f strenuously on the side of public faith and
sound policy. The King sent him a message of thanks. "We Protestants,"
said Granard to Powis who brought the message, "are few in number.
We can do little. His Majesty should try his influence with the Roman
Catholics." "His Majesty," answered Powis with an oath, "dares not say
what he thinks." A few days later James met Granard riding towards the
parliament house. "Where are you going, my Lord?" said the King. "To
enter my protest, Sir," answered Granard, "against the repeal of the Act
of Settlement." "You are right," said the King: "but I am fallen into
the hands of people who will ram that and much more down my throat."
[226]

James yielded to the will of the Commons; but the unfavourable
impression which his short and feeble resistance had made upon them was
not to be removed by his submission. They regarded him with profound
distrust; they considered him as at heart an Englishman; and not a day
passed without some indication of this feeling. They were in no haste to
grant him a supply. One party among them planned an address urging him
to dismiss Melfort as an enemy of their nation. Another party drew up
a bill for deposing all the Protestant Bishops, even the four who were
then actually sitting in Parliament. It was not without difficulty that
Avaux and Tyrconnel, whose influence in the Lower House far exceeded the
King's, could restrain the zeal of the majority, [227]

It is remarkable that, while the King was losing the confidence and
good will of the Irish Commons by faintly defending against them, in
one quarter, the institution of property, he was himself, in another
quarter, attacking that institution with a violence, if possible,
more reckless than theirs. He soon found that no money came into his
Exchequer. The cause was sufficiently obvious. Trade was at an end.
Floating capital had been withdrawn in great masses from the island. Of
the fixed capital much had been destroyed, and the rest was lying
idle. Thousands of those Protestants who were the most industrious and
intelligent part of the population had emigrated to England. Thousands
had taken refuge in the places which still held out for William and
Mary. Of the Roman Catholic peasantry who were in the vigour of life the
majority had enlisted in the army or had joined gangs of plunderers. The
poverty of the treasury was the necessary effect of the poverty of the
country: public prosperity could be restore