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THOMAS C. AMORY 
 
I 
 
C03IPENDIUM \p^ %X^* 
 
 OF THE X** \ J--.'-''^ --i- 'v ' 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELANbCS^ ^! 
 
 JTrom tt)« JEarltwt JpejrioB, 
 
 TO THE 
 
 REIGN OF GEORGE I. 
 
 BY JOHN LAWLESS, ESQ. 
 
 Ristoria est temporum testis, lux veritatis, magistra vitae, vita memo- 
 rise, el nuncia antiquitatis. 
 
 CiCESO. 
 
 History is the witness of times past, the light of truth, the mistress of 
 life, the life of memory, and the herald of autiquity. 
 
 ?ecanti Ctiitton, 
 
 BELFAST: 
 
 PRINTED BY JOSEPH SMYTH, 
 HIGH-STREET. 
 
 1815. 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGK LIBRARY 
 CHESTNUT HILL, AiASS. 
 
iv DEDICATION.- 
 
 satiable avarice, to dishonourable ambition, and 
 a sanguinary foreign ascendancy. 
 
 It is hoped that the reader of every class and 
 description, of every persuasion, and sect of 
 Christianity, will observe through the pages of 
 this volume of Irish history, that the leading ob- 
 ject of its author was the inculcation of that 
 grand and paramount principle of Christianity, 
 which imperatively tells us to respect the religious 
 feelings of every human being — to practise that 
 toleration which each sect is perpetually demand- 
 ing, and leave to God and to his creature the set- 
 tlement of those points which are beyond all hu- 
 man controul, and should ever command the ven- 
 eration of the wise, the liberal, and the enlight- 
 ened. 
 
 That the partizan of facticn, or the partizan of 
 the people — that the advocate of intolerance, as 
 •well as the advocate of equal and impartial pri- 
 vilege, will find much to censure, aini perhaps 
 little to praise, must be expected by him who 
 pleads the cause of truth with firmness and im- 
 partiality. 
 
 The author has endeavoured to refute the libel- 
 ler of Ireland, with temperance and decorum. 
 1 he composer of an abridgment of Irish history 
 can lay but little claim to the merit of invention ; 
 his duty is to select with industry and with Judg- 
 ment ^ to compare his authorities with caution, 
 
 s"|'' 
 
DEDICATION. t 
 
 anxiety, and impartiality ; and to put into as 
 small a space as possible, the grand and leading 
 features of his history. 1 o such claims, the au- 
 thor will flatter himself he may, without the 
 hazard of contradiction, put in his humble pre- 
 tensions. If on closing this volume the heart of 
 the reader shall sympathise with the sufferings of 
 Ireland — if he be iuclined to shed a single tear 
 over the graves of those illustrious dead who com- 
 bated, though unsuccessfully, for the liberty, the 
 religion, and the fame of their coun'ry — if he be 
 disposed to acknowledge that no country under 
 heaven ever sutfered so much from the crimes and 
 the follies of its rulers, the author will congratu- 
 late Ireland on the effects of his labours, and will 
 thankfully acknowledge his ample remuneration 
 in the benefits which must flow to his countrymen 
 from the dissemination of such feelings. 
 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It is universally admitted by every friend to the religion, 
 the liberties, and the welfare of Ireland, that nothing can 
 contribute so much to their promotion, as the dissemina- 
 tion of that historical knowledge which informs the Irish 
 people 'what their cowitry has been — isohat it now is — a7id by 
 isohat means its future prosperity may be retarded or advanced. 
 The Irishman who is ignorant of the history of his coun- 
 try, can but little contribute to the councils of men whose 
 opinions are regulated by the wisdom of their ancestors, and 
 whose errors are corrected by the accurate knowledge of 
 the mistakes of those who have gone before them. He who 
 is a stranger to the history of Ireland, can draw no re- 
 sources from the laborious lucubrations of talent, or the 
 brilliant discoveries of genius, to which his country has 
 given birth, and which time has swept into the grave. 
 Such a man can receive no supplies from the treasury of 
 antiquity. Centuries have rolled by, without advantage to 
 him against whom the book of history has been closed : 
 the author and his productions sink into the same tomb, 
 unobserved and unthought of. For him the ancient mag- 
 nificence of Ireland is in vain established ' by the successful 
 researches of the antiquarian; and the wisdom of former 
 ages lies mouldering in records, which perhaps he has had 
 no opportunity of examining. 
 
 The principal object of the present work, is to give uni- 
 
▼iii PREFACE. 
 
 vcrsal circulation to tlie leading and remarkable features 
 of Irish history — To give >those features with veracity 
 — ^with conciseness — and at such a price as may render 
 them accessible to the poor, though independent Irishman. 
 
