The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1824-05-08 00:00:00

ACCOUNT OF 1188 ♦BCC/TOIL.

WHITTEN BY HIMSELF.

!Continued from the British Press of Saturday.]

We have followed this eloquent and animated writer
through the respective chapters of English and Irish his-
tory, tip to the dissolution of royalty on the death of Charles
the First. It setatis natural to presume, that, under the
cmplicity and innocence of republican manners, Ireland
would come in fur her full share of that popular freedom
which was to be the bases of the new Government.
C ROM WELL, it might have been supposed, would mark it
out as a land of Goshen, to which calamity should sot
reach. No such thing. The engines of despotism played
as heavily Upon her under the f'roteetorsite, as they had
ever done in the sublitnest periods of the Monarchy. No-
Ithing that force or fraud could effect was wanting to the
new catalogue of aggressions. But let the gallant Captain
Roca tell the talc in his own way :
As if no possible change of circumstances could exempt this
wretched peop!e from aufiering, after having been so vigorously
persecuted and massacred under the royal government, as rebels,
they were in, still loon vigocously persecuted and massacred
under the parliamentary government, as royalists; and what with
the Lords Justices en one side, and Crnmwell and Ireton on the
other, assisted by a pestilence, which was the least cruel enemy of
the whale, they were at last reduced to a mita very nearly reahung
that long-desired object of English policy—their estimation. Little
more, indeed, was left of the Catholic population than was barely
sufficient at give life to the devalue region of Connaught, into
which they were now driven like herds of cattle by Cromwell,
under the menace of a proelamatibn, that " all of them who,
after that time, should be found in any other part of the kingdom,
man, woman, or child, might be killed by anybody who saw or
met them ;"—while their estates, which, at that tints. constituted
at least nine-tenths of the landed property of the country, were
divided among his officers and soldiers, and among those adven-
turers who had advanced money fur the war.
The practical application of the principles of this newly-
inspired teacher of liberty and his military ministers, are
exemplified in the following note:—
A survey being made of all Ireland for this purpose, the bes
land was rated only at 3s. an acre, and some only at a penny; and
the soldiers drew lots in what Tart of the kingdom their portions
should be assigned them. "ho man," says Carte, " had so great
shares ;is they who had been Instruments to murder the King.
What lands they were pleased to call umprtfriblc (which were
thrown in gratis) they returned as such, let them be never so gond
and profitable."
Well may we, the people cf England, ask rdon of
God and man for our treatment of the Sister Kingdom.
And yet it is not the people of England that arc to blame :
their feelings may be, and often are, sadly misguided, and
their better judgment abused ; but at heart they have a
hatred of oppression. Give their anger tur.c to cool, and
they are generous; give their prejudices time to wear
away, and they become humane and liberal. The cause of
Ireland's sufferings are to be sought elsewhere: they are
to be sought, and will be found, in the overwhelming in-
fluence of the Irish aristocracy, and the unsparing exac-
tions of the Irish Church Establishment. The general
impression with us, among the multitude, has been, that
the Protestants in Ireland have always had, and have still,
a strong struggle to maintain themselves against the terrors
of Popery, and to guard against the subversion of the Pro-
testant faith. We are no doubt becoming daily better ac-
quainted with the real state of the case ; and it is this gra-
dual enlightening of the public mind that has led to those
mild and tolerant sentiments which at present prevail to-
wards the Catholic body.
We have seen that, under every change of system in
England, and under every succession of rulers, whether
monarchical or republican, eh., misgovernment of Ireland
was the same. %Viten Cromwell was gathered to his fa-
thers, and the royal line of Kings was restored in the per-
son of Cit A It I.IS the Second, yet was the reign of peace, and
equity, and justice, as far from that ill-starrial nation as
ever. In spite of the rooted loyalty of the Catholics, their
claims were beat hack with as much fierceness as if they
hail been the must obdurate regicides; no steadiness of
allegiance on their part prevented their being goaded to
rebellion. But we let our biographer relate how it fared
with them :

The Catholics were the last is the time kingdoms to lay down
the royal banner, after suffering all but utter extennination in its
defence. Yet, how was their devotedness rewarded at the Restora-
tion ? In one of the very first Acts that issued from the royal
hand—in order to furnish a pretext for confirming all the robberies
of Cromwell—it was coolly and unblushingly declared that they
were rebels; and that, having been conquered by his Majesty's
Protestant subjects (meaning ('romwell, Ireton, Lord 117nghill,
Ac.), their estates and possessions became vested in the Crown.
This point once established, the path of iniquity lay clear and
open; and upon such monstrous 'TA insulting Glschorids was that
Act of Settlement founded, "by which," says Lord Clare.
•' seven millions eight hundred thousand urea of land were set
out to a motley crew of English adventurers, civil and military,
nearly to the total mansion of the old inhabitants of the island.'
If such things were read in Gulliver, ('andide, or any such
satirical fiction, they would be reganted as caricatures, too extrava-
gant and distorted, of the perfidy and injustice of Kings and Go-
vernments. But when we not only know that such proceedings
once took place, but see actual, existing men, who still cling to
the principle of those proceedings, and dignify it with the name of
" the wiatloni of our ancestors," we feel that no romance can do
justice to such perverse absurdity ; and that Klemius, who repro.
senta a man as ready to swear that the sun is triangular, in order
to qualify for a place which reqUITCI that particular belief, would
feel ashamed of the tamenerA of his satire, if lie could but know
how sonic of our statesmen transcend it.

