Presently it became necessary to revive the dormant Statute forbidding students to attend any political meetings; and when some of the scholars went so far as to avow publicly that they were United Irishmen, in the sense then considered seditious, and one member at least of the Board, who was also M.P. for the University, openly declared himself opposed to taking extreme measures against them, the time seemed come for a formal Visitation. In all this difficult and dangerous passage of the history of the College the Provost is hardly mentioned. The result of the great battle between the Dons and the politicians upon Hutchinson’s death had resulted, as has been said, in the appointment of the Vice-Provost, Murray, a respectable, modest, benevolent old man,[97] wholly unfit to guide the counsels of the Board, or to lead back the wilder students into the paths of discretion or common sense. Moreover, the ultra-Protestant party were in such panic at the state of the country as to make them cruel in their punishments. The Vice-Chancellor was Lord Clare, a very strong and uncompromising member of the Protestant ascendency, who all through his life was perfectly consistent in advocating the English supremacy, and in crushing out all Irish aspirations, even with the halter and the sword. He had been baulked in his policy of repression by the admission of Roman Catholics to Degrees in Trinity College, carried in 1793 by an Act of Parliament, but which would not have been put into effect in that year but for the stout action of Dr. Miller, who, as Senior Master Non-Regent, stopped all the conferring of Degrees till the Vice-Chancellor consented to remit the old oath against Popery. The facts, which are worth knowing in their details, are thus stated by Dr. Stubbs:-- When the first Commencement day after the passing of the Act of Parliament arrived, the Letters Patent altering the College Statutes had not been prepared, and consequently, although the declaration had been abolished by Act of Parliament, the corresponding oath remained. Lord Clare was well known to be opposed to the admission of Roman Catholics to Degrees, and he presided as Vice-Chancellor of the University, and it was expected that he would place every impediment in his power to the relaxation which had been granted by the change in the law. Mr. Miller, who was called upon to act as Senior Master Non-Regent, declined to take his place until he had been formally elected by the Senate, according to the letter of the University Regulations. After some opposition to this proceeding on the part of the Vice-Chancellor, this legal formality was carried out, and Mr. Miller took his seat as one of the Caput.