in support of the Bishop was liberally promoted for the share he bore in the warfare.* Of the Out of that controversy arose the admirable productions of the Rev. Arthur O'Leary, a Catholic priest, on toleration, which removed from the minds of many Catholics the difficulties, which up to that time it is well known prevented them from swearing allegiance to the house of Hanover, and abjaring the pretensions of the House of Stuart. That Rev. Divine so happily blended a vein of liberality and original humour with orthodox instruction, that his writings became popular even with Protestants, and produced so much toleration and cordiality between them and the Catholics, that created a serious alarm in those, who studied to perpetuate their division and consequent weakness. With much art they endeavoured to stop the progress of this terrifying liberality and harmony among Irishmen of different religious professions. The Rev. Arthur O'Leary was thanked by the British Minister for the services he had rendered to the state, by frightening away the bugbear of Jacobitism, and securing the allegiance of the whole Catholic body to the illustrious house of Hanover. A pension of £200 was granted to him for his life in the name of a trustee; but upon the secret condition, that he should for the future withhold his pen, and reside no more in Ireland: in such dread was holden an evangelizer of tolerance and brotherhood in that country. Two or three payments of this hush money were made. Afterwards an arbitrary refusal for many years threw the Rev. Pensioner upon the voluntary support of his friends for subsistence. After a lapse of many years, by importunity and solicitation, and repeated proofs of his having complied with the secret conditions, he received a large arrear; and in order to make himself independent for the rest of his days, he purchased with it an annuity for his life from a public office, and died before the first quarter became due. utility utility of the several publications, which arose out of that controversy, every man will judge, who has read them. No one however can deny, that the immediate result of the contest was encreased virulence and animosity on the part of the Protestant ascendancy against the Catholic and Presbyterian: and reconciliation and amity between the Presbyterian and the Catholic. An union, which naturally stimulated the Protestant ascendancy to a fiercer lust of rule, and provoked the Catholics and Presbyterians, (they compose the bulk of the population) to a vindictive acerbity of retaliation, to which they had long been strangers. From that hour to the present, the fair observer of political events in Ireland will distinctly mark the workings of the Protestant ascendancy in the rule and guidance of a numerous body of men united by oaths of secrecy, deluded under pretence of religion, goaded by superst ition and passion, lured by interest, and organized into complete subordination and blind obedience to the commands of their leaders. Mr. Pitt largely lent the arm of the executive to all the purposes of intolerance, to which his Irish undertakers thought fit to apply it. The weakening of Ireland by internal dissension was the private order given to the triumvirate. The public instructions to the ostensible and responsible officers of the Crown concealed concealed the Machiavelian principle in the back ground. System of It was a * favourite tactic of Mr Pitt's to create terrifying by false false alarms, with a view of engrafting strong alarms. measures upon the timidity, which they created. a Mr. Fitzgibbon in the first fervor of devotion to his patron outran his commission; and so far exceeded all the bounds of decency, as to retail officially in the House of Commons a most alarming report of the outrages of the Right Boys in 1787, as proceeding from a popish conspiracy. In this Mr. Orde, the secretary, as a man of honour and veracity, found it necessary to contradict his Majesty's Attorney General, in open Parliament, by declaring; that he not only did not believe it to be true, but in several places he knew it not to be true. And when this law officer of the Crown was shamed out of the clause he had introduced into the bill for preventing tumultuous risings, directing the magistrates to demolish the Roman Catholic chapels, in which any combination should have been formed, or an unlawful oath administered, Mr. Orde, with becoming dignity, declared, that he never would have concurred in such a clause. Mr. Grattan observed upon the extraofficial zeal of Mr. Fitzgibbon, that it was remedying disturbance by irreligion, and establishing it by Act of Parliament. * History of Ireland, by the Author, Vol. II. p. 208, In dissension. In the year 1788, under the second adminis- Religious stration of the Marquis of Buckingham, whom fomented Mr. Pitt had specially selected for effecting his in Armagh. views upon Ireland, on the death of the Duke of Rutland, the county of Armagh was the theatre, on which the managers of the ascendancy most prominently exhibited their newly delegated or usurped power. The county of Armagh is the most Protestant county of Ireland. It is in great part, a species of English colony. The primacy having been usually bestowed upon Englishmen, the consequence was, that whatever church lands could be beneficially demised, came to the hands of the English dependants and favourites of the Primates, as they fell in. The tenants moved not as their patrons died; but attached themselves to the soil, in which they had acquired a valuable interest. They had generally risen from menial situations, and retained a species of extraordinary gratitude for the Church, on the soil of which they lived and throve. They, like most religionists in their walks of life, manifested their forced zeal, more by their prominent abhorrence and persecution of others, than by the edifying exercise of the tolerant and mild precepts of their own religion. The ancient village feuds and dissensions of the Peep of Day boys and defenders, were renewed under the acrimonious distinction of Protestants and Catholics, for the wicked purposes of more lasting division. The Lord Clare made lor. The death of Chancellor Lifford in 1789 afforded Mr. Pitt an opportunity of rewarding the Chancel- extraordinary zeal and exertions of the Attorney Strength General, Mr. Fitzgibbon, in the management of of the As- the difficult question of the Regency in the preparty. ceding year. By appointing him Chancellor, (the cendancy first Irishman, that ever filled that station) he assumed credit for being a friend to Ireland; and at the same time secured the house of Lords, as far as the influence of Chancellor and Speaker could weigh. He commanded the Speaker's powers over the House of Commons in Mr. Foster, and he secured in Mr. Beresford the judicious application of all the fiscal douceurs and benefits; of the virtue and extent of which no other man was so cognizant. Mr. Pitt was naturally crafty, implacable and domineering. The disgust, which the aristocracy had shewn at the first mention of Union, roused his haughty soul into an indignant resolution to subjugate them to it by their own timidity and weakness. His lofty spirit had never brooked the independence, which the Irish forced the British senate to acknowledge in 1782. Unrestrained by sympathy, impregnable to friendship, unawed by advice, spurning his opponents, and confident of the profligacy of his adherents, this daring statesman seized the advantage of the disastrous times. In : |