A SEVERE ACT PASSED AGAINST PAPISTS.

They appointed a committee to inspect the public accounts, by which they discovered that above one hundred thousand pounds had been falsely charged as a debt upon the nation. The committee was thanked by the house for having saved this sum, and ordered to examine what persons were concerned in such a misrepresentation, which was generally imputed to those who acted under the duke of Ormond. He himself was a nobleman of honour and generosity, addicted to pleasure, and fond of popular applause; but he was surrounded by people of more sordid principles, who had ingratiated themselves into his confidence by the arts of adulation. The commons voted a provision for the half-pay officers; and abolished pensions to the amount of seventeen thousand pounds a-year, as unnecessary branches of the establishment. They passed an act settling the succession of the crown after the pattern set them by England; but the most important transaction of this session was a severe bill to prevent the growth of popery. It bore a strong affinity to that which had passed three years before in England; but contained more effectual clauses. Among others it enacted, that all estates of papists should be equally divided among the children, notwithstanding any settlement to the contrary, unless the person to whom they might be settled should qualify themselves by taking the oaths, and communicating with the church of England. The bill was not at all agreeable to the ministry in England, who expected large presents from the papists, by whom a considerable sum had been actually raised for this purpose. But as they did not think proper to reject such a bill while the English parliament was sitting, they added a clause which they hoped the parliament of Ireland would refuse: namely, that no persons in that kingdom should be capable of any employment, or of being in the magistracy of any city, who did not qualify themselves by receiving the sacrament according to the test act passed in England. Though this was certainly a great hardship on the dissenters, the parliament of Ireland sacrificed this consideration to their common security against the Roman catholics, and accepted the amendment without hesitation. This affair being discussed, the commons of Ireland passed a vote against a book entitled, “Memoirs of the late king James II.” as a seditious libel. They ordered it to be burned by the hands of the common hangman; and the bookseller and printer to be prosecuted. When this motion was made, a member informed the house that in the county of Limerick the Irish papists had begun to form themselves into bodies, to plunder the protestants of their arms and money; and to maintain a correspondence with the disaffected in England. The house immediately resolved, that the papists of the kingdom still retained hopes of the accession of the person known by the name of the Prince of Wales in the life-time of the late king James, and now by the name of James III. In the midst of this zeal against popery and the pretender, they were suddenly adjourned by the command of the lord-lieutenant, and broke up in great animosity against that nobleman. 119 [See note Z, at the end of this Vol.]