Page:A letter to the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, M.P. on the state of Ireland.djvu/91

. The Endowment of Maynooth was carried with my cordial support, in 1845.

In the course of the debate of 1844, Mr. Disraeli made a most remarkable speech. He vindicated the conduct of the Tory party towards Ireland; and beginning with Charles the First, showed how that sovereign had treated the Irish Roman Catholics.

He referred to a period two centuries before the year in which he was speaking, and immediately before the breaking out of the Civil War. He stated that at that time there was a majority of Roman Catholics in Parliament, and a majority of Roman Catholics in the Council of State; that the municipalities were full of Roman Catholics, and that many of the sheriffs were Roman Catholics. He quoted the journal of Sir William Brereton, who, having visited Ireland in 1636, had seen at Wexford the Protestant judge of assize carried to his church by the Papist mayor, who was then carried himself to his mass-house. Having referred to this state of things, he recorded the fact that, after the breaking out of the Civil War, Glamorgan, the king's agent, had entered into a treaty with the Convention of Kilkenny, then in arms against the English Parliament. By the secret articles of that treaty, which was ratified by King Charles, it was stipulated, said Mr. Disraeli, that the Roman Catholics should enjoy the same civil and political equality which they had done previously to the breaking out of the Civil War; and with reference to the Protestant and Catholic Church, there should be a recognised equality between the