Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/285

HISTORY.] IRELAND cally as inconsiderable as the women and children. In despair of effecting anything at home, the young and strong enlisted in foreign armies, and the almost incredible num ber of 450,000 are said to have emigrated for this purpose between 1691 and 1745. This and the hatred felt towards James II. prevented any rising in 1715 or 1745. The pariic- Btricken severity of minorities is proverbial, but it is not to be forgotten that the Irish Protestants had been turned out of house and home twice within fifty years. The restric tions on Irish commerce provoked Locke s friend Molyneux to write his famous plea for legislative independence (1698). Much of the learning contained in it now seems obsolete, but the question is less an antiquarian one than he supposed. Later events have shown that the mother country must have supreme authority, or must relax the tie with self- governing colonies merely into a close alliance. In the case of Ireland the latter plan has always been impossible. In 1703 the Irish parliament begged hard for a legislative union, but as that would have involved at least partial free trade the English monopolists prevented it. By Poyning s law England had a vote on all Irish legislation, and was therefore an accomplice in the penal laws. For details on ial this disagreeable subject the reader is referred to Denys s. Scully s Statement of the Penal Laws. No Papist might teach a school or any child but his own, or send children abroad, the burden of proof lying on the accused, and the decision being left to magistrates without a jury. Mixed marriages were forbidden between persons of property, and the children might be forcibly brought up Protestants. A Papist could not be a guardian, and all wards in chancery were brought up Protestants. The Protestant eldest son of a landed proprietor might make his father tenant for life and secure his own inheritance. Among Papist children land went in compulsory gavelkind. Papists could not take longer leases than thirty-one years at two-thirds of a rack rent ; they were even required to conform within six months of an inheritance accruing, on pain of being ousted by the next Protestant heir. Priests from abroad were banished, and their return declared treason. All priests were required to register and to remain in their own parishes, and informers were to be rewarded at the expense of the Popish inhabitants. No Papist was allowed arms, two justices being empowered to search; and if he had a good horse any Protestant might claim it on tendering 5. These laws were of course systematically evaded. The property of Roman Catholics was often preserved through Protestant trustees, and it is understood that faith was generally kept. Yet the attrition if slow was sure, and by the end of the century the proportion of land belonging to Roman Catholics was probably not more than one-tenth of the whole. We can see now that if the remaining Roman Catholic landlords had been encouraged they would have done much to reconcile the masses to the settlement. Individuals are seldom as bad as corporations, and the very men who made the laws against priests practically shielded them. Nothing was so odious as a priest-hunter, even among Protestants, and this form of delation has doubtless done much to create the Irish horror of informing, or indeed of giving any evidence. The penal laws put a premium on hypocrisy, and many conformed only to preserve their property or to enable them to take office. Proselytizing schools, though supported by public grants, entirely failed, nmer- The restraints placed by English commercial jealousy on i re- Irish trade destroyed manufacturing industry in the south tints. an( j wegt _ D r i veu by th e Caroline legislation against cattle into breeding sheep, Irish graziers produced the best wool in Europe. Forbidden to export it, or to work it up profitably at home, they took to smuggling, for which the indented coast gave great facilities. The enormous profits of the contraband trade with France enabled Ireland to purchase English goods to an extent greater than her whole lawful traffic. The moral effect was disastrous. The religious penal code it was thought meritorious to evade ; the commercial penal code was ostentatiously defied ; and both tended to make Ireland the least law-abiding country in Europe. The account of the smugglers is the most interesting and perhaps the most valuable part of Mr Froude s work on Ireland, and should be compared with Mr Lecky s Irish and Scotch chapters. When William III. promised to depress the Irish Ulster woollen trade, he promised to do all he could for Irish prosper- linen. England did not fulfil the second promise ; still ous< the Ulster weavers were not crushed, and their industry flourished. Some Huguenot refugees, headed by Louis Crommelin, were established by William III. at Lisburn, and founded the manufacturing prosperity of Ulster. Other Huguenots attempted other industries, but com mercial restraints brought them to nought. The peculiar character of the flax business has prevented it from, crossing the mountains which bound the northern province. Wool was the natural staple of the south. The Scottish Presbyterians who defended Londonderry Dis- were treated little better than the Irish Catholics who be- senters. sieged it, the sacramental test of 1704 being the work of the English council rather than of the Irish parliament. In 1715 the Irish House of Commons resolved that any one who should prosecute a Presbyterian for accepting a com mission in the army without taking the test was an enemy to the king and to the Protestant interest. Acts of indemnity were regularly passed throughout the reign of George II., and until 1780, when the Test Act was repealed. A bare toleration had been granted in 1720. Various abuses, especially forced labour on roads which were often private jobs, caused the Oakboy insurrection in 1764. Eight years later the Steelboys rose against the exactions of absentee landlords, who often turned out Protestant yeomen to get a higher rent from Roman Catholic cottiers. The dispossessed men carried to America an undying hatred of England which had much to say to the American revolution, and that again reacted on Ireland. Lawless Protestant associations, called Peep o Day Boys, terrorized the north and were the progenitors of the Orangemen (1789). Out of the rival " defenders " Ribbonism in part sprung. The United Irishmen drew from both sources (1791). But the Ulster peasants were never as badly off as those Poverty of the south and west. Writers the most unlike each of the other Swift and Boulter, Berkeley and Stone, Arthur ^*~ v Young and Dr Thomas Campbell all tell the same tale. Towards the end of the 17th century Raleigh s fatal gift had already become the food of the people. When Chief Baron Rice went to London in 1688 to urge the Catholic claims on James II., the hostile populace escorted him in mock state with potatoes stuck on poles. Had manufac tures been given fair play in Ireland, population might have preserved some relation to capital. As it was, land became almost the only property, and the necessity of pro ducing wool for smuggling kept the country in grass. The poor squatted where they could, receiving starvation wages, and paying exorbitant rents for their cabins, partly with their own labour. Unable to rise, the wretched people multiplied on their potato plots with perfect recklessness. During the famine which began in the winter of 1739 one-fifth of the population is supposed to have perished ; yet it is hardly noticed in literature, and seems not to have touched the conscience of that English public which in 1755 subscribed 100,000 for the sufferers by the Lisbon earthquake. As might be expected where men were allowed to smuggle and forbidden to work, redress was sought in illegal combinations and secret societies. The