The clause which
subjected to severe penalties a Roman Catholic parent who sent his child
abroad to enjoy the benefits of an education which he was not allowed to
receive at home, was manifestly almost incapable of enforcement, and the
youths designed for orders in the Romish Church had been invariably sent
to foreign colleges--some to Douai or St. Omer, in France; some to the
renowned Spanish University of Salamanca. But the French colleges had
been swept away by the Revolution, which also made a passage to Spain
(the greater expense of which had at all times confined that resource to
a small number of students) more difficult; and the consequence was,
that in 1794 the Roman Catholic Primate, Dr. Troy, petitioned the
government to grant a royal license for the endowment of a college in
Ireland. Justice and policy were equally in favor of the grant of such a
request. For the sake of the whole kingdom, and even for that of
Protestantism itself, it was better that the Roman Catholic priesthood
should be an educated rather than an ignorant body of men; and, in the
temper which at that time prevailed over the western countries of the
Continent, it was at least equally desirable that the rising generation
should be preserved from the contagion of the revolutionary principles
which the present rulers of France were so industrious to propagate.
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