One Act followed another, each adding some new restriction to the last, or some fresh incentive for persecution.  In 1709 an attempt was made to plant some Protestant families from Germany in various parts of the country.  These settlements obtained the name of Palatines.  But it was labour lost.  Sir John Chichester once observed, that it was useless to endeavour to root Popery out of Ireland, for it was impregnated in the very air.  A few of the Palatines, like other settlers, still kept to their own religion; but the majority, as well as the majority of other settlers, learned to understand and then to believe the Catholic faith—­learned to admire, and then to love, and eventually to amalgamate with the long-suffering and noble race amongst whom they had been established.

It would appear that Queen Anne wished her brother to succeed her on the throne; but he had been educated a Catholic, and he resolutely rejected all temptations to renounce his faith.  Her short and troubled reign ended on the 1st of August, 1714.  Before her death the Parliament had chosen her successor.  Her brother was proscribed, and a reward of L50,000 offered for his apprehension.  The rebellion in favour of James III., as he was called on the Continent, or the Pretender, as he was called by those who had no resource but to deny his legitimacy, was confined entirely to Scotland; but the Irish obtained no additional grace by their loyalty to the reigning monarch.  A new proclamation was issued, which not only forbid them to enlist in the army, but offered rewards for the discovery of any Papist who had presumed to enlist, in order that “he might be turned out, and punished with the utmost severity of the law.”  In the next reign we shall see how the suicidal effect of this policy was visited on the heads of its promoters.

The Irish Parliament now came into collision with the English on a case of appellate jurisdiction, but they were soon taught their true position, and with becoming submission deferred to their fate.  The Irish Parliament had long been such merely in name; and the only power they were allowed to exercise freely, was that of making oppressive and unjust enactments against their Catholic fellow-subjects.  It is a poor consolation, but one which is not unfrequently indulged, when those who are oppressed by others become themselves in turn the oppressors of those who are unfortunate enough to be in their power.

A new phase in Irish history was inaugurated by the versatile talents, and strong will in their exercise, which characterized the famous Dr. Jonathan Swift.  The quarrels between Whigs and Tories were at their height.  Swift is said to have been a Whig in politics and a Tory in religion.  He now began to write as a patriot; and in his famous “Drapier’s Letters” told the Government of the day some truths which were more plain than palatable.[551] An Englishman named Wood had obtained a patent under the Broad Seal, in 1723, for the coinage of copper