wayway was to blame, in words which on revisal might have been struck out, because inconsistent with all his other testimonies to the uniform integrity, impartiality, and independence of the Lords-Justices in Church matters.
As a viceroy, the Earl of Galway had to govern through the Parliament, before whom this measure had already been. And what had been the result? Notwithstanding King William’s known desires, and the late Lord-Lieutenant, Lord Capel’s, expressed wishes, the Irish House of Lords, under the influence and with the votes of the twenty-one bishops, had thrown out a bill for the legal toleration of Protestant Dissenters. Thereafter, Lord Galway being known as a friend of toleration, and it being expected that he and the Chancellor would summon a Parliament early in 1697, the bishops had opened a fierce pamphleteering campaign, stirring up the people, and dealing out cruel insinuations against Presbyterians. Such leaders being in the Upper House, it could only have increased the irritation to suggest to the Commons to renew the lately defeated proposal.
While the legal position of the Presbyterians was unsatisfactory, Lord Galway found them in the practical enjoyment of liberty. There was no sacramental test, as in England, to exclude them from government employments. And the English toleration seems to have been offered to them, upon the condition that the Anglican Test should by the same law be extended to Ireland. Such a change would have been worse than the existing- circumstances. It is true that the want of a law enacting toleration placed Presbyterians in a sort of moral pillory; it exposed to penalties for the worship of God the multitude of brave Presbyterian soldiers, but for whom Ireland, that pearl of the sea, would have had no place in William’s crown. But a toleration law along with a sacramental test would have banished them from the public service, and would have given them nothing but what they did actually possess. For how could the government sanction any prosecution on account of religious worship, which their Regium Donum avowedly paid for?
The Galway Case of 1698 illustrates most of what I have said. In consequence of some Presbyterian families having arrived in that town, and having discovered individual Presbyterians in the garrison, the Limerick Presbyterian minister, having received an invitation, preached in Galway. The mayor put him in prison according to law. He was liberated and sent back to Limerick on the Christian intercession of the Archbishop of Tuam. The Lords-Justices received at the same time, first, a memorial from the Dublin Presbyterian ministers in favour of their brother, the Rev. William Biggar; and secondly, a memorial from the mayor and corporation of Galway, praying that, as there had not been any meeting of dissenters there for the last twenty years, the Presbyterians should be prohibited from creating a division among the Protestants, to weaken that interest in the midst of so many Romanists. Dr Reid shall tell the rest: “The Lords-Justices sent for Mr Biggar, and found that he had confined himself strictly to the preaching of the Gospel, and that he had not given any unnecessary offence to the Episcopalians. They sent him back to Limerick, and directed that, for the present, no Presbyterian should preach in Galway. They immediately laid the whole case before the English government, to be submitted to the king, and prayed that his Majesty’s pleasure might be conveyed to them for their future guidance. What directions were returned to them cannot now be ascertained. But it is probable that the prohibition against preaching in Galway was removed by order of the king; for, not more than two years after this period, there was not only a Presbyterian congregation regularly organized there, but a minister duly ordained to that charge.” Dr Reid testifies to the uniform integrity, impartiality, and independence of these Lords-Justices, which encouraged Presbyterians to bring their complaints before them. He ascribes any incompleteness in the way of redress to the transference of the government to the Earl of Rochester, through the pressure of the opposition party, which compelled the king to dismiss his favourite ministers.
A similar testimony is borne in an answer, which in later times a Presbyterian was provoked to write, to a libellous tract called “A sample of True-Bleu Presbyterian Loyalty.” The answer was published with the title, “A sample of Jet-Black Prelatic Calumny.” I quote the introduction to its account of a case tried before Lord Galway and others (the case itself I need not narrate):—