 Tlie early period of Irish history may perhaps be con^ 
 sidered more interesting to the curious antiquarian than to 
 the practical politician. The records of Keating, however 
 flattering to the pride of an Irishman, will be found but 
 little calculated to add to that stock of useful information, 
 which our modern history so abundantly affords. The 
 memory of his reader is oppressed by the labour of recol- 
 lection; and the efforts of the historian to establish the 
 authenticity of* Irish fame, and the superior claim of Irish 
 genealogy, too frequently entangle the understanding of 
 the reader in unprofitable researches, visionary inquiries, 
 and idle conjectures. The present compendium takes a 
 rapid view of those days of greatness, of which the Irish 
 bards have sung with rapturous enthusiasm : it then passes 
 to the second Henry of England, and carries the records 
 of the principal and most leading events, down to the 
 reign of George the First. This task, it is hoped, will be 
 found to be performed vvuth proper anxiety for the interest 
 of truth, as well as the honour and welfare of our country. 
 
 The writer of this volume has another object in view, 
 and he hopes, one which will find shelter in every Irish 
 bosom — namely, to excite an honest and an ardent feeling 
 among his countrymen, for the recorded sufferings of Ire- 
 land, and to teach, from the experience of the past, the 
 most certain and' judicious mode of guarding against the 
 calan}ities of the future. To accomplish these views in one 
 volume, at once compendious and satisfactory, will be ad- 
 mitted by the candid and ingenuous reader, to be a task of 
 difficulty and hazard. 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 To relate the afflicting and melancholy events which 
 crowd the history of Ireland, without incurring the charge 
 of prejudice, or the suspicions of party, will perhaps be 
 impossible. Such suspicions, however, do not discourage 
 the attempt to give a brief narrative of our history, with 
 truth, and widi impartiality; with an anxiety to please all 
 parties, but with a determination to sacrifice the cause of 
 justice to none. 
 
 It is hoped that the reader of this cheap and compendious 
 volume, will find that the first and last feelinjj which in- 
 fluenced the pen of him who wrote it, Avas a sincere and 
 zealous anxiety for the establishment of political and reli- 
 gious freedom among Irishmen of every persuasion. 
 
 January l5^, 1814. 
 

 /-- : . . . *.-V / 
 
 THE 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, 
 
 Previous and subsequent to the introduction of Christianity. 
 
 X HE HISTORY OF IRELAND, previous to the introduction 
 of Christianity, has been considered by the enemies of 
 her ancient fame, as much tlie theme of the poet, as the 
 cahn subject of the dispassionate historian. — The faithful 
 records of our country are rejected as the tales of credu- 
 lity, and the established glories of its ancient state are 
 considered the dreams of poetry, or the fabrications of na- 
 tional vanity. The satisfactory and laborious researches 
 of O'Connor, O'Halloran, and Vallancey, excite the 
 sneer of scepticism, and their^ triumphant demonstrations 
 are sarcastically styled the elaborate fictions of a credu- 
 lous imanjination : thus do we often see the EnMish read- 
 er, interested perhaps in the calumny and dishonour of 
 Ireland, smile at the honest labours of the patriot, and 
 repel with the affectation of profound philosophy, the 
 struggles of those who have succeeded in proving that 
 Ireland has been distinguisheil among the nations of Eu- 
 rope, as the asylum of the muses, the seat of learning, 
 and dispenser of knovriedge. The enemies of Ireland 
 
12 
 
 will in vain labour to tear from the Irish bosom those dear 
 and fond remembrances which their faithful historians 
 have handed down to posterity. The history of ancient 
 Ireland will ever be read by the Irishman as a source of 
 instructive gratification ; he will ever look back with ho- 
 nest pride upon those days of her history, when her bards 
 were heard-attuinng their harps to the glory of their coun- 
 try ; immortalizing by their verses the heroism of her 
 sons, and rousing her pride by the ardour and enthusiasm 
 of their appeals. 
 
 The Irishman has often found refuge from the mis- 
 fortunes which were pressing him, in the cherished and 
 sacred reflection, that however afflicted his country, or 
 however bo^ne down her liberties — however oppressed his 
 countrymen, or however hopeless their cause, still he 
 could look back on the history of his country with some 
 degree of complacency ; for he saw her described as the 
 instructress of Europe, the dispenser of justice, and the 
 island of saints. With O' Flaherty, he speaks with rap- 
 ture of the one hundred and seventy one monarchs, 
 who governed Ireland for two thousand years previous to 
 the invasion of Henry II. all of the same house and 
 lineage: — with him he passionately recurs to his monu- 
 ments of ancient renown, and contends, with an honest 
 and honourable warmth, for the veracity of poetry, and 
 the accuracy of fancy. 
 
