Holland and America many industrious puritans; the trade with Spain had been diminished and interrupted; an unfavourable balance of the trade with France amounted nearly to a million annually; the Dutch war had embarrassed commerce; the plague had lessened the consumption of provisions; and the gaiety and dissipation of the court had seduced the nobility to London. The annual value of the cattle sent to England was on the other hand far less than the deficiency of the rents; and before the troubles of England far greater numbers had been imported without causing any diminution of rents. The complaint in this case was encouraged by some great men, who wished to drive Ormond from the government of Ireland. Ibid. p. 442-448. (gg) On the Restoration some of the Irish prelates and clergy commissioned Peter Walsh, a Franciscan friar, to present an address to the king, congratulating him on the event, and imploring the benefits of the peace concluded with Ormond in the year 1648. Walsh, to obviate the objection which might be drawn from the conduct of many of his brethren in violating that peace, prepared a representation, which was named the Remonstrance of the RomanCatholic Clergy of Ireland. It was immediately subscribed by one bishop and twenty-four of the other clergy, then in London; and after wards by another bishop and forty-two priests, together with twenty-one peers and a hundred commoners of the laity. The influence of the pope was however soon exerted to suppress a declaration of allegiance, which disclaimed all acknowledgment of his assumed power of deposing princes: the clerical remonstrants were every where dispossessed of their cures and stations; and Walsh and his associates were denounced as excommunicated persons. With the license of the duke of Ormond a convocation of the roman-catholic clergy was assembled at Dublin in the year 1666 for the reconsideration of the Remonstrance. This assembly resolved not to sign, nor even to discuss that declaration; but they unanimously adopted another form of protestation, which they presented as equivalent to the former. Mr. Butler has intimated his persuasion that the rejection of the latter could have arisen only from a desire of creating disunion among the Roman-Catholics; and the duke of Ormond has admitted, that his design, in permitting the assembly, was to create disunion. Carte's Ormond, vol. 2. app. p. 101. Lond. 1736. But if this other prótestation were indeed designed to be equivalent, it should be considered why it was preferred. Nor was it unreasonable that the duke should endeavour to form a division among those, who had so vehemently opposed the original remonstrance. Doctor Curry has contended that this was the object of the duke through the whole of his conduct in regard to the declarations of the Roman-Catholics; but to prove this by quoting a passage of a letter written by lord Orrery to the duke in the year 1666, he changes the words "that schism you are sowing amongst the popish clergy" into "that schism which you have been sowing-" thus referring the expression to the original remonstrance together with the convocation of the year 1666. Review of the Civil Wars of Ireland, vol. 2. p. 94. Dubl. 1786. That the right even to the temporal dominion of Ireland was not relinquished by the Roman see, appears from this, that O'Broudin maintained it in a work printed by permission in Rome so lately as in the year 1722, and that his work has been highly praised by another Irish bishop, the author of the Hibernia Dominicana, yet more recently in the year 1762. O'Conor's Hist. Address, part 1. p. 251. (hh) Five provinces, namely Guelderland, Zealand, Friesland, Overyssel, and Groningen, expressed an opinion, that to incline the king of England to a speedy peace, it would be proper to elevate his nephew to the station of captain general. The measure was however then opposed and defeated by the influence of Holland. Kerroux. tome 3. p. 726, 727. (ii) That sister, afterwards queen Anne, was in the year 1684 married to another Protestant, prince George, brother of the king of Denmark, the king being then anxious to confirm by such an alliance the popularity which he had acquired since the detection of the ryehouse plot. (kk) Sir W. Temple in the year 1674, to induce the king to adopt more just notions of government, availed himself of the authority of Gourville, a Frenchman, for whom, he knew, the king had entertained a great esteem. "A king of England," said Gourville, "who will be the man of his people, is the greatest king in the world: but if he will be any thing more, he is nothing at all." The king heard at first his discourse with some impatience; but being a dextrous dissembler, he seemed moved at last, and laying his hand on Temple's, said with an appearing cordiality, "and I will be the man of my people." Hume, vol. 8. p. 8. LECTURE LX. Of the history of Great Britain and Ireland, from the accession of James II. in the year 1685 to the Revolution in the year 1689. James II. Argyle's invasion of Scotland Monmouth's invasion of England THOUGH but a few years before a bill for excluding James II. from the throne, on account of his profession of the roman-catholic religion, had twice passed the house of commons, yet his accession on the death of his brother was as tranquil, as if no apprehension of his conduct had ever been entertained. The spirit of opposition had yielded implicitly to the as |