an act to disarm the Catholics,* another to banish their priests, and, strange as it may appear, they then thought proper, in the year 1697, to pass an act to confirm the Articles of Limerick.

Of this act it is to be observed, in the first place, that the very title of it is a proof of its injustice, for it is styled "An act for the confirmation of articles," and not, as it ought to be, "of the articles made at the surrender of Limerick."

The preamble affords further evidence of the intention of the framers of it to evade its proper object. It runs thus: "That the said articles, or so much of them as may consist with the safety and welfare of your majesty's subjects of this kingdom, may be confirmed," etc.

But the whole act goes to convict the parliament, and (as this parliament was completely under the control of the lord-deputy) even William himself, of gross injustice toward the Catholics; for the first article of the treaty is

of servitude, the members were well fitted to the body. To render men patient under a deprivation of all the rights of human nature, everything which could give them a knowledge or feeling of those rights was rationally forbidden. To render humanity fit to be insulted, it was fit that it should be degraded. Indeed, I have ever thought the prohibition of the means of improving our rational nature to be the worst species of tyranny that the insolence and perverseness of mankind ever dared to exercise."

*

See 7 William III, c. 5. See sec. 8, Catholic Apprentices.

+ See 9 William III, c. i. This act for the banishment of priests was enforced rigorously. "It appears," says Mr. Matthew O'Connor ("Hist.," p. 145), "from Captain South's account, that in 1698 the number of regular priests amounted to four hundred and ninety-five, the number of seculars to eight hundred and ninety-two, and that the number of regulars shipped off in that year to foreign parts was four hundred and twenty-four. Some few, disabled by age and infirmi ties from emigration, sought shelter in caves, or implored and received concealment and protection of Protestants, whose humane feelings were superior to their prejudices." "There was not," says Dr. Bourke, in his Hstory of the Irish Dominicans, p. 155, "a single house of that order in Ireland which was not suppressed."

"He (Lord Capel, the lord-deputy) carried the projects of the crown in parliament, and was recommended as an excellent governor, in a special address sent by the Commons to the king."-" Macpherson's Hist.," 11, 94.

wholly omitted, which guarantees to the Catholics the free exercise of their religion, and an exemption from all disturbance on account of it; and each clause of the act has the effect of limiting the terms of the other articles, and depriving the Catholics of the benefit of them, instead of ratifying and confirming them.

The first clause, which refers at once to the second article, explains who are entitled to the benefit of it, and the rights conferred upon them; assuming as a fact, for which there could be no foundation, that this article required explanation. With respect to the persons entitled to the benefit of the treaty, a most remarkable difference occurs between the words of the second article and those of this clause, in describing them. In the ratification of the treaty by William, there is the following passage: "And whereas it appears to us that it was agreed between the parties to the said. articles that after the words, Limerick, Clare, Kerry, Cork and Mayo, or any of them, in the second of the said articles the words following, viz., "And all such as are under their protection in the said counties,' should be inserted, and be part of the said article; our further will and pleasure is, and we do ratify and confirm the said omitted words."

These words, according even to the strict letter of the article, extended the benefit of the treaty to the whole Catholic population of these counties, which certainly was the object of the treaty, as it may be collected from the preamble to it, in which it is stated that the Irish. generals acted in behalf of the Irish inhabitants of these counties. But in this clause of the act of parliament to confirm the treaty these words are omitted; and therefore the benefit of the treaty is limited, by this explanatory and confirmatory act, to the Irish army and the inhabitants of the city of Limerick, and a few more garrison towns,—a limitation in every respect most perfidious and wholly

unjustifiable upon any plea of ambiguity in the language of the article, even if such a plea could for a moment be allowed.

This act for confirming the treaty wholly omits that part of the second article which guarantees to the Catholics the exercise of their several trades and professions. It also omits the fourth article. It limits the benefit of the indemnity, granted by the sixth article, to a period subsequent to the 10th of April, 1689, and enables all persons who suffered any injuries between the 5th of November, 1688, and this period, to bring their actions for the same until the 1st of September, 1691, by declaring that the commencement of the war referred to in the article was the 10th of April, 1689, and not the 5th of November, 1688, and it omits the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth articles; being, in short, an act that, under the name of conferring favors upon the Catholics, really placed them in a worse condition than that in which they were placed before it passed into a law.