 He cannot be the friend of Ireland, who would wan- 
 tonly attempt to shake the Irish belief in the ancient mag- 
 nificence and honours of his country ; it should never be 
 forgotten that the finest feelings of the heart are produced 
 by the strong impressions of the ancient fame and glory 
 of our country ; that the human mind is improved and 
 animated by the splendid examples which the historian 
 has recorded, and tliat he who would advance the cause 
 
13 
 
 x)f religion or of morality, should not struggle to throw 
 a shade on the authenticity of those achievements, or 
 dispute the existence of those names, which as long as they 
 are credited must excite the admiration, and perhaps the 
 imitation of mankind. — For those reasons it is hoped 
 that the early history of Ireland would be read by every 
 Irishman as a source of instructive reflection, not as a 
 subject of cold and critical scepticism — he should sym- 
 pathize with the ardour of the patriot, and shed tears 
 over the grave which covered him — his heart should 
 swell with the independence of his country — with the 
 gallant achievements of her heroes, and he should sink 
 into sadness when those achievements were performed in 
 vain, or when perhaps the most precious blood of his 
 countrymen was sacrificed to the exaltation of foreign or 
 ** domestic tyraimy — with those sentiments I shall proceed 
 to give a brief and faithful, though rapid re.view of the 
 ancient state of Ireland. 
 
 It seems to be acknowledged, that there are no literary 
 monuments in Ireland previous to the introduction of 
 Christianity; that the evidence of any transaction anterior 
 to this period, solely rests on the credit of Christian writ- 
 ers : that these, lastly, have taken transcripts from the an- 
 cient Irish bards, or from records composed during the 
 ages of paganism. A long }ist of kings is thus made out 
 from the earliest ages of the world, such as Partholan 
 and his sons, with his hounds and his oxen, the gigantic 
 Fomerians, the Numidians, the Firbolgs, and the Tuatha 
 de Danans. These ancient records state that about 500 
 years before the Christian era, a colony of Scjthians im- 
 mediately from Spain, settled in Ireland, and introduced 
 the Phoenician language and letters ; it is also conjectured 
 that previous to the invasion of the Scythians, Ireland, 
 might have been peopled from Gaul or Britain ; but it is 
 more generally supposed that tlie sons of Milesius, Heber, 
 
14 
 
 Heremon, and Ith, gave a race of kings to Ireland, un- 
 der whose government Ireland })roceeded from barbarism 
 and anarchy, to civilization and refinement ; that at length 
 Ollam Fodla arose, and gave to Ireland a regular form 
 of government, instituted a grand seminary of learning, 
 and assembled the Fes, or triennial convention of kings, 
 priests, and bards, at Tarah, in Meath. — Keating writes 
 that the object of this convention was to introduce cder, 
 and to punish and suppress those crimes which gener- 
 ally predominate in a period of rudeness and violence. 
 Ollam Fodla, the m.onarch so celebrated in Irish annals, was 
 succeeded by Kimbath and iiugony; both made great ad- 
 vances in the work of reformation. There were in Ireland 
 five provincial dynasties, and Hugony, to break the power 
 of those rivals, divided the country into twenty-five dy- 
 nasties. This arrangement did not long exist ; the pen- 
 tarchy was again restored, and subsequent to this event, 
 the celebrated code or body of laws, called the Celestial 
 Decisions were drawn up by the Irish bards, or Filias, who 
 . were in those ages the dispensers and depositories of the 
 laws. The tranquillity expected to follow from the 
 promulgation of this celebrated code of laws did not take 
 place; and the distraction of the country became so ex- 
 treme, that an Irish chieftain * encouraged Agricola to 
 make a descent on Ireland. The invitation was not ac- 
 cepted, and the Irish historian records with triumph, 
 that the Irish monarch of that day, not only was able 
 to repel any foreign invader, but actually sailed to the 
 assistance of the Picts auainst the Romans, and return- 
 ed laden with treasure. On the death of this monarch, 
 whose name was Crimthan, Tuathal succeeded, a prince 
 of the Milesian line; the latter separated Meath from 
 the other provinces of Ireland, and appointed it the 
 special appendage of the monarch : he revived the famous 
 assembly at Taltion in Meath, the great res»)rt of the 
 whole nation. The peace of Tuathal's reign was inter- 
 
15 
 
 rupted by a domestic affliction, which was afterwards the 
 source of" national sorrow and distraction. The provincial 
 king of Leinster was married to the daughter of Tuath'al, 
 but conceiving an adulterous passion for her sister, pre- 
 tended his wife had died. He demanded and obtained 
 her sister in marriage; the two ladies met in the royal, 
 house of Leinster: the Irish monarch invaded his son- 
 in-law, and the province of Leinster was obliged to pay 
 a tribute, as a perpetual memorial of Tuatlial's resent- 
 ment. This tribute was resisted ; and Con, one of 
 the most famous of the Irish monarchs, (called Con 
 of the Hundred Battles,) was slain in his struggles to en- 
 force so odious an exaction. 
 
