ent in his stead; and the country was given up to the
Beresford faction, who were quite willing to co-operate in Mr. Pitt's
plan of setting Protestants and Catholics against each other, of
exciting open rebellion, and of profiting by the miseries of the nation
to forge new chains for it, by its parliamentary union with England.
Everything was done now that could be done to excite the Catholics to
rebellion. The Orangemen, if their own statement on oath[573] is to be
trusted, were actually bribed to persecute the Catholics; sermons[574]
were preached by Protestant ministers to excite their feelings; and when
the Catholics resisted, or offered reprisals, they were punished with
the utmost severity, while their persecutors always escaped. Lord
Carhampton, grandson of the worthless Henry Luttrell, who had betrayed
the Irish at the siege of Limerick, commanded the army, and his cruelty
is beyond description. An Insurrection Act was passed in 1796;
magistrates were allowed to proclaim counties; suspected persons were to
be banished the country or pressed into the fleet, without the shadow of
trial; and Acts of Indemnity[575] were passed, to shield the magistrates
and the military from the consequences of any unlawful cruelties which
fanaticism or barbarity might induce them to commit.

Grattan appealed boldly and loudly against these atrocities. "These
insurgents," he said, "call themselves Protestant Boys--that is, a
banditti of murderers, committing massacre in the name of God, and
exercising despotic power in the name of liberty." The published
declaration of Lord Gosford and of thirty magistrates, who attempted to
obtain some justice for the unfortunate subjects of these wrongs, is
scarcely less emphatic. It is dated December 28, 1795: "It is no secret
that a persecution, accompanied with all the circumstances of ferocious
cruelty which have in all ages distinguished this calamity, is now
raging in this country; neither age, nor sex, nor even acknowledged
innocence, is sufficient to excite mercy or afford protection. The only
crime which the unfortunate objects of this persecution are charged
with, is a crime of easy proof indeed; it is simply a profession of the
Roman Catholic faith. A lawless banditti have constituted themselves
judges of this species of delinquency, and the sentence they pronounce
is equally concise and terrible; it is nothing less than a confiscation
of all property and immediate banishment--a prescrip