ment, or, by rejecting it, to give his enemies. à handle for accusing him, as they frequently did, of favouring the rebellion of Catholics, in compliment to his Queen.

There was, besides, no necessity for this Puritanical Bill, as forty-six Catholic Members had been expelled the day before, merely because they were accused of corresponding with rebels! and what Catholic Member would enter into that House, under such circumstances of oppression, such a reign of terror as then prevailed? and yet surely to every thinking mind it must appear evident, that some wise men of so large a portion of subjects, ought to have seats in Parliament, were it only to restrain the turbulence of others, and to indicate those remedies that might be most congenial to their principles, so as to leave no excuse for a religious in times of imminent danger to the State. But, the wise are few, and the fools are many; and so this sapient Parliament of 1642, sealed the slavery of their Country!

cry,

. 156. French of Ferns, and the Bishops, whose organ he was, knew this perfectly well; they Ff

knew also, that when this deed of death was done, "there were scarcely five Members of that "Parliament concerned in the rebellion, and no "reasonable grounds to suspect the rest;"* and that the faction which was guilty of this monstrous crime, were in confederacy with the English faction which voted that they would

never give toleration of the Popish religion in "Ireland, or in any other of his Majesty's "dominions." Yes!-with that vile forfeiture faction, which issued a proclamation, revoking, repealing, and annulling all protections that had been given before August 19, 1642!†

How then could Catholic Bishops propose to a Catholic Lord Lieutenant, to confederate with such a pandemonium of regicides, against the rights, privileges, and inheritance of their lawful Sovereign, and of his innocent posterity? They themselves had often before declared, whenever it served their purpose, that

* Carte, ib. p. 230.

+ Borlace's Appendix, p. 57. Cox boasts of this wisdom, v, 2, p. 108. "It was the wisest act that was done in the "whole war!"

it was unlawful even to make a truce with heretics! But now, actuated by a desire of rendering themselves masters of the kingdom, with the help of a foreign power, they preached and propagated every where, amongst the rabble, that the loyalists were their greatest enemies, and that there could be no safety but in a confederacy with the Parliament! a confederacy which they intended to violate as soon as the preparations they were making abroad, as shall be seen in the sequel, should be in sufficient-forwardness for the manifestation of their real design.

Catholic Principles by which Lord Clanricard opposed the Bishops of his own Communion.

157. There are weak men in the world, who are discouraged from the virtue of christian fortitude by the fear of shame; there are others who are stimulated to vice by the hope of reward; and there are others still more criminal than either, who, pretending to piety, would make the most sacred institutions of religion

subservient to their designs!---Clanricard was not of these. From his infant years he had imbibed, from his noble father, that heavenly principle of hope and fear, which fixes a steady eye upon another world, with little regard to the fluctuating opinions of popular cabal; a principle of inflexible integrity, which rendered him venerable as well as formidable to the pretended religionists of his own communion, who soon found that he was quick to discern, as well as determined to punish every species of disingenuity.-Towards the Clergy he was, of all men living, the most respectful, as long as they confined themselves within the limits of their duty; when they passed these, he endeavoured to be inexorable; and in this respect it must be owned that he had a great advantage over all his predecessors. I do not mean to detract from the merit of a Mountjoy, or of an Ormond. They were great and good men. But, in this one point of view, they must yield to Clanricard.

Mountjoy argued with the Clergy at Waterford, and Morrison extols his abilities in

wielding the weapons of Theology against the Irish; but he soon found that he must cut the gordian-knot with his sword. Ormond endeavoured to mix expostulation with severity; and, without arguing against the religion of the people, he thought that he might reason. with the Clergy upon the duty of submission to a Government established by law; but he soon discovered that every argument, however strong, was repelled by the episcopal censures which informed the people that he was a heretic, and that therefore they could not confide in his word.

Clanricard came forward, a man of their own communion, a man who well knew the difference between true and pretended episcopal power, a inan whom no one could charge with heresy, an obedient child of the Church, in all matters of rational obedience, and genuine canonical submission, but a man of a bold and decided mind, with whom it was impossible to trifle, who had witnessed all their proceedings from the beginning of the war, who knew that they had aimed not only at all the ecclesiastical