 Cormac-O'Con, grand-son of this king, is celebrated by 
 historians as the most renowned of all the Irish monarchs.* 
 The magnificence and splendor of his court, his warlike 
 sons, the number of his generals, his powerful army, their 
 illustrious leader, Finn, the father of Ossian the immortal 
 bard; the terror of his arms in war, and the mildness of 
 his philosophy in solitude, were equally the theme of uni- 
 versal praise. This distinguished prince is said to have 
 reigned about 254 years after Christ. Cormac-O'Con was 
 succeeded by his son Carbray Liffecar, who inherited the 
 wisdom as well as the power of his father. Such was the 
 fury and the fanaticism of faction, that this monarch with 
 his immediate successors died by the sword in the field, or 
 by treachery in the palace. Crimthan, who carried his 
 
 * The days of Cormac were those of the greatest glorj' ; in his time 
 most of the utensils of the court were vi pure gold or silver; when he 
 dined in state he was waited upon bv the most distinguished gentlemen 
 of the kingdom, besides 1000 men to guard his palace; on his side-board 
 were 150 cups of massy gola and silver. We may form some idea of the 
 munificence truly royal, which prevailed at Tara, from the annual con- 
 sumpfion of the provincial palace of Brian Boru ; 2670 beeves, 1370 
 hogs, 365 pipes of red, and 150 hogsheads of othei vine. Such aie the 
 relations of Irish annalijts, from Stanihurst and Keating, to O'Connor 
 .and O'Halloran. 
 
16 
 
 arms into Gaul, and Nial of the Nine Hostages, fell vic- 
 tims to the assassin. To Dathy, the last of the pagan 
 monarchs, annalists assign a long and peaceful reign ; it is 
 written that he was killed by lightning at the foot of the 
 Alps. 
 
 Tlie period above described was marked with all those 
 strong and leading features of the human character, which 
 for the most part distinguish the progress of society in 
 other European settlements. Here are to be found a grand 
 display of all the noble passions of our nature, undaunted 
 valour, the most generous eifusions of benevolence and hos- 
 pitality, great disinterestedness and an insatiable ambition 
 of fame and glory; on the other hand will be seen exam- 
 ples of im} Aacable resentment, of desperate and vindictive 
 cnielty. To poetry and music* the ancient Irish were 
 peculiarly devoted; to the influence of the bardf every 
 other power gave way, and to be made mention of in the 
 poet's song was to the Irish hero sufficient compensation for 
 all his toils and the most consoling soothing of all his sor- 
 ' rows. Tlie ministers of religion were accounted more than 
 human. To the druid was submitted all their differences, 
 and from him there was no appeal. He was the oracle c* 
 Irish law and the grand dispenser of public justice. Thus 
 do we see that the^ancient Irish were not msensible to the 
 value of settled laws, and that while the annalists of other 
 countries have to describe the savage conflicts of the various 
 clans into which their countrymen were perpetually divided, 
 the Irish historian has to record the solemn and venerated 
 decisions of the druids, before whom the sword of the 
 
 * Giraldus Cambrensis, who would conceal the flattering testimony 
 if he could, is obliged to acknowledge the musical genius of our country: 
 " In musicis solum, p:oe-omni natione quam videmus, incomparaDJiiter est 
 instructa gens hjec". 
 
 f The controversies of the ancient Irish were generally determined by 
 thi; Brehons. I'he Brehon seated himself in the open air on a heap of 
 »tones, and his decree was £aal. King John aboliiihed the Brehon laws of 
 
17 
 
 warrior and the vengeance of the chieftain boAvod with de- 
 ferential homage. Such was the state of Ireland previous 
 to the introduction of Christianity. From this period we 
 may trace its history with more certainty, less clouded 
 with Ico-endary or poetical fiction. The adversaries of Irish 
 antiquity endeavour to prove that St. Patrick, the great 
 apostle of Christianity in Ireland, was the first to dispel 
 the mists of ignorance and barbarity, and that he abolished 
 the order of druidism so ancient, so venerated and so 
 powerful. On the other hand, the advocates for the old 
 Irish character, contend that the Irish were prepared by 
 their learned men to receive the divine and benevolent 
 doctrines of Christ,* and that they transcribed the scriptures 
 and liturgies given to them by the Irish apostle with the 
 greatest facility. It is however to be admitted, that many 
 instances of revenge and barbarity are exhibited alter the 
 introduction of Christianity, and that the divine morality 
 of the f Christian doctrine did not entirely succeed in era- 
 Ireland. The Brehons were all of one family, v,'iihout any knowledj^e 
 of civil or canon law. 1 hey only retain in memory certain decisions, 
 which by use or length ot time obtained force, and by their construction 
 of those they framed a sort of art, which they by no means suffered to 
 be published, but reserved to themselves as abstruse and recondite mys- 
 teries, concealed from common comprehension. S ich is the account of 
 those celebrated tribunals given by Archbir.hop Uoher, Sir James Ware, 
 Sir Ricliard Cox, Stanihurst, Spencer and Davis. 
 
 • The year 432 commcces a new jera. A revolution in religion and 
 the introduction of Latin letters into Ireland by St. Pntrick, after whom 
 a sutceision of pious and learned men arose, who gave celebrity to their 
 country for the four following centuries, during which ])olite and solid 
 literature languished in almost everv other corner of Europe. After 
 Rome had again and again been plundered by the Goths, they ceased, it 
 is said, to speak I>atin in Rome itself. 
 
