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an Irish garrison, should be permitted, on taking the Oath ofAllegiance, to resume any calling which he had exercised before -the Revolution. It would, beyond all doubt, have been aviolation of this covenant to require that a lawyer or a phy-sician, who had been within the rvalls of Limerick during thesiege, should take the Oath of Supremacy and subscribe theDeclaration against Transubstantiation, before he could receivefees. Holt was consulted, and was directed to prepare clausesin conformity with the terms of the capitulation.

The bill, as amended by Holt, was sent back to the Com-mons. They at first rejected the amendment, and demanded aconference. The conference was granted. Rochester, in thePainted Chamber, delivered to the managers of the LowerHouse a copy of the Treaty of Limerick, and earnestly repre-sented the importance of preserving the public faith inviolate.This appeal was one which no honest man, though inflamed bynational and religious animosity, could resist. The Commonsreconsidered the subject, and, after hearing the Treaty read,agreed, with some slight modifications, to what the Lords hadproposed.*

The bill became a law. It attracted, at the time, littlenotice, but was, after the lapse of several generations, thesubject of a very acrimonious controversy. Many of us can wellremember how strongly the public mind was stirred, in the daysof George the Third and George the Fourth, by the questionwhether Roman Catholics should be permitted to sit in Par-. liament. It may be doubted whether any dispute has producedstranger perversions of history. The whole past was falsifiedfor the sake of the present. All the great events of three cen-turies long appeared to us distorted and discoloured by a mistsprung from our own theories and our own passions. Some

* Stat. 3. W. AM. c. 2., Lords 1 Journals; Lords 1 Journals, 16 Nov.1601; Commons’ Journals, Dec. 1. 9. 5.

CHAP.XV] II.

ill