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The reader is now in a position to judge of the credibility of any assertion of King's, when unsupported by other authority.

King's gravest charges are in the following passage:--

"These members of the House of Commons are elected either by freeholders of counties, or the freemen of the corporations; and I have already showed how king James wrested these out of the hands of Protestants, and put them into Popish hands in the new constitution of corporations, by which the freemen and freeholders of cities or boroughs, to whom the election of burgesses originally belongs, are excluded, and the election put into the hands of a small number of men named by the king, and removable at his pleasure. The Protestant freeholders, if they had been in the kingdom, were much more than the papist freeholders, but now being gone, though many counties could not make a jury, as appeared at the intended trial of Mr. Price and other Protestants at Wicklow, who could not be tried for want of freeholders--yet, notwithstanding the paucity of these, they made a shift to return knights of the shire. The common way of election was thus:--The Earl of Tyrconnell, together with the writ for election, commonly sent a letter, recommending the persons he designed should be chosen; the sheriff or mayor being his creature, on receipt of this, called so many of the freeholders of a county or burgesses of a corporation together, as he thought fit, and without making any noise, made the return. It was easier to do this in boroughs--because, by their new charters, the electors were not above twelve or thirteen, and in the greatest cities but twenty-four; and commonly, not half of these in the place. The method of the Sheriff's proceeding was the same; the number of Popish freeholders being very small, sometimes not a dozen in a county, it was easier to give notice to them to appear, so that the Protestants either did not know of the election or durst not appear at it."

First let us see about the boroughs. King, in his section on the corporations, states in terms that "they" "thought it reasonable to keep these in their own hands, as being the foundation of the legislative power, and therefore secluded papists," etc. The purport, therefore, of King's objection to the new constitution under King James's charters was the admission of Roman Catholics. Religious equality was sinful in his eyes.

But the means being thus improper, the use made by James of this power can hardly be complained of. The Roman Catholics were then about 900,000, the Protestants, over 300,000. James, it is confessed, allowed one-third of the corporations to be Protestant, though they were little, if at all, more than one-fourth of the population. This will appear no great injustice in our times, although some of these Protestants may, as it has been alleged, have been "Quakers."

With reference to the number of burgesses, King's statement that the number of electors was usually twelve or thirteen, and in the greatest cities but twenty-four, is untrue. Most of the Irish boroughs were certainly reduced to these numbers under the liberal Hanoverian government, but not so under James. The members' names are given in full in Harris's Appendix, and from those it appears that no corporation had so few as twelve electors. Only five, viz.--Dungannon, Ennis, St. Johnstown , Belturbet, and Athboy, were as low as thirteen; twenty-three, viz.--Tuam, Kildare, Cavan, Galway, Callan, Newborough, Carlingford, Gowran, Carysfort, Boyle, Roscommon, Athy, Strabane, Middletown, Newry, Philipstown, Banagher, Castlebar, Fethard, Blessington, Charleville, Thomastown, and Baltimore, varied from fourteen to twenty-four; most of the rest varied from thirty to forty. Dublin had seventy-three; Cork, sixty-one; Clonmel, forty-six; Cashel, forty-two; Drogheda, fifty-seven; Kilkenny, sixty-one; Limerick, sixty-five; Waterford, forty-nine; Youghal, forty-six; Wexford, fifty-three, and Derry, sixty-four. This is a striking proof of the little reliance to be placed on King's positive statements.

Harris, a hostile authority, gives the names and generally the additions of the members of each corporation, and the majority are merchants, respectable traders, engineers, or gentlemen. Moreover, in such towns as our local knowledge extends to, the names are those of the best families, not being zealous Williamites. As to the counties, King relies upon a pamphlet published in London in 1689, setting out great grievances in the title page, and disproving them in the body of the tract.

If many Protestant freeholders had fled to England, who was to blame?--Most assuredly, my Lord Mount Alexander and the rest of the right noble and honourable suborners, devisers, and propagators of forged letters and infamous reports, whereby they frightened the Protestants, in order to take advantage of their terror for their own selfish ends. The exposure of these devices by the publication of "Speke's Memoirs," by the confessed forgery of the Dromore letter, etc., have thrown the chief blame of the Protestant desertion off the shoulders of those Protestants, off the shoulders, too, of the Irish government, and have brought it crushingly upon the aristocratic cabal, who alone profited by the revolution, as they alone caused it.