 + Dr. Campbell, in his learned and enlightened S.rictures on the Ecclesi- 
 astical and Literary History of lr<?!and, makes the following observations 
 on the labours of the Irish Apostle : "Full thirty years did St. Patrick 
 employ in the most active and exemplarv discharge of his ministry, in- 
 structing the Irish people in the principles of piety and virtue, beginning 
 as he did with the elements of knowledge, pointing to the fii st author as 
 the moral governor of the universe, opening by degrees the mysteries of 
 providence in the gracious scheme of rcdempti( n, imitating in this the 
 procedure of divine wisdom which at different periods, was pleased ro 
 give different revelations, of his will to frail and f.iUible man, letting iiv 
 the rays of illumination by litlit and little, lest hke weak eyes they should 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 dicating the old vicious habits of the countiy. The monks 
 multiplied to a great extent, and became the arbiters of the 
 people. The monks (says Mr. O'Connor of Ballenagar) 
 fixed their habitations in deserts, which they cuUivated 
 with their own hands, and rendered the most delightful 
 s})ots. These deserts became well policed cities, and it is 
 remarkable enough, that to the monks we owe so useUd 
 an institution in Ireland as bringing great numbers into one 
 civil community. In those cities the monks set up schools, 
 in which they educated youth, not only of the island, but the 
 neiffhbourinof nations. So writes the venerable Bede : his 
 testimony cannot be contradicted by the enemies of Ireland, 
 that the inhabitants of all parts of Europe resorted to Ire- 
 land as the mother of the arts and sciences, the nurse of 
 learning, and the great encoiirager of the most liberal and 
 philanthropic principles. The darkness of Europe at this 
 period gave increased celebrity to the fame of Irish litera- 
 ture; and the seven thousand students in the seminary of 
 Armagh alone, circulated through the civilized v/orld the 
 literary gk>ry of our illustrious ancestors. Europe with 
 gratitude confessed the superior knowledge, the piety, and 
 zeal and pui'ity of the Island of Saints. Mr. O'Connor (a 
 
 be dazzled by the splendour of too grr^at a blaze, till at length when th? 
 fulness of time was come, he sent th.at great light which was finally to 
 irriidiate every corner of the earth, the author and finisher of our faith, 
 who delivered the glad tidings of our salvation, love to God, good will to 
 man, withont distiction of nation or respect of persons, teaching what 
 philosophy could never teach, that denying our ungodliness and our 
 worldly lusta. we shorld live soberly and righteously in this present world, 
 to entitle us to another and a better when the world shall pass away and 
 (ime ar.d place shall he no more. This excellent personage being now 
 feinety years old, committed the Care of those churches he founded to the 
 pastors which he had set over tbem, and dedicated the remainder of his 
 life to contemplation in dillerent convents.— The entire virtues of a life 
 already protracted beyond the ordinary limits, and now continued in the 
 pious discharge of monastic functions, could not fail of attracting to this 
 Mrenerated patron a sovereign influence over the minds of his converts, 
 and therefore v/e may believe what is recorded of him, that he was ena- 
 bled to make a temporal provision for the ministers of that religion he 
 had planted, by olnaining from several chieftains endowments of lands, and 
 irom the people grants of the tithes of their corn and cattle." 
 
19 
 
 name dear to the honor of our country) write?, that nu 
 essential alterations were attempted by the first Christian 
 missionaries ; because they thought that schemes of political 
 legislation belonged properly to tlie civil power alone. A 
 new code of laws was framed and pubUshed by St. Patrick 
 in the fifth century, in conjunction with the most celebra- 
 ted hards and ecclesiastics of that period. This code was 
 denominated Seanchds Moer, or the great antiquity. Some 
 writers (as Sir John Davis and Sir Richard,, Cox) assert 
 that the old Irish never had any settled jurisprudence 
 among th«m, or any written laws ; that the judgments of 
 their Brehon or judge were arbitrary and decisive, and that 
 he regulated his opinions more by the uncertain guides of 
 tradition, than the settled and confii*med rules of authenti- 
 cated records. On tlie other hand, Joseiine, Saint Ber- 
 nard, Cambrensis Eversus (authorities of more credit) conr 
 tend that several collections of laws existed in their own 
 days. Roddy, a celebrated Irish antiquarian, removed 
 the doubts of Sir Richard Cox, by showing him some ol4 
 Irish law books. 
 
