands for the destruction of the Scarlet Woman.
In order to attain the great result proposed, the aim of the "penal statute" was one in its very complexity. For it had to deal with complex rights, which it took away one after another until the unity of the system was completed by the suppression of them all.
We classify these under the heads of political, civil, and human rights. The result of the whole policy was to degrade the Irish to the level of the wretched helots under Sparta, with this difference: while the slaves of the Lacedaemonians numbered but a few thousands, the Irish were counted by millions.
The system, as a whole, was the work of time, and, under William of Orange—even under Queen Anne—it had not yet attained its maturity, though the principal and the severest measures were carried and put in force from the very beginning. The ingenious little devices regarding short and small leases, the possession of valuable horses, etc., were mere fanciful adjuncts which the witty and inventive legislators of the Hanoverian dynasty were happy enough to find unrecorded in the statute-books, and which they had the honor of setting there, and thus adding a new piquancy and vigorous flavor to the whole dish.
Toward the middle of the eighteenth century, the system may be said to have reached its perfection. After that time it would, in all likelihood, have been impossible to improve further, and render the yoke of slavery heavier and more galling to the Irish. The beauty and simplicity of the whole consisted in the fact that the great majority of these measures were not decreed in so many positive and express terms against Catholics in the form of open and persecuting statutes. It was merely mentioned in the laws that, to enjoy such and such a particular right, it was necessary that every subject of the crown should take such and such an oath, which no Catholic could take. Thus, the entire Irish population was set between their religion and their rights, and at any moment, by merely taking the oath, they were at liberty to enjoy all the privileges which rendered the colonists living in their midst so happy and contented, and so proud of their "Protestant ascendency."
It was hoped, no doubt, that, if at first and for a certain time, the faith of the Irish would stand proof and prompt them to sacrifice every thing held dear in life, rather than surrender that faith, nevertheless, worn out at length, and disheartened by wretchedness, unable longer to sustain their heavy burden, they would finally succumb, and, by the mere action of such an easy thing as recording an oath in accordance with the law, though against their conscience, become men and citizens. It was what the French Conventionalists of 1793 called "desoler la patience" of their victims.
This unholy hope was disappointed; and, with the exception of a comparatively few weak Christians among their number, the nation stood firm and preferred the "ignominy of the cross of Christ" to the enjoyments of this perishable life.
Their political rights were, as was seen, the first to be taken away. The Parliament of 1691 required of its members the oath referred to, and for the repudiation of which, all the Catholic members were compelled at once to withdraw. But the contrivance of swearing being found such an excellent instrument to use against men possessed of a conscience, the ruling body—now reduced to the former Protestant majority—required that the same oath be taken by all electors, magistrates, and officers of whatever grade, from the highest to the lowest in the land.
The oath itself was an elastic formula, capable of being stretched or contracted, according to circumstances, so that, by the addition of an incidental phrase or two, it might be framed to meet new exigencies, and give expression to the lively imagination of ingenious members of Parliament. It would be curious to collect an account of the variety of shapes it assumed, and to comment on the different occasions which gave rise to these different developments. A long history of persecuting frenzy might thus be condensed into a commentary of a comparatively few pages. Even at the so-called Catholic Emancipation it was not abolished; on the contrary, it was sacredly preserved, and two new formulas drawn up, the one for the Protestant and the other for the Catholic members of the legislature, Lords and Commons, and so it remains, to this day, except that the most offensive clauses of the last century have disappeared.
Imagine, then, the spectacle offered by the island whenever an election for representatives, magistrates, or petty officers, took place; whenever those entitled to select holders of offices which were not subject to election, made known the persons of their choice. This vast array of aristocratic masters was chosen from the ranks of the English colonists, and had for its avowed object to preserve the Protestant ascendency, and consequently grind under the heel of the most abject oppression the whole mass of the population of the island. There was no other meaning in all these political combinations and changes, recurring periodically, and heralded forth by the voice of the press and the thunder of the hustings. Politics in Ireland was nothing else than the expression given to the despotism of an insignificant minority over almost the entire body of the people. For, despite all their repressive measures, the enemies of the Catholic faith could never pretend even to a semblance in point of numbers, much less to a majority, over the children of the creed taught by Patrick. Ireland remained Catholic throughout; and its oppressors could not fail to feel the bitter humiliation of their constant numerical inferiority. Hence the words quoted in the speech of Wharton, the lord-lieutenant.
