own will or energy, but in servile obeissance to foreign authority. It was Mr. Pitt's art to play off and balance the opposite powers against. each other, that neither should make head against himself. Ministry and ascendancy became equally alarmed at the rising disposition of the people to enter into a National Union, without regard to religious distinction. Mr. Pitt availed himself of the critical moment, and from that time forward, never ceased to press upon his creatures, the option of external or internal Union. In the latter the whole Protestant ascendancy would be lost by the former its consequence and profits would be at least partially preserved. Under this system, each party continued for a time to strengthen itself. The Catholics having ob tained more than they expected, tho' not all they looked to from Government, sought to acquire strength and consequence by uniting with the Jiberal Protestants of every denomination, in their efforts to obtain the great national objects of every real Irishman's wishes, The Protestant ascendancy irritated at the concessions made by Government to the Catholics, entrenched itself within a formidable line of exclusion, and vowed eternal inveteracy against the Catholics, even to extermination. With the countenance, aid, and support of the monopolizing junto, it arrogated to itself exclusive loyalty, and by affecting to prop prop and strengthen the arm of the law, it insolently identified itself with Government, and put the Country at issue. lence of creased. Mr. Pitt The year 1794 was peculiarly important to Turbu the interests of Ireland, as far as they were affect- the coun ed by the workings of the Protestant ascendancy, try enSo turbulent was then the state of the country, that Mr. Pitt found it requisite to abandon the divides system of coercion, and confide the reins of Go- the Whig party in vernment to a person possessing other qualities, England. than these of mere subserviency. Lord Westmoreland's recall was resolved upon. The master stroke of Mr. Pitt's policy, was the division of the Whig party in England. That event would not have happened, had not the Duke of Portland been assured by Mr. Pitt, that he and his friends should have the entire management of Ireland, with full authority to redress grievances, reform abuses, and especially, as his grace openly avowed at Court, when he kissed hands on his promotion, to bring forward the question of Catholic Emancipation in the ensuing session. False * Mr. Foster, who had ever systematically opposed the Catholics, and some of his family were mainly instrumental in raising certain sus- against charges Mr. Fay picions & others. Hist. Rev. of the State of Ireland, 2 vol. 441. & seq. picions, which led to the false charges against Mr. Fay of Navan, Mr. Dowdal, Mr. Bird of Drogheda, and several Catholic Gentlemen of respectability in that neighbourhood, for the murder of the Rev. Mr. Butler, and the general system of Defenderism, which had then settled in an open system of lawless robbery. The Catholics had suffered from it more than their Protestant neighbours: and to its suppression they had more generally, and as largely subscribed. The plot appeared deeply laid under great political influence, to stigmatize the body of Catholics, thro' the crimination of Mr.Fay, and the other Catholic Gentlemen of established respectability. Just providence defeated it by opening to view the base machinations and perjuries of the informer Lynch, and other such miscreants raked out of the neighbouring Goals, who had been hired and suborned to swear away the lives of the victims pointed out. Their honourable acquittal, and the bare-faced exposure of the Conspiracy covered the party with shame, and for a time kept them quiet in these parts of the Country. Of these trials, Mr. Curran* in his This Gentleman, who is the present Master of the Rolls in Ireland, during the whole of his Political Career in Par liament never did an action, in which the staunchest Patriot would not have gloried in concurring, nor uttered a speech, of which the most eloquent might not have boasted. his place in the Senate, said, they found their avowed enemies continued in "authority, and the malice of an implacable "Government left to indemnify itself by vengeance, what it had lost by law." cy against Emanci It was necessary, that Mr. Pitt should con- Mr. Pitt's conspiravince his Whig Neophites of the sincerity of his engagement, to leave the entire reform of Catholic Ireland to them. Messrs. Grattan and Pon-pation. sonby were therefore sent for, to form the new Irish Administration; and the virtuous Fitzwilliam was selected to meet the eager expectations of the nation. On the other hand, Mr. Beresford went over to England on a counterproject; and by secret negociations, successfully laid the train, by which Lord Fitzwilliam's instructions to give the Catholic question a handsome support on behalf of Government, were to be counteracted, and the Protestant ascendancy was to be made finally to triumph over National Union, Parliamentary Reform, and Catholic Emancipation. This perfidious manoeuvre, afforded Mr. Pitt a treble triumph. It exposed the impotency of his Whig proselytes. It displayed Persecutions in Armagh. played the extent of his personal authority. It widened the breach between the Catholic and the Protestant ascendancy. From the recal of Lord Fitzwilliam, commenced the reign of terror. His successor, whose sole recommendation to the Irish was the name of Camden, from the moment of his landing, manifested as unequivocal symptoms of subserviency to the triumviri, as Lord Westmoreland had shewn throughout his whole Government. He threw himself without reserve into their arms: and when affrighted at the shrieks of torture, and nauseated with the fumes of blood, he weakly lamented, that the system had been extorted from him. The unexpected triumph of persecuted innocence in Meath drove the baffled party to another scene of action, where their physical force was larger, where their instruments were better organized, and where the magistracy was more generally devoted to their designs. The Protestestant County of Armagh, had long been the field of contest, between the Peep of Day Boys, and the Defenders. This acrimony, which had for some time been soothed into natural repentance and shame at their past errors, was rekindled by secret agents, and converted into a ferocious warfare of religious contention. The ascendancy |