 /■ 
 Of the ancient manners of the Irish it is impossible to 
 give such an account as the mind can rest upon with satis- 
 faction. Credulity and scepticism so balance the scales, 
 that the historian who means to be impartial, should (h-aw 
 a middle line ; ahd it is no small gratification to reflect, 
 that notwithstanding the ardour and enthusiasm with vvhich 
 the advocates of the Irish character relate the achievements 
 of their countrymenj the wisdom of their laws and regular 
 tions, die mildness and paternal tenderness of their governs 
 ment, that much more is to be found worthy of our admira- 
 tion than the enemies of Ireland are willing to acknowledge, 
 and that the manners of the ancient Irish were neither o- 
 dious nor disgusting, nor Ijarbarous, as the great historian of 
 England has industriously represented — thus sacrificing tlie 
 
so 
 
 character, and pride, and honour of Ireland, to the malignant 
 jealousy and envy of his adopted country. 
 
 According to the old Irish records, called the book of 
 tributes, the obligations of the monarch and his subjects 
 were reciprocal; each had their rights defined, and each 
 lived in }:erpetual and watchful jealousy of the other. The 
 dignity of the monarch was supported by tributes paid by 
 interior princes ; the with holding of those tributes was 
 often a source of war and convulsion, and each provincial 
 king was interested in supporting the rights of the mon- 
 arch under whom he derived ail his power. 
 
 The power and government of each provincial king wera 
 exactly similar to that of the monarch; his successor or 
 tainist was elected in his life-time ; he also received tributes 
 from inferior chieftains, paid for their services, and was 
 entertained by them in his visitations and attendances on 
 his wars. The same system of controul and of service was 
 carried on through all ranks of society. Throughout Ireland 
 the tenure of lands determined with the hfe of the possessor ; 
 hence the cultivation of ground vvas only in proportion to 
 the immediate demands of nature, and the tributes to be 
 paid to superiors. Among the ancient Irish, hospitality 
 was considered a duty — it was enjoined by law; and no fa- 
 mily, was suffered to leave their abode without due noticcj 
 lest the traveller should be disappointed of his expected re- 
 ception. The duties to be .performed by the subject, and 
 the protection to be afforded by the king, were reciprocal ; 
 they were regulated by law; the laird could exact his pen- 
 alties, or his taxes, under the denomination of Coshierincrs '* 
 and Bonnaught, and Cuddies, names denoting particular 
 
 * Coshiering was free quarters for the chieftain himself— Bonnaught 
 was free qaai ters for his soldiers — Cuddy was a supper and lodgiug^, which 
 
«1 
 
 wiocles of provision for the tempoi-ary support of himself and 
 his attendants ; and which, under the odious titles of coin 
 and livery, were so severely condemned, and so violently 
 resisted. The laws of the old Irish provided against mur- 
 der, rape, adultery, theft, robbery; but the })unisliment 
 inllicted lor the perpetration of the most odious crime, with 
 the exception of murder, which was punished with death, 
 was no more than the imposition of a pecuniary penalty or 
 eric, which was generally to be paid to the relations of tlie 
 party injured. Some opinion of the extreme lenity of the 
 old Irish penal code may be deduced from this example, 
 nor are we to wonder that a people who manifested such 
 anxiety to proportion the punishment to the offence as they 
 always did, should be considered by Sir John Davis the 
 greatest lovers of equal and injpartial justice. 
 
 From the invasion of the English may be dated the de- 
 cline of that moral and honest jirinciple which seems to 
 have regulated the old Irish in the performance of their 
 duties to their sovereign and to each other. With regard 
 to their dress it is minutely and accurately described by 
 Irish authors.* The vest, the trouse, the mantle, the 
 enormous linen sleeves dyed with saffron, (the men gen- 
 erally assuming a warlike aspect,) their thick beards and 
 great whiskers, their bushy hair hanging over their v.his- 
 kers, gave thorn a fierce and formidable appearance. 
 Their customs were as remarkable as their dress. The 
 custom of fosteragef particularly has excited the curiosity 
 
 a chief had a right to demawd, net only from his subjects, but from his 
 Cijuals. There were other imposts for dogs and horses. 
 
 * It is a remarkable fact, that linen was so plenty amonjrst the ancient 
 Irish, that even in the reign of Henry the Eighth, an :ict pa«e ■, prouibii- 
 ing them putting more than seven yards of huen in a shirt or sliit. 
 
 Slut. 28//i, JJc.;rjf m. 
 
 ■(■ Stanihurst says, on the custom of fosterage, " You c .ni,ot ti;uj one 
 instance of perfidy, deceit, or treachery among fosterers; nay, tiit-y are 
 ready to expose themselves to all manner of dangers for the i-atety of 
 those who sucked their mothers milk, You may beat them to muminy, 
 
