TO THE

HONOURABLE HOUSE OF COMMONS, &c.

THE HUMBLE PETITION OF THE FOOTMEN IN AND
ABOUT THE CITY OF DUBLIN. 1732.

HUMBLY SHEWETH,

THAT your petitioners are a great and numerous society, endowed with several privileges time out of mind. That certain lewd, idle, and disorderly persons, for several months past, as it is notoriously known, have been daily seen in the public walks of this city, habited sometimes in green coats, and sometimes laced, with long oaken cudgels in their hands, and without swords; in hopes to procure favour by that advantage with a great number of ladies who frequent those walks; pretending and giving themselves out to be the true genuine Irish footmen; whereas they can be proved to be no better than common toupees, as a judicious eye may soon discover, by their awkward, clumsy, ungenteel gait and behaviour; by their unskilfulness in dress even with the advantage of our habits; by their ill favoured countenances, with an air of impudence and dulness peculiar to the rest of their brethren, who have not yet arrived at that transcendent pitch of assurance; and although it may be justly apprehended, that they will do so in time, if these counterfeits shall happen to succeed in their evil designs of passing for real footmen, thereby to render themselves more amiable to the ladies.

Your petitioners do farther allege, that many of the said counterfeits, upon a strict examination, have been found in the act of strutting, staring, swearing, swaggering in a manner that plainly showed their best endeavours to imitate us. Wherein, although they did not succeed, yet by their ignorant and ungainly way of copying our graces, the utmost indignity was endeavoured to be cast upon our whole profession.

Your petitioners do therefore make it their humble request, that this honourable house (to many of whom your petitioners are nearly allied) will please to take this grievance into your most serious consideration: humbly submitting, whether it would not be proper, that certain officers might, at the public charge, be employed to search for, and discover all such counterfeit footmep; to carry them before the next justice of peace, by whose warrant, upon the first conviction, they shall be stripped of their coats and oaken ornaments, and be set two hours in the stocks; upon the second conviction, beside stripping, be set six hours in the stocks, with a paper pinned on their breasts signifying their crime in large capital letters, and in the following words: "A. B. commonly called A. B. Esq. a toupee, and a notorious impostor, who presumed to personate a true Irish footman."

And for any other offence, the said toupee shall be committed to Bridewell, whipped three times, forced to hard labour for a month, and not to be set at liberty till he shall have given sufficient security for his good behaviour.

Your honours will please to observe, with what lenity we propose to treat these enormous offenders, who have already brought such a scandal on our honourable calling, that several well meaning people have mistaken them to be of our fraternity, in diminution to that credit and

dignity whereby we have supported our station, as we always did, in the worst of times. And we farther beg leave to remark, that this was manifestly done with a seditious design to render us less capable of serving the public in any great employments, as several of our fraternity, as well as our ancestors, have done.

We do therefore humbly implore your honours to, give necessary orders for our relief in this present exigency, and your petitioners (as in duty bound) shall ever pray, &c.

VOL. XIII.

REASONS,

HUMBLY OFFERED

TO THE

PARLIAMENT OF IRELAND,

FOR REPEALING THE SACRAMENTAL TEST IN FAVOUR OF THE CATHOLICS, OTHERWISE CALLED ROMAN CATHOLICS, AND, BY THEIR ILL-WILLERS, PAPISTS.

DRAWN PARTLY FROM ARGUMENTS AS THEY ARE CATHOLICS, AND PARTLY FROM ARGUMENTS COMMON TO THEM WITH THEIR BRETHREN THE DISSENTERS. 1733.

Ir is well known, that the first conquerors of this kingdom were English catholics, subjects to English catholic kings, from whom by their valour and success they obtained large portions of land, given them as a reward for their many victories over the Irish: to which merit our brethren the dissenters, of any denomination whatsoever, have not the least pretensions.

It is confessed, that the posterity of those first victorious catholics, were often forced to rise in their own defence, against new colonies from England, who treated them like mere native Irish with innumerable oppressions, depriving them of their lands, and driving them by force of arms into the most desolate parts of the

kingdom; till, in the next generation, the children of these tyrants were used in the same manner, by new English adventurers; which practice continued for many centuries. But it is agreed on all hands, that no insurrections were ever made, except after great oppressions by fresh invaders; whereas all the rebellions of puritans, presbyteriaus, independents, and other sectaries, constantly began before any provocations were given, except that they were not suffered to change the government in church and state, and seize both into their own hands; which, however, at last they did, with the murder of their king, and of many thousands of his best subjects.

The catholics were always defenders of monarchy, as constituted in these kingdoms; whereas, our brethren the dissenters, were always republicans both in principle and practice.

It is well known, that all the catholics of these kingdoms, both priests and laity, are true whigs, in the best and most proper sense of the word; bearing as well in their hearts, as in their outward profession, an entire loyalty to the royal house of Hanover, in the person and posterity of George II. against the pretender and all his adherents; to which they think themselves bound in gratitude, as well as conscience, by the lenity wherewith they have been treated since the death of Queen Anne, so different from what they suffered in the four last years of that princess, during the administration of that wicked minister, the Earl of Oxford.

The catholics of this kingdom humbly hope, that they have at least as fair a title, as any of their brother dissenters, to the appellation of protestants. They have always protested against the selling, dethroning, or murdering their kings; against the usurpations and avarice of the court of Rome; against deism, atheism, socinian