One reason for James quitting the siege of Londonderry in person was that the time for the assembling of his Irish parliament drew near. No sooner did he reach Dublin than he was met by the news that the English fleet under admiral Herbert had been beaten by the French at Bantry Bay. Herbert had been ordered to intercept the French fleet betwixt Brest and Ireland; but he had missed it, and James had safely landed. Whilst he was still beating about, a second squadron, under Chateau Renaud, had also made its way over, and anchored with the first in Bantry Bay. On Herbert discovering them there, confident in their superior numbers, they came out, and there was a sharp fight. In the evening Herbert sheered off towards the Scilly Isles, and the French with great exultation, as in a victory, returned into the bay. James found the French at Dublin in high spirits at the unusual circumstance of beating English sailors; but his English adherents were by no means pleased with this triumphing over their countrymen, hostile ones as they were; and James, who had always prided himself on the English navy, is said, when Avaux boasted how the French had beaten the English, to have replied gloomily, "It is the first time." Even the English exiles in France are said to have shown a similar mortification, though the French victory, such as it was, was in their cause. Both sides, however, claimed this victory: in England parliament voted thanks to Herbert; in Dublin James ordered bonfires and a Te Deum.
On the 7th of May, the day after the Te Deum, James met his parliament. What sort of a parliament it was, and what it was likely to do in Ireland, may be surmised from the fact that there were only six protestants in the whole House of commons, consisting of two hundred and fifty members. Only fourteen lords appeared to his summons, and of these only four were protestants. By new creations, and by reversal of attainders against catholic peers, he managed to add seventeen more members to the upper house, all catholics, so that in the whole parliament there were only ten protestants! and four of these were the bishops of Meath, Ossory, Cork, and Limerick. The majority of these members were not only catholic, rabid with a desire of visiting upon the protestants all the miseries and spoliations which they had inflicted on them, but they were men totally unaccustomed to the business of legislation or government, from having been long excluded from all such functions, and condemned to pass their time on their estates in that half savage condition which qualified them rather for bandits than for considerate lawgivers and magistrates.
James's first act was that of complete toleration of liberty of conscience to all Christian denominations. This sounded well, and was in perfect keeping with his declarations and endeavours in England for which he had been driven out, and England had now an opportunity of observing with what justice; of judging whether it had wrongfully suspected his real object in it. He reverted in his speech from the throne with great pride to these endeavours, and to his determination still to be the liberator of conscience. "I have always," he said, "been for liberty of conscience, and against invading any man's right or liberty; having still in mind that saying of holy writ, 'Do as you would be done to, for this is the law and the prophets.' It was this liberty of conscience I gave, which my enemies, both at home and abroad, dreaded to have established by law in all my dominions, and made them set themselves up against it though for different reasons, seeing that, if I had once settled it, my people, in the opinion of the one, would have been too happy, and, in the opinion of the other, too great."
This was fine language, worthy of the noblest lawgiver that ever existed; but, unfortunately, James's English subjects never could be persuaded of his sincerity, and that this happiness and greatness would arrive as the result of his indulgence. The very next act which he now passed decided that they had not mistrusted him without cause. Scarcely had he passed the act of toleration, when he followed it up by the repeal of the act of settlement, by which the protestants held all their estates, and all their rights and liberties in Ireland. This just and tolerant monarch thus, at one stroke, handed over the whole protestant body to the mercy of the Irish catholics, and to one universal doom of confiscation. The bill was received with a madness of exultation by this popish parliament which portended all the horrors which were to follow. It was nothing short of a proclamation of war to the knife to all protestants in Ireland, Scotch or English. "It was received," says a writer of the time, " with a huzza and a tumult which more resembled the behaviour of a crew of rapparees over a rich booty than of a senate assembled to rectify abuses, and restore the rights of their fellow-subjects."
This was a splendid illustration of what James's regard for every man's "right and liberty" meant. It was in vain that the handful of protestants in parliament lifted their voices against this letting loose the hell-hounds of revenge, murder, and desolation all over Ireland; in vain that the English royalists warned him, pointed out that he was committing not only a wholesale annihilation of protestant life and property in Ireland, but of his own interests in England. How was he ever to expect restoration therewith this terrible confirmation of all the fears and declarations of his English subjects before them? James hesitated a moment; but he was assailed so furiously by the reproaches of his supporters, and especially by Avaux, who was as anxious for the extirpation of the protestants as if he had been an Irishman, the fatal act was passed, and troops of dragoons and other horse rode eagerly forth, followed from all sides by armed Irish, to turn out the protestants and seize on their estates.
But there were other parties whose estates were not derived from the act of settlement, but from purchase, and another act was passed to include them. It was a bill confiscating the property of all who had aided or abetted the prince of Orange in his attempt on the crown, or who were absent and did not return to their homes before the 5th of October. The number of persons included in this great act of attainder, as it was called, amounted to betwixt two and three thousand names, including men of all ranks, from the highest noble to the simplest freeholder. All the property of absentees above seventeen years of age was transferred to the king. The most unbounded lust of robbery and revenge was thus kindled in the public mind. Every one who wanted his neighbour's property, or had a grudge against him, hurried to give in his name to the clerk of the house of