It was, indeed, among the authors and patrons of this memor-
able Act of Spoliation that the idea of e.reluding Catholics front'
the Bann. of COMMONS (one of the boasted pmeti of the " wisdom
of our ancestor.") first originated." An Catholics were to he the
persons despoiled, their concurrence could hardly be expected
and though the House was of Cromwell's own packing, and almost
entirely composed of those soldiers and adventurers, who were to
become, by this measure, the proprietors of near three-fourths of
Ireland, yet, unwilling that Catholics should have a share even in
their debates, they endeavoured to exclude them altogether from
the Mouse, by rendering the Oath of Supremacy an indispensable
qualification for a seat in it. The attempt, however, was resisted.
at the time, as an invasion of the prerogative; and the few Catho-
lics who were members had the melancholy pnvilege of witnessing
the formal transfer of so large a portion of their country to men
" who," as Swift says, " gained by rebellion what they and their
fellow-eountry:nen lost by loyalty."
It seems natural enough to ask, why has not a healing
and wholesome plan of policy been tried, that it tray be
sen, whether Christians, under whatever denomination,
whether l'rotestant or Catholic, may not live together in
harmony, and in the common fellowship of that Gospel
which has the happiness of all for its origin and its end ?
The answer is, it has been tried more than once, and has
failed ; because those who have been armed with local in-
fluence and power, have been too strong for those who
have wished to govern in the spirit of justice. More than
one Lord-Lieutenant has given, or rather has been pre-
pared to give, all the aid of that high and honourable
station to the removal of those civil disabilities, and of that
persecuting spirit, which have been the fruitful source of
discord, and insurrection, and national weakness. Hut the
instant hid government was marked by that spirit of con-
cession which the blameless conduct of the Catholics jus-
tified, and the interest of both kingdoms required—that in-
stant has been always the signal for encounter, and that
I encounter a prelude to recall ; for a Lord-Lieutenant thtts
disposed towards a peaceful redress of grievances, has al-
ways been accompanied with a SECNETAILV who had taken
his lesson of office front 1'1(1st-ult.°, in the Ten/rest—
" You shall be Viceroy—but I will be Viceroy over you."
During the reicn of Charles 11., it seems, the Irish could
nat be excited, by existing abuses, to a sufficiently active
spirit of disloyalty ; the Rocs family could not be mused
to a resistance so alert, as to warrant the customary exer-
cise of military despotism.
There is one singularity in this reign, which well deserves to be
recorded---the English Ministry tried to get up a rebellion in Ire-
land, and roust not !
When that chef-d'amyre of bigotry and ahounlity, the Popish
Plot (whose nimble:es has left its slaver upon the policy of England
ever since), was at the full height of its fraud and frenzy, it was
thought, with justice, to lie a reflection on the authenticity of the
conspiracy, that Ireland did not lend it the ready oonction of her
experience; and, accordingly, in addition to the usual provocatioos
of penal laws, menaces of eaten aa i tt anon, etc. /ye., einuoiaries were
despatched throughout the country in search of informers and wit
noise*, and the example of the pensioned Oates held out, to tempt
villains of every creed and class' into the aanie path of prosperity.
Hut all would not do. 'llse Irish like their plots to toe of home-
manufacture, and extend their hatred of imports even to that
favourite article rebellion—so much so, that when discontent is
most abundant in England (as on the recent occasion of the
Queen's trial), scarce a asuiple of it is to be seen in the Irish
market.
The Duke of Ormond, ton, who was Lint Lientenam at this
period, took a different method of keeping the tinier iron. those
which have been generally adopted since. The lest Act, and the
foe the expulsion of Popish Peers frosts Parliament, were
among the scourges by which Shaftesbury and his pitrty metre to
lash up the people into revolt. hut the Duke of Oniiiind, by sis
influence, prevented these measures from passing—being against
them, as he exprcssed it, " in conscience, as well as in prudence,

becalm he kw, so reuse why epiNfise sleoekl take away a deesie
birth-right."

. i o what s here said of the Duke of Ormond, the writer
subjoins the following note :
lie was urged to imprison all the principal ROMP Ctlbiea e(
Ireland at this juncture, but be rehised to do as." "it Ina well
known," adds Leland, " how much the iinprisonmeats and other
severities of hir W. Parsons had contributed to hum outubtaa fattl
the last rebellion ; and neither the Duke nor the Priv, Cowbell
deemed it prudent to make a simile experiment!'
For this moileritt:on and wisdom Ormond was. of *nape, list
and calumniated by the Protettant ascendancy of that tap, add
the same honourable tribute (as Lord ‘)'ellesli well knows) •Weildl
every Lord Lieutenant who deviates into the arms liberal glom.