Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/298

 all those gibberish denominations and uncertain phrases; but make you a list of credenda and agenda, necessary for your eternal happiness, and give you the reasons for the same. This being done, let them give you a clear and sensible explanation of these words: viz. God, Omnipotent, Soule of Man, Soule of Beast, Church, Christian, Pope, Spirituall, Substance, Scripture, Reason, and Sense. For without these words you cannot understand these matters, much less can come into any conclusion.'

Events in Ireland soon began to show clearly in which direction things were about to move. As soon as the failure of the movement headed by Monmouth and Argyle was assured, the Irish Roman Catholic party began to betray their real intentions. The corporations, partly by fraud and partly by force, were everywhere packed; and every post the appointment to which lay in the hands of the Crown, from the Lord-Lieutenancies of the counties to the commissions of the smallest places, from Dublin and Cork to the remotest districts, fell into Roman Catholic hands. The repeal of the Acts of Settlement and Explanation and the practical expulsion of the whole Protestant population, were already announced as imminent by the more outspoken members of the party, of which Richard Talbot, now created Earl of Tyrconnel, was the daring and unscrupulous mouthpiece. But it was officially denied that such were the intentions of the King, and on the recall of the Duke of Ormonde, the special object of the hatred of the priests, who owing to age and infirmity was glad to retire from the scene of his long labours and avoid the coming storm, the Lord-Lieutenancy was conferred, after an interregnum of nine months, in December 1685, on the Earl of Clarendon, brother of the Lord Treasurer Rochester. Hopes were therefore still entertained that matters might not be pushed to extremes, and these hopes still continued, even when the command of the forces had been conferred on Richard Talbot, in June 1686, and the Irish Privy Council had been at the same time entirely remodelled.