This has always been the case, in spite of the combination of a multitude of circumstances adverse to the spread of the Catholic population. It may not be amiss to give room for the statistics and remarks of Abbe Perraud on this most interesting subject, contained in his book on "Ireland under British rule."
"In 1672, the total population of Ireland was 1,100,000 (it is to be remembered that this was after the massacres and transportations of Cromwell's period). Of that number
800,000 were Catholics.50,000 " Dissenters.150,000 " Church-of-Ireland men.
"In 1727, the Anglican Primate of Ireland, Boulter, Archbishop of Armagh, wrote to his English colleague, the Archbishop of Canterbury, that 'we have, in all probability, in this kingdom, at least five Papists for every Protestant.' Those proportions are confirmed by official statistics under Queen Anne.
"In 1740, according to a kind of official census, confirmed by Wakefield, the number of Protestant heads of families did not exceed 96,067.
"Twenty-six years later, the Dublin House of Lords caused a comparative table of Protestant and Catholic families to be drawn up for each county. The result was the following:
Protestant families . . 130,263Catholic families . . 305,680
"In 1834, exact statistical returns being made of the members of each communion, the following was the result: The total population being estimated at 7,943,940, the Church-of-Ireland members amounted only to the number of 852,064. The remaining 7, 091,876 were thus divided:
Presbyterians . . . . . . 642,350Other Dissenters . . . . 21,808Catholics . . . . . . . 6,427,718
"The censuses of 1841 and 1851 contained no information upon this important question. Thirty years had therefore elapsed since official figures had given the exact proportions of each Church.
"This silence of the Blue Books had given rise, among the Protestant press of England and Ireland, to the opinion, too hastily adopted on the Continent by publicists of great weight, that emigration and famine had resulted in the equalization of the numbers of Protestants and Catholics in Ireland. The evident conclusion joyfully drawn from this supposed fact by the defenders of the Anglican Church was, that the scandal of a Protestant establishment in the midst and at the expense of a Catholic people was gradually dying away.
"The forlorn hope of the Tory and Orange press went still further. They boldly disputed Ireland's right to the title of Catholic. So, although, ten years and twenty years before, these same journals furiously opposed the admission of religious denominations into the statistics of the census, yet, when the census of 1861 drew near, they quite as loudly demanded its insertion. They made it a matter of challenge to the Catholics.
"The ultramontane journals accepted the challenge. The Catholics unanimously demanded a denominational census. The results were submitted to the representatives of the nation in July, 1861. No shorter, more decisive, or more triumphant answer could have been given to the sarcasms and challenges of the old Protestant party."
We confine ourselves here to the total sums, leaving out minor details:
Catholics . . . . . . . . 4,490,583Establishment . . . . . . 687,661Dissenters . . . . . . . 595,577Jews . . . . . . . . . . 322
Thus in this century, as throughout the whole of the century of gloom, the island is truly and really Catholic.
By way of contrast, a few words on the same subject may not be out of place with reference to England. We have already stated, and given some of the reasons for so doing, that, at the death of Elizabeth, England was already Protestant to the core.
In his "Memoirs," vol. ii., Sir John Dalrymple has published a curious official report of the numbers of Catholics in England, in the reign of William of Orange, found after his death in the iron chest of that vigilant monarch. From this authentic document we take the following extract:
Number of Freeholders in England.1 (1 Dr. Madden's "Penal Laws.")