Against the Commons actually elected the charge is that only six Protestants were elected. In the very section containing the charge it is much qualified by other statements. "Thus," he says, "one Gerard Dillon, Sergeant-at-Law, a most furious Papist, was Recorder of Dublin, and he stood to be chosen one of the burgesses for the city, but could not prevail, because he had purchased a considerable estate under the Act of Settlement, and they feared lest this might engage him to defend it;" and therefore they chose Sir Michael Creagh and Terence Dermot, their Senior Aldermen, showing pretty clearly that the good citizens of Dublin set little value on the "furious Popery" of Prime Sergeant Dillon, in comparison with their property plundered by the Act of Settlement.

If this election could take place in Dublin, under the very nose of the Government, and in a corporation in which the king had unquestioned control, one will hesitate about the compulsion or exclusion in other places.

Besides Sir John Meade and Mr. Joseph Coghlan, the members for the College, there "were four more Protestants returned, of whose behaviour I can give no account," says King. Pity he does not give the names.

If we were to allow a similar error in King's account of the creed of the elected, that we have proved in his lists of the borough electors, it would raise the number of Protestants in the house to about fourteen.

Allowing then for the Protestants in arms against the Government--out of the country, or within the seat of war--the disproportion between their representatives and the Roman Catholics will lessen greatly.

One thing more is worth noticing in the Commons, and that is a sort of sept representation. Thus we see O'Neills in Antrim, Tyrone, and Armagh; Magennises in Down; O'Reillys in Cavan; Martins, Blakes, Kirwans, Dalys, Bourkes for Connaught; MacCarthys, O'Briens, O'Donovans for Cork and Clare; Farrells for Longford; Graces, Purcells, Butlers, Welshs, Fitzgeralds for Tipperary, Kilkenny, Kildare, etc.; O'Tooles, Byrnes, and Eustaces for Wicklow; MacMahons for Monaghan; Nugents, Bellews, Talbots, etc., for North Leinster.

Sir Richard Nagle, the Speaker, was the descendant of an old Norman family settled in Cork. His paternal castle, Carrignancurra, is on the edge of a steep rock, over the meadows of the Blackwater, half-a-dozen miles below Mallow. It is now the property of the Foot family, and here may still be seen the mouldering ruin where that subtle lawyer first learned to plan. Peacefully now look the long oak-clad cliffs on the happy river.

Nagle had obtained a splendid reputation at the Irish Bar. "He had been educated among the Jesuits, and designed for a clergyman," says King, "but afterwards betook himself to the study of the law, in which he arrived to a good perfection." Harris, likewise, calls him "an artful lawyer of great parts." Tyrconnell valued him rightly, and brought him to England with him in the autumn of 1686. His reputation seems to have been great, for it seems the lords interested in the Settlement Act, "on being informed of Nagle's arrival, were so transported with rage that they would have had him immediately sent out of London."

He was knighted, and made attorney-general in 1687; and on James's arrival, March, 1688-9, he was made secretary of state. He is said, we know not how truly, to have drafted the Commons' bill for the repeal of the Settlement.

Let us mention some of the members.--Nagle's colleague in Cork was Colonel MacCarty, afterwards Lord Mountcashel. Miles de Courcy, afterwards Lord Kinsale, MacCarty Reagh, who finally settled in France. His descendant, Count MacCarty Reagh, was notable for having one of the finest libraries in Europe, which was sold after the Revolution.

The Rt. Hon. Simon Lutteral raised a dragoon regiment for James, and afterwards commanded the Queen's regiment of infantry in the Brigade. He was father to Colonel Henry Lutteral, accused of having betrayed the passage of the Shannon at Limerick; and though Harris throws doubt on this particular act of treason, his correspondence and rewards from William seem sufficient proof and confirmation of his guilt.

Colonel Roger Mac Elligot, who commanded Lord Clancarty's regiment in the Brigade, was member for Ardfert.

Oliver O'Gara, member for Tulske, was Lieutenant-Colonel of the guards under Colonel Dorrington.

Hugh Mac Mahon, Gordon O'Nials Lieutenant-Colonel, was member for Monaghan.

The Right Hon. Nicholas Purcell, member for Tipperary, was a Privy Councillor early in James's reign. His family were Barons of Loughmoe, and of great consideration in those parts.

The first bill introduced into the Lords was on the 8th of May--that for the recognition of the king--and the same day committees of grievance were appointed.

THE SESSION.

It is needless for us to track the parliament through the debates of the session, which lasted till the 20th July. The few acts , passed in two months, received full and earnest discussion; committees and counsel were heard on many of them , and this parliament refused even to adjourn during any holiday.

