THE SCOTCH-IRISH OF THE SOUTH...continued
BY HON. WM. WIRT HENRY, LL.D., OF VIRGINIA
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The effort of Catholic Spain, in the sixteenth century, to wrest the Emerald Isle from Great Britain, stimulated a series of rebellions, which were finally quelled toward the close of the reign of Elizabeth. Upon her successor was laid the task of pacifying the island. In September, 1607, four months after the settlement at Jamestown, the earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, the great leaders in the Catholic rebellions, sailed from the beautiful Lough Swilly, on the northwest coast of Ireland, followed by thousands of their old companions in arms, and sought a new home on the continent. The day of their departure dates a new era in Irish history. They left large tracts of land in north Ireland unoccupied and forfeited to the crown, and these were parceled out among a body of Scotch and English, brought over for the purpose. The far greater number of these plantations were from the lower part of Scotland, and became known as "Scotch-Irish." Thus a new population was given to the north of Ireland, which has changed its history. The province of Ulster, with fewer natural advantages than either Munster, Leinster, or Connaught, became the most prosperous, industrious, and law-abiding of all Ireland. Indeed, the difference between Scotland and Spain is not greater than between Ulster and her sister counties, even to this day.
But the Protestant population thus transplanted to the north of Ireland was destined to suffer many and bloody persecutions, culminating in the world-renowned siege of Londonderry, in the reign of James II., the unparalleled defense of which saved Protestantism in the island, and enabled William of Orange to secure his throne. Tempered by these, the iron in the Scotch character became finest steel. During the reign of William they had rest, but the accession of Anne, "the good Queen Anne," as she is often called, was the occasion of the renewal of the persecution of the Presbyterians. In 1704, the test-oath was imposed, by which every one in public employment was required to profess English prelacy. It was intended to suppress Popery, but was used by the Episcopal bishops to check Presbyterianism. To this was added burdensome restraints on their commerce, and extortionate rents from their landlords, resulting in what is known as the Antrim evictions. There had been occasional emigrations from the north of Ireland from the plantation of the Scotch, and one of the ministers sent over in 1683, Francis Makemie, had organized on the eastern shore of Maryland and in the adjoining counties of Virginia the first Presbyterian churches in America. But in the early part of the eighteenth century the great movement began which transported so large a portion of the Scotch-Irish into the American colonies, and, through their influence, shaped in a great measure the destinies of America. Says the historian Froude: "In the two years which followed the Antrim evictions, thirty thousand Protestants left Ulster for a laud where there was no legal robbery, and where those who sowed the seed could reap the harvest." Alarmed by the depletion of the Protestant population, the Toleration Act was passed, and by it, and further promises of relief, the tide of emigration was checked for a brief period. In 1728, however, it began anew, and from 1729 to 1750, it was estimated that "about twelve thousand came annually from Ulster to America." So many had settled in Pennsylvania before 1729 that James Logan, the Quaker president of that colony, expressed his fear that they would become proprietors of the province.
These emigrants brought with them and retained in their new homes distinctive characteristics. These may be summed up as follows:
1. They were Presbyterians in their religion and church government.
2. They were loyal to the conceded authority of the king; but they considered him bound, as well as themselves, by the engagements of "the Solemn League and Covenant," entered into in 1643 by the Westminster Assembly and Parliament on the one side and >the Scottish nation on the other, and adopted by the Presbyterians of Ireland in 1644, pledging the support of the reformation and of the liberties of the kingdoms.
3. They claimed the right to choose their own ministers, untrammeled by the civil powers.
4. They practiced strict discipline in morals, and gave full instruction to their youth in common schools and academies, and in teaching them the Bible, and that wonderful summary of its doctrine contained in the Westminster Assembly's Catechism.
5. They combined, in a remarkable degree, acuteness of intellect, firmness of purpose, and conscientious devotion to duty.
It has been well said of them by one who had watched their development in spite of opposition: "Man might as well attempt to lay his interdict upon the coming forth of vegetation, when the powers of nature are warmed and refreshed by genial influences from above, as to arrest the progress of such a people in knowledge and improvement."