The so-called "Patriot " leaders had carried the day and gorged themselves with the spoil. The remnant of the betrayed party closed their broken ranks, and prepared themselves for more trenchant measures of reform. They formed the nucleus of a national party, whose object was to emancipate the Irish legislature from the servitude imposed by the sister island. By the steady insistance of the national claims they created and, moulded a strong public opinion outside the walls of Parliament. The doctrines of Molyneux, the advocacy of Swift, the agitation of Lucas, had initiated a line of policy which, under the guidance of pure and singleminded men, was soon to become an irresistible national impulse.

CHAPTER IV.

THE RESULTS OF BONDAGE. A.D. 1760-1768.

SEVENTY years had now passed since the surrender of Limerick, and George III. had succeeded to the throne. During these seventy years the Roman Catholics had shown no sign of resistance. There had been a rising in Scotland in 1715, on behalf of the Pretender, which was absolutely unfelt in Ireland. Thirty years later a more serious rising had occurred in the same country and in the same cause. The English Government had

sent over Lord Chesterfield to Ireland as lord-lieutenant, to encourage the loyalty of the Roman Catholics by granting them some indulgences in relation to the exercise of public worship; and so quiet was the country that notwithstanding the alarm of the Protestant garrison, he was able to despatch four battalions of English troops to the assistance of the Duke of Cumberland.

In 1760, during the Seven Years' War, an abortive. attempt was made by the French to land at Carrickfergus ; but no sign was given by the Roman Catholics in their favour, or any attempt made to co-operate. On the

accession of the new king a loyal address was presented to him by the Roman Catholics of Ireland, which was graciously received; and a half-shamefaced feeling was beginning to grow in men's hearts, both in England and in Ireland, that the penal laws were an abuse of power. The Roman Catholics themselves began to pluck up heart. Anonymous works were published by Dr. Curry and Mr. Wyse, putting forward the Roman Catholic case, and showing what a picture of cruelty and injustice the history of Ireland exhibited. A few of their leading men, chiefly amongst the merchant class, even ventured to form a "Catholic Committee" in Dublin, to watch over and help on the interests of the Roman Catholic community. But even in this feeble effort disunion seems to have prevailed; and after five or six years the movement sank to sleep.

Half a century's experience of the penal laws had left its mark on the Roman Catholic population. The poorer classes were more attached to the persecuted religion than ever, and at the same time were sunk in hopeless ignorance. All education emanating from Roman Catholic sources was forbidden by law; none was provided from any other source; and but for the persevering energy of the registered priests, who despite the penal code, in the wilder country ventured to open schools and in the less remote districts taught the ragged children the elements of education in the fields and by the roadside, every spark of religion and knowledge would have died out from end to end of the island. The patient persistence of the Roman clergy was very

remarkable.

The intention of the penal laws was that, no fresh clergy being permitted to enter Ireland and the ordaining powers being banished, the then existing registered clergy should gradually die out, and so the race of priests become extinct.

To enforce the statutes, however, strictly was in fact impossible. The good feeling inherent in a large proportion of the Protestants, who had the administering of the law, revolted from the idea of putting it strictly in force. The Government, who grew to look upon the Roman Catholics as a useful counterpoise to the Jacobite tendencies of many of the Ascendency, winked at breaches of the law; and the succession of priests, who for the most part received their orders from the Continent, was steadily kept up, though, according to the strict interpretation of the law, after the clergy originally registered had died out, every priest in Ireland was liable to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. Besides living under the ban of outlawry the Roman Catholic clergy were wretchedly poor. They were supported by the voluntary contributions of their poverty-stricken parishioners. Each person gave what he could, some a few shillings, more but a few pence, and those who could not spare money gave in kind. Small collections were made in the chapels on Sundays: the sum total of which at the end of the year was considered handsome if it amounted to a pound. The whole income of a parish priest did not come to more than thirty or forty pounds, and part of this would go to pay Still the devoted band worked steadily on, a

a curate.

startling contrast to the clergy of the establishment, doing their utmost to improve the condition and to raise the moral tone of those around them, and only rewarded by the loyal affection of the flocks which they served so well.

On the whole the earth-tillers deteriorated less than the gentry. The latter were more directly affected by the degrading influence of the penal code. Their selfinterest was appealed to; their truth and honesty were undermined; and the door was closed to every ennobling impulse. There was no way out of obscurity for ambition, no scope for energy and enterprise, except at the price of the surrender of what they had been taught was necessary to their salvation. Sham conversions were therefore common. By the year 1738 as many as a thousand Roman Catholic families of rank had nominally joined the Established Church; and no scruple was felt in taking the oaths, when perjury could be atoned for, as it constantly was, by a small penance, which purchased absolution from the priest.

Numbers of the gentry, thrown back on a vegetable existence in the country, lapsed into low and unworthy habits, and spent their lives in drinking and wagering, with no idea above a horse-race or the wiping out of imaginary insults with a rapier or pistols. Others, finding themselves the victims of the law, took refuge in acts of open lawlessness, and revenged themselves upon the English strangers by acts of shocking violence. It was a terribly common crime for these reckless men to cheat the statutes relating to marriage which deprived their