We trust our readers will deal like searchers for truth, not like polemics, with these documents, and with the history of these times. But, above all, let them not approach the subject unless it be in a spirit enlightened by philosophy and warmed by charity. Thus studied, this time, which has been the armoury of faction, may become the temple of reconciliation. The descendant of the Williamite ought to sympathise with the urgent patriotism and loyalty of the parliament, rather than dwell on its errors, or on the sufferings which civil war inflicted on his forefathers. The heir of the Jacobite may well be proud of such countrymen as the Inniskilliners and the 'Prentice Boys of Derry. Both must deplore that the falsehoods, corruption, and forgeries of English aristocrats, the imprudence of an English king, and the fickleness of the English people placed the noble cavalry which slew Schomberg, and all but beat William's immense masses at the Boyne, in opposition to the stout men of Butler's-bridge and Cavan. What had not the defenders of Derry and Limerick, the heroes of Athlone, Inniskillen, and Aughrim done, had they cordially joined against the alien? Let the Roman Catholics, crushed by the Penal Code, let the Protestants, impoverished and insulted by England, till, musket in hand and with banners displayed, they forced their rights from her in '82--let both look narrowly at the causes of those intestine feuds, which have prostrated both in turn before the stranger, and see whether much may not be said for both sides, and whether half of what each calls crime in the other is not his own distrust or his neighbour's ignorance. Knowledge, Charity, and Patriotism are the only powers which can loose this Prometheus-land. Let us seek them daily in our own hearts and conversation.

The Acts and other official documents of James's Parliament were ordered by William's Parliament to be burned, and became extremely scarce. In 1740 they were printed in Dublin by Ebenezer Rider, and from that collection we propose to reprint the most important of them, as the best and most solid answer to misrepresentation.

The Parliament which passed those Acts was the first and the last which ever sat in Ireland since the English invasion, possessed of national authority, and complete in all its parts. The king, by law and in fact--the king who, by his Scottish descent, his creed, and his misfortunes, was dear to the majority of the then people of Ireland--presided in person over that Parliament. The peerage consisted of the best blood, Milesian and Norman, of great wealth and of various creeds. The Commons represented the Irish septs, the Danish towns, and the Anglo-Irish counties and boroughs. No Parliament of equal rank, from King to Commons, sat here since; none sat here before or since so national in composition and conduct.

This was the speech with which his Majesty opened the Session:--

I expect your Concurrence in so Christian a Work, and in making Laws against Prophaneness and all Sorts of Debauchery.

And as I shall do my Part to make you Happy and Rich, I make no Doubt of your Assistance; by enabling me to oppose the unjust Designs of my Enemies, and to make this Nation flourish.

I shall conclude as I have begun, and assure you I am as sensible as you can desire of the signal Loyalty you have expressed to me; and shall make it my chief study to make you and all my Subjects happy.

These were the Acts of that memorable parliament.

An Act of Recognition.

An Act for Annulling and making Void all Patents of Officers for Life, or during good Behaviour.

An Act declaring, That the Parliament of England cannot bind Ireland against Writs of Error and Appeals, to be brought for Removing Judgments, Decrees, and Sentences given in Ireland, into England.

An Act for Repealing the Acts of Settlement, and Explanation, Resolution of Doubts and all Grants, Patents and Certificates, pursuant to them or any of them.

An Act for punishing of persons who bring in counterfeit Coin of foreign Realms being current in this Realm, or counterfeit the same within this Realm, or wash, clip, file, or lighten the same.

An Act for taking off all Incapacities on the Natives of this Kingdom.

An Act for taking away the Benefits of the Clergy in certain Cases of Felony in this Kingdom for two Years.

An Act to continue two Acts made to prevent Delays in Execution; and to prevent Arrests of Judgments and Superseding Executions.

An Act for Repealing a Statute, Entituled, An Act for Provision of Ministers in Cities and Corporate Towns, and making the Church of St. Andrews in the Suburbs of Dublin Presentative for ever.

An Act of Supply for his Majesty for the Support of his Army.

An Act for Liberty of Conscience, and Repealing such Acts or Clauses in any Act of Parliament which are inconsistent with the same.

An Act concerning Tythes and other Ecclesiastical Duties.

An Act for Repealing the Act for real Union and Division of Parishes, and concerning Churches, Free-Schools and Exchanges.

An Act for Relief and Release of poor distressed Prisoners for Debts.

An Act for the Repealing an Act, Entituled, An Act for Confirmation of Letters Patent Granted to his Grace James Duke of Ormond.

An Act for Prevention of Frauds and Perjuries.

An Act for Prohibiting the Importation of English, Scotch, or Welch Coals into this Kingdom.

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