Thirteen peers, including six bishops, entered a protest to this bill. It states: "We, the lords spiritual and temporal, whose names are hereunto subscribed, do dissent from the aforesaid vote, and enter our protest against the same, for the reasons following: 1st. Because we think the title of the bill doth not agree with the body thereof; the title being 'An act for the confirmation of articles made at the surrender of Limerick,' whereas no one of the articles is therein, as we conceive, fully confirmed. 2dly. Because the said articles were to be confirmed in favor of them to whom they were granted, but the confirmation of them by the bill is such that it puts them in a worse condition than they were before, as we conceive. 3dly. Because the bill omits these material words, 'And such as are under their protection in the said counties,' which are, by his majesty's letters-patent, declared to be part of the second article, and several persons have been

1

adjudged within the said second article accordingly, who will, if this bill passeth into a law, be entirely barred and excluded from any benefit of the said second article by virtue of the afore-mentioned words; so that the words omitted being so very material, and confirmed by his majesty, after a solemn debate in council, as we are informed, some express reason, as we conceive, ought to have been assigned in the bill, in order to satisfy the world as to that omission. 4thly. Because several words are inserted in the bill which are not in the articles, and others omitted which alter the sense and meaning of some parts of the articles, as we conceive. 5thly. Because we apprehend that many Protestants may and will suffer by this bill, in their just rights and pretensions, by reason of their having purchased and lent money upon the credit of the said articles, and, we conceive, in several other respects." The other acts of this reign relating to the Catholics are: an act to prevent Protestants from intermarrying with Papists,* and an act to prevent them from being solicitors. A clause was introduced in an act for the preservation of game, prohibiting Papists from being employed as gamekeepers.‡

How it is possible to defend William and his ministers. from the charge of having acted with perfidy toward the Catholics, it is not easy to discover. That they were guilty of violating the treaty, no one can deny. Why did he not refuse his consent to these laws, on the ground of their being contrary to his solemn engagements to the Catholics? He had exercised this prerogative in the case of one Scotch § and one English bill. But even this extremity might have been avoided, because the law of Poynings required that every bill should be approved

tro William III, c. 13.

* 9 William III, c. 3. Ibid., c. 8. § For excluding from any public trust all such as had been concerned in the encroachments of the late reign.

Concerning free and impartial proceedings in parliament.

unjustifiable upon any plea of ambiguity in the language of the article, even if such a plea could for a moment be allowed.

This act for confirming the treaty wholly omits that part of the second article which guarantees to the Catholics the exercise of their several trades and professions. It also omits the fourth article. It limits the benefit of the indemnity, granted by the sixth article, to a period subsequent to the 10th of April, 1689, and enables all persons who suffered any injuries between the 5th of November, 1688, and this period, to bring their actions for the same until the 1st of September, 1691, by declaring that the commencement of the war referred to in the article was the 10th of April, 1689, and not the 5th of November, 1688, and it omits the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth articles; being, in short, an act that, under the name of conferring favors upon the Catholics, really placed them in a worse condition than that in which they were placed before it passed into a law.

Thirteen peers, including six bishops, entered a protest to this bill. It states: "We, the lords spiritual and temporal, whose names are hereunto subscribed, do dissent from the aforesaid vote, and enter our protest against the same, for the reasons following: 1st. Because we think the title of the bill doth not agree with the body thereof; the title being 'An act for the confirmation of articles made at the surrender of Limerick,' whereas no one of the articles is therein, as we conceive, fully confirmed. 2dly. Because the said articles were to be confirmed in favor of them to whom they were granted, but the confirmation of them by the bill is such that it puts them in a worse condition than they were before, as we conceive. 3dly. Because the bill omits these material words, ‘And such as are under their protection in the said counties,' which are, by his majesty's letters-patent, declared to be part of the second article, and several persons have been