Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 19.djvu/197

Rh coasts; and then one would have thought the hopes of the former would have vanished with him.

But it proved quite contrary: for those sons of the earth, rebounding with fresh vigour from their falls, recovered new strength and spirit from every defeat; and the next attempt was bolder (considering the circumstance they were in) than any they had made before:

The case was this: the house of lords of Ireland had accused them to the queen of several illegal practices, which highly concerned the safety of our constitution both in church and state: the particulars of which charge were summed up in a representation from the lords to this effect:

"That they (the dissenters) had opposed and persecuted the conformists in those parts where their power prevailed, had invaded their congregation, propagated their schism in places where it had not the least footing formerly; that they were protected from a legal persecution by a noli prosequi in the case of Drogheda; that they refused to take conforming apprentices, and confined trade among themselves, exclusive of the conformists: that, in their illegal assemblies, they had prosecuted and censured their people for being married according to law; that they have thrown publick and scandalous reflections upon the episcopal order, and upon our laws, particularly the sacramental test, and had misapplied the royal bounty of 1200l. per annum in propagating their schism, and undermining the church: and had exercised an illegal jurisdiction in their presbyteries and Synods," &c.

To this representation of the lords, the dissenters remonstrate in an address to the queen, or rather an peal