at of his countrymen, and had
been heard to say that the affair in Bantry Bay did not deserve to be
called a battle, [212]

On the day after the Te Deum had been sung at Dublin for this indecisive
skirmish, the Parliament convoked by James assembled. The number of
temporal peers of Ireland, when he arrived in that kingdom, was about a
hundred. Of these only fourteen obeyed his summons. Of the fourteen,
ten were Roman Catholics. By the reversing of old attainders, and by new
creations, seventeen more Lords, all Roman Catholics, were introduced
into the Upper House. The Protestant Bishops of Meath, Ossory, Cork, and
Limerick, whether from a sincere conviction that they could not lawfully
withhold their obedience even from a tyrant, or from a vain hope that
the heart even of a tyrant might be softened by their patience, made
their appearance in the midst of their mortal enemies.

The House of Commons consisted almost exclusively of Irishmen and
Papists. With the writs the returning officers had received from
Tyrconnel letters naming the persons whom he wished to see elected. The
largest constituent bodies in the kingdom were at this time very small.
For scarcely any but Roman Catholics dared to show their faces; and the
Roman Catholic freeholders were then very few, not more, it is said,
in some counties, than ten or twelve. Even in cities so considerable
as Cork, Limerick, and Galway, the number of persons who, under the new
Charters, were entitled to vote did not exceed twenty-four. About two
hundred and fifty members took their seats. Of these only six were
Protestants, [213] The list of the names sufficiently indicates the
religious and political temper of the assembly. Alone among the Irish
parliaments of that age, this parliament was filled with Dermots
and Geohagans, O'Neils and O'Donovans, Macmahons, Macnamaras, and
Macgillicuddies. The lead was taken by a few men whose abilities had
been improved by the study of the law, or by experience acquired
in foreign countries. The Attorney General, Sir Richard Nagle, who
represented the county of Cork, was allowed, even by Protestants, to
be an acute and learned jurist. Francis Plowden, the Commissioner of
Revenue, who sate for Bannow, and acted as chief minister of finance,
was an Englishman, and, as he had been a principal agent of the Order of
Jesuits in money matters, must be supposed to have been an excellent
man of business, [214] Colonel Henry Luttrell, member for