Conformists. Papists. Non-Conformists.Province ofCanterbury, 2,123,362 93,151 11,878
Province ofYork, 353,892 15,525 1,978
Totals 2,477,254 108,676 13,856
It is known also that, under George III., the number of Catholics in the whole of Great Britain did not exceed sixty thousand, so thorough had been the separation of England from the true Church.
To return to the ostracism of a whole nation from its political rights. No individual really belonging to it could take the slightest share in the administration of its affairs. They were all left to the control of aliens, whose boast it was that they were English; and whose chief object was to secure English ascendency, and subject every thing Irish to the rule of force.
Yet all this while a new era was dawning on the world; a multitude of voices were proclaiming new social and political doctrines; all were to be free, to possess privileges that might not be intrenched upon—to wit, a voice in the affairs of the nation, trial by their peers, no taxation without due representation, and the like—while a whole nation by the unanimous consent of the loudest of these freedom-mongers was excluded from every benefit of the new ideas, was literally placed in bondage, and left without the possibility of being heard and admitted to the enjoyment of the common rights, because the one voice which would have declared in their favor, which in former times had so often and so loudly spoken, when so to speak was to offend the powers of this world, was deprived of the right of being heard. The doctrine that the Papal supremacy was a usurpation, and the Pope himself an enemy of freedom, was laid down as a cardinal principle. After such public renunciation of former doctrines, all these new and so-called liberal theories were a mere delusion and a snare. There was no possibility of effectually securing freedom, in spite of so much promised to all and granted to some; no possibility of really protecting the rights of all. The public right newly proclaimed ended finally in might. Majorities ruled despotically over the minorities, and, as the despotism of the multitude is ever harsher and more universal than that of any monarch, the reign of cruel injustice was let in upon Ireland. And in her case the injustice was peculiarly aggravated, inasmuch as it was a small alien minority which trampled under foot the rights of a great native majority.
But, although the deprivation of political rights is perhaps more fatal to a nation than that of any other, on account of what follows in its train, particularly in the framing of the laws, nevertheless the deprivation of civil rights is generally more acutely felt, because the grievances resulting from it meet man at every turn, at every moment of his life, in his household and domestic circle. In fact, the penal laws stripped Catholics of every civil right which modern society can conceive, and it was chiefly there that the ingenuity of their oppressors labored during the greater part of a century to make a total wreck of Irish welfare.
Those rights may be classified generally as the right of possessing and holding landed property, the right of earning an honorable living by profession or trade, the right of protection against injustice by equal laws, the right of fair trial before condemnation: such are the chief. It is doubtful if there is any thing of importance left of which a citizen can be deprived, unless indeed he be openly and unjustly deprived of life.
It has been already indicated how the policy of England, with regard to Ireland, from that first invasion, in the time of Henry II., was prompted by the desire of gaining possession of the soil, and how after seven hundred years of struggle it succeeded in attaining its object; so that the whole island had been confiscated, and in some instances two or three times over. The object of the penal laws, therefore, could not be to deprive the Irish of the land which they no longer possessed, but to prevent them acquiring any land in any quantity whatever, and from reentering into possession, by purchase or otherwise, of any portion of their own soil and of the estates which belonged to their ancestors. So harsh and cunning a design, we doubt not, never entered the minds of any former legislators, even in pagan antiquity.
The great stimulus to exertion in civil society consists of the acquisition of property, chiefly of land. In feudal times seignorial estates could be purchased by none but those of noble blood; but with allodial estates it was different all through Europe. Yet just at the time when feudal laws were passing into disuse the Irish were prevented, by carefully-drawn enactments, from purchasing even a rood of their native soil. "The prohibition had been already extended to the whole nation by the Commonwealth government, and when the lands forfeited by the wars of 1690 came to be sold at Chichester House in 1703, the Irish were declared by the English Parliament incapable of purchasing at the auction, or of taking a lease of more than two acres."—(Prendergast.)
