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good sense and acuteness by which the want of legal knowledge■ has sometimes been supplied, was Lord Chancellor. His singlemerit was that he had apostatized from the Protestant religion;and this merit was thought sufficient to wash out even the stainof his Saxon extraction. He soon proved himself worthy of theconfidence of his patrons. On the bench of justice he declaredthat there was not one heretic in forty thousand w r ho was not avillain. He often, after hearing a cause in which the interestsof his Church were concerned, postponed his decision, for thepurpose, as he avowed, of consulting his spiritual director, aSpanish priest, well read doubtless in Escobar.* ThomasNugent, a Homan Catholic who had never distinguished himselfat the bar except by his brogue and his blunders, was ChiefJustice of the King’s Bench.** Stephen Rice, a Roman Catho-lic, whose abilities and learning were not disputed even by theenemies of his nation and religion, but whose known hostilityto the Act of Settlement excited the most painful apprehensionsin the minds of all who held property under that Act, was ChiefBaron of the Exchequer.*** Richard Nagle, an acute and wellread lawyer, who had been educated in a Jesuit college, andwhose prejudices were such as might have been expected fromhis education, was Attorney General.f

Keating, a highly respectable Protestant, was still ChiefJustice of the Common Pleas: but two Roman Catholic Judgessate with him. It ought to be added that one of those judges,Daly, ivas a man of sense, moderation and integrity. Thematters however which came before the Court of Common Pleas

* King’s State of the Protestants of Ireland, ii. 6. and iii. 3.

** King, iii. 3. Clarendon, in a letter to Rochester (June 1. 1686), callsNugent “a very troublesome, impertinent creature.”

*** King, iii. 3.

+ King, ii. 6., iii. 3. Clarendon, in a letter to Ormond (Sep. 28. 1686),speaks highly of Nagle’s knowledge and ability, but in the Diary (Jan. 31.1685) calls him “a covetous, ambitious man.”