[570] Leland says none; but by Lord Orrery's letters, i. 35, it appears that one papist and one anabaptist were chosen for that parliament, both from Tuam.
[571] Mountmorres, i. 158.
[572] Mountmorres, 3 W. & M. c. 2.
[573] Ibid. i. 163; Plowden's Hist. Review of Ireland, i. 263. The terrible act of the second of Anne prescribes only the oaths of allegiance and abjuration for voters at elections. § 24.
[574] Such conversions were naturally distrusted. Boulter expresses alarm at the number of pseudo-protestants who practised the law; and a bill was actually passed to disable any one, who had not professed that religion for five years, from acting as a barrister or solicitor. Letters, i. 226. "The practice of the law, from the top to the bottom, is almost wholly in the hands of these converts."
[575] "Evidence of State of Ireland in Sessions of 1824 and 1825," p. 325 (as printed for Murray). In a letter of the year 1755, from a clergyman in Ireland to Archbishop Herring, in the British Museum (Sloane MSS. 4164, 11), this is also stated. The writer seems to object to a repeal of the penal laws, which the catholics were supposed to be attempting; and says they had the exercise of their religion as openly as the protestants, and monasteries in many places.
[576] Plowden's Historical Review of State of Ireland, vol. i. passim.
[577] Sir William Petty, in 1672, reckons the inhabitants of Ireland at 1,100,000; of whom 200,000 English, and 100,000 Scots; above half the former being of the established church. Political Anatomy of Ireland, chap. ii. It is sometimes said in modern times, though very erroneously, that the presbyterians form a majority of protestants in Ireland; but their proportion has probably diminished since the beginning of the eighteenth century.
[578] Plowden, 243.
[579] Irish Stat. 6 G. I. c. 5.