1S28J The Treaty of Limerick. 029 



ligence would ever think, in making an Act, of resting his right upon 

 such terms : and the Irish in Limerick, it will be observed, were not igno- 

 rant rebels not mere soldiery, little instructed in terms or competent to 

 negociation : their treaty was drawn up under the superintendence of Chief 

 Baron Rice and Sir Toby Butler, who were both contracting parties in 

 the execution of it, and who were, moreover, the most eminent lawyers in 

 Ireland at that day. But, looking to the circumstances of the Catholics 

 at the time when the treaty was made, and the penalties to which they 

 were exposed not touching their claims to political station, but in the 

 more ordinary exercise and profession of their faith : with the Act of 

 Uniformity the second of Elizabeth compelling all ministers of reli- 

 gion, on pain of punishments, to use the Books of Common Prayer, and 

 administer the sacrament only as there set forth the Act of the 27th of 

 the same Queen, declaring it high treason for any popish priest to remain 

 in the kingdom (unless such as had taken the oath of supremacy), and 

 felony for any man to harbour or entertain such characters, and penal 

 even for him to know of their presence and not denounce them ; with 

 Acts like these, and numerous others, cramping and hampering the very 

 private lives of the Roman Catholics on every side, it is impossible to 

 doubt that the " freedom from disturbance, " promised in the Treaty of 

 Limerick, was meant, in the plain and obvious sense of the words, to be 

 a freedom from all actual molestation on account of their religious wor- 

 ship or creed not a special exemption from those pledges, which, under 

 particular circumstances, the State demanded from every other descrip- 

 tion of its subjects. To argue that, in a state of things like that which 

 we describe, to secure the Catholics from " disturbance on account of 

 their religion," was the same thing as to recognise their claim to political 

 authority and power, is as monstrous as it would be to say that, if in the 

 reign of Edward the Third, it had pleased that monarch to execute a 

 treaty, guaranteeing to the Jews freedom from disturbance on account of 

 their religion, that treaty would have made an Israelite eligible to be 

 High Chancellor of the kingdom ! 



It is true that we are dealing here with the first article only of the 

 treaty ; and that the second and third articles, difficult as they are of 

 exposition, and limited as to extent, do contain some words more sweeping 

 than those of the clause that precedes them : providing, that the parties 

 included in those articles, shall enjoy the same " rights, titles, privileges, 

 and immunities," which they held in the reign of Charles the Second. 

 But here (apart from the question, what the rights enjoyed in the reign 

 of Charles the Second really were) the words " rights, privileges, and . 

 immunities," are so connected with the previous assurance of enjoyment 

 of the estates " are to enjoy" (this is the way in which they run) " all 

 their estates, of freehold and inheritance, and all the rights, privileges, 

 immunities/' c. that it is impossible not to see that they apply to the 

 interests, and privileges, of private property to the seignoral, arid 

 manorial <e rights," connected with the estates, and not to any privileges 

 of a political character no word like " public," or " political," ever 

 being mentioned. And it should be observed, there is no want of ex- 

 plicitness, or full description, any where as to those "rights and immuni- 

 ties," which the parties actually contract for, and propose to receive and 

 enjoy. After the second and third articles of the treaty, which seem 

 sufficiently declaratory of amnesty, as far as "inference" can go the 

 undertaking being for the full restoration of titles and estates, on the 

 owners submitting, and taking the oath of allegiance ; after this comes 

 a fifth article no want of caution, as it strikes us, here ? stipulating, 