The same author adds in a note: "But it was when the estate was made the property of the first Protestant discoverer, that animation was put into this law. Discoverers then became like hounds upon the scent after lands secretly purchased by the Irish. Gentlemen fearing to lose their lands, found it now necessary to conform—namely, to abjure Catholicism. Between 1703 and 1709 there were only thirty-six conformers in Ireland; in the next ten years (after the Discovery Act), the conformists were one hundred and fifty."
But the full object was not only to prevent the Irish from becoming even moderately rich in land; they were to be reduced to actual pauperism. Hence the prohibitory laws did not stop at this first outrage; almost impossible occurrences were supposed and provided for, lest there might be a chance of their realization at some time. It was actually provided that, if the produce of their farms brought a greater profit to the Irish than was expected, notwithstanding all these measures against the possible occurrence of such an evil, the lease was void, and the "discoverer" should receive the amount.
There was no loop-hole by which the people might escape from this degradation. But there was still the chance left of engaging in trade, acquiring personal property by its practice, and becoming the owners of a sum of money in bank, or of a dwelling-house in the city. The English law of succession was understood to be a law for all, and consequently, in some out-of- the-way cases, a stray Irish family might be found in course of time with an elder branch possessed of a fair amount of property, and able to emerge from the dead level of the common misery. Such a possibility could not of course be permitted by the English colonists who ruled the land. So the law of gavelkind, to which the Irish had at one time been so attached, was now to be forced upon them, and upon them alone of all the British subjects. It was decreed that, upon the death of every Irishman, whatever of personal property he left behind him was to be divided equally among all his children, who, being generally numerous, would each receive but a trifle, and so perpetrate the pauperism of the race.
Where the surprise, then, in finding the whole nation reduced since that time to a state of the most abject poverty? It was the will of the rulers that so it should be, and their scheme, guarded and enforced by so many legislative acts, could not fail to succeed in producing the effect intended. Granting even the smallest amount of truth in what is so often flung at the Irish as a reproach—their carelessness and want of foresight—how could it be otherwise, to what cause can such failings, even if they exist, be assigned, save to the utter impossibility of succeeding in any effort which they chose to make?
The true origin of the state in which the Irish at home now appear to the eyes of foreign travellers, is the deliberate intention, sternly acted upon for more than a century, to make the island one vast poorhouse.
The wretched situation in which they have ever since remained, confessed by all to be without parallel on earth, is certainly not to be laid at the door of the present population of England, nor even to the colony still intrenched on Irish soil; but with what right can it be brought forward as a reproach against the Irish themselves, when its real cause is so evident, and when history speaks so plainly on the subject?
All sensible Englishmen of our days will readily acknowledge that, without indulging in mutual recrimination, the duty of all is to repair the injuries of the past, and to do away with the last remnants of its sad consequences. Wounds so deep and many in a nation cannot be healed by half measures; and it is only a thorough change of system, and a complete reversal of legislation, that can leave the English of to-day without reproach.
Pauperism, then, is the necessary misfortune, not the crime of Ireland; we may even go further, and assert that, if millions of Irishmen have lived and died paupers, owing to the barbarous laws enacted for that special purpose, few indeed among them have been reduced even by hard necessity and the extreme of misery to manifest a pauper spirit and a miserly bent.
There is no doubt that the almost invariable result of suffering and want is to create selfishness in the sufferer, and cause him to cling desperately to the little he may possess. Self preservation and self-indulgence, in such a case, form the law of human nature, and no one even expects to find a really poor man generous, when he can scarcely meet his bare necessities and the imperious wants of his family. It is the peculiarity of the Irish to know how to combine generosity with the deprivation almost of the common necessaries of life. When masters of their own soil, a large hospitality and a free-handed "bestowing of gifts"—such, we believe, was the Irish expression—was universal among them; the poorest clansman would have been ashamed not to imitate, in his degree, the liberal spirit of his prince. They often gave all they had, regardless of the future; and, when their chieftains demanded of the clansmen what the Book of Rights imposed upon them, their exclamation was, "Spend me but defend me."