22 
 
 of the antiquarian. The Brehon laws seem to intimate 
 that fostering was the occupation of those whose inferior 
 condition rendered them incapable of doing other services 
 to the public. Irish writers state that children were 
 given from different families to be nursed and bred up 
 in others, and that inferiors thus purchased the honor 
 of fostering the children of the rich. Ihus, say they, 
 a stricter connection was formed between different fami- 
 lies and different tribes. The fragments of the Brehon 
 law, however, contradict this statement. In those laws 
 it is laid down, that wages shall be given to fosterers, in 
 proportion to the time that children continue under their 
 care, and the instruction they have received. The youth 
 in fosterage was instructed in the management of cattle, 
 in husbandry and tillage ; and thus an affection and attachr 
 ment were created between the instructor and the instruct- 
 ed, which seemed to emulate the attachments of the closest 
 affinity. Thus it appears, that the laws, and manners, 
 and customs of the old Irish, do not merit the idle and abr- 
 surd denunciations, which ignorant malignity has so often 
 pronounced against them. That the rights of Irishmen 
 were accurately defined by their laws, their pro})erties and 
 liberties protected by an impartial administration of jus-^ 
 tice ; that they had their legislative assemblies, their judges, 
 and their clergy, all equally venerated and looked up to 
 by the people; that the noblest sentiments of the heart 
 were cultivated and cherished, and that the Irishman con- 
 sidered his country, when compared with the surrounding 
 world, as the envied land of justice and learning — her 
 bards contributing the efforts of their genius to render her 
 immortal, while the first characters in Europe, with 
 
 you may put them upon the rack, you may burn them on a gridiron, 
 you may expose them to the most exquisite torture that the cruellest ty- 
 rant can invent, yet you will never remove them from that innate fidelity 
 •which is grafted in them — you will never induce them to betray thcit 
 duty. 
 
2S 
 
 Charlemagne* at their head, were paying homage to her 
 superiority in letters, and to her valour in the field. 
 
 Of the invasions of Ireland which took place previous 
 to the invasion of the English monarch, the first was that 
 of Eofred, the king of Northumberland, who made a 
 descent on Ireland in the year 684-, as we are informed by 
 Bede, who laments with a kind and benevolent heart the 
 misery and devastation suffered by a people who were most 
 friendly to the English nation. Perhaps for this reason^ 
 Henry and his successors visited the beautiful and fertile 
 plains of Ireland with misery and desolation. Soon after, 
 this country was invaded by the Danes and Norwegians; 
 their expeditions commenced about the eighth centurj'. 
 About this period the monarchy of Ireland was enjoyed 
 in altej iiate succession by the two branches of the Hy-Nial 
 race, the northern house of Tyrone, and the southern, or 
 Clan-Colman, seated in Meath. The power of the mo- 
 narch was limited, but the people were happy, and the 
 country respected by surrounding ^flowers. In the space 
 of twenty years, frequent invasions of these northern 
 hordes took place, each of which harassed the country, 
 and at length succeeded in establishing some small set- 
 tlements in various parts. In S25, Turgesius, a warlike 
 
 • It is universally admitted, that in ea'Iy times Ireland was the great 
 mart of literature in Europe. ISpencer contends that the Irish had the 
 use of letters long before England, and that Oswald, a Saxon king, ap- 
 plied to Ireland for learned men to instruct his people in the principles of 
 Chrisiianitv. Camden says it abounded with men of genius and erudition, 
 when learning was trampled on in every other quarter of the globe. Irish 
 monks were the founders of the must celebrated abbeys and monasteries 
 in France, Italy, Switzerland, England. The vounger Scaliger writes 
 that 200 years before the age of Charlemagne, all the learned were of 
 Ireland. The great Alfred brought professors from this seat of science, 
 to his college of Oxford. Mr. Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall of the 
 Roman Empire, superciliously remarks, on the ancient literary fame of 
 Ireland, " A people" he writes, " dissatisfied with their present condi- 
 tion, grasp at any vision of the past or future glory," — thus does thi* 
 luminous historian draw his pen across the successful labours of our Irish 
 antiquariant. 
 
24 
 
 Norwegian, landett with a powerful armament, pillaged 
 and devastated the country, and seated himself at Armagh, 
 from which he expelled the clergy, and confiscated their 
 property. The Irish, after some resistance, submitted to 
 the conquerors, and the northern leader, after a residence 
 of thirty years, was proclaimed monarch of Ireland. 
 
 Historians describe the barbarities of the Norwegians 
 in the most affecting and pathetic colours; their insolence 
 and oppression, tlieir destruction of every monument of 
 learning, their profane havoc of the most sacred records, 
 the overthrow of the most renowned seminaries and rei- 
 lioious houses. Such scenes at length awoke the slumber- 
 ing spirit of Irishmen, and the Danes were annihilated by 
 a sudden and simultaneous insurrection of the people. 
 New colonies came from the north of Europe, and settled 
 in the cities of Dublin, Waterford, Limerick, and other 
 principal towns. Being a tradmg and industrious race of 
 people, they were suifered to remain unmolested, until 
 large reinforcements oc" their countrj'men made them once 
 more formidable to Ireland. 
 
 The most vigorous and dreadful opponent which the 
 northern foreigners ever experienced, w^as the illustrious 
 and renowned Brian Boromy, or Brian Boreu. He was 
 king of Munster, and was called to the throne by the u- 
 nanimous voice of his admiring countrymen ; he defeated 
 the Danes and Norwegians in many pitched battles, ancj 
 roused his countrymen to one universal exertion; his va- 
 lour threw the king of Ireland into the shade; Malachy 
 was deposed, and Brian Boreu was declared sovereign of 
 his country. Under his parental reign the wounds of Ire- 
 land began to heal; churches and seminaries rose from 
 their ruins, lands were cultivated, confidence restored, 
 laws administered and strongly enforced; and while this 
 patriot king was completing his great work of regenerating 
 
25 
 
 liis native land, he was again invadeil by tlie Danes, 
 with whom he fouglit the celebrated battle at Clontarf, 
 which, it is supposed, struck at the root of the Danish 
 power in Ireland. The old king numbered his eighty- 
 eighth year ; he witnessed the fall of his beloved son in 
 this great conflict with the Danes, and it is supposed 
 that the king himself fell a victim to the dagger of 
 an assassin from the camp of the enemy. 
 
 The deposed Malachy was again called to the throne, 
 and after several battles, totally extinguished the power of 
 the Danes in Ireland. The succession being interrupted 
 by the election of Brian Boreu, the Irish nation v»as invol- 
 ved in the most melancholy scenes of anarchy and distrac- 
 tion, by the struggles of competitors for the Irish throne. 
 The son of Brian disputed the crown with various success. 
 At leniith the nephew of the Irish monarch was proclaimed 
 king of Ireland. 
 
 The laws and the religion of the country were silenced 
 and trampled on, among the clamours of faction and the 
 tumult of arms ; and Bernard, the monk, paints those 
 times as the most calamitous in the history of ancient Ire- 
 land. Convulsed aud weakened by internal ft'uds and 
 animosities, Ireland was an easy prey to the first invader 
 who descended on her shores. — Magnus, the king of Nor- 
 way, made the experiment, and in the full confidence of 
 victory, rushed into the heart of the country, without 
 caution or vigilance. The Irish, whose native securities 
 enabled them to take advantage of the precipitate conduct 
 of the king of Norway, darted unexpectedly from their 
 retreats and fastnesses, and cut the invading army to 
 pieces. Factions still continued to mangle and debilitate 
 the Irish people; and it would appear as if Providence 
 had ordered that Ireland should be prepared, by the 
 follies of her ov.n sons, for that invasion which the Eng- 
 lish nation soon after ellected. 
 
 D 
 
TiiE 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, 
 
 Invasion of Hemy IL 
 
 ron a length of time previous to the invasion of Ireland 
 by Henry II. this country might have fallen an easy prey 
 to the ambition of any foreign prince inclined to make the 
 experiment. Torn and convulsed by faction, she would 
 have been unable to stru'gele with the well res;ulated ex- 
 cursions of an invading enemy, and the errors of her 
 children might have been the successfid allies of Denmark, 
 of Norway, of Sweden, or of England. But all these 
 countries were too much occiqiied by more important in- 
 terests, to allovv^ them the opportunity of taking advan- 
 uige of Ireland's follies and divisions. The mind and 
 passions of £lurope were carried down the torrent of re- 
 ligious fanaticism, and the wealth and enterprise of its 
 principal kingdoms found ample employment in the wild 
 
27 
 
 and unproductive strugi^les for the recovery of the IIolj 
 Land. The strength, the resources, and value of Ireland, 
 were not, however, unknown or overlooked by the gov- 
 ernments of surrounding nations: her people were cele- 
 brated for their valour, their hospitality, and their hero- 
 ism ; the English and the Welsh have fled for succour and 
 protection to Ireland, and the three sons of Harold found 
 a safe and hospitable asyluni in this country, when pursued 
 by the triumphant arms of WiUiam the Conqueror. Aa 
 Irish army contended on English ground for the rights of 
 Englishmen, against the merciless and despotic ambition 
 of William ; and we are informed by Irish annalists, that 
 Murtough, the Irish monarch, was solicited by the earl 
 of Pembroke to defend liim against the vengeance of 
 Henry I. France assiduously courted Irish alliance; 
 and the formidable co-operation of this country with 
 the enemy of England, first pointed out to Henry IL 
 the policy of annexing Ireland to his English do- 
 minions. 
 
 Various pretexts were assigned by the English monarch, 
 to justify the invasion of a country, which might be either 
 a perpetual source of strength or of Vv'eakness, which might 
 be the bulwark of England, or its most formidable enemy ; 
 and possessed of the wealth and resources with whicn it was 
 known to abound, would be ever an object of jealousy 
 and rivalshjp to the wealth and the industry of Enghsh- 
 men, and of respect and regard to foreigners. We are 
 not to wonder, theretbre, that every artifice which power 
 and talents could suggest, or which the superstition of the 
 times would countenance and encourage, should have been 
 practised by Henry, to justify the violence of his proceed- 
 ings against a brave and unoffending nation. We accord- 
 ingly find that pope Adrian was prevailed on by the solici- 
 tation of the English monarch to grant a bull, investing 
 Henry with full power and authority to invade the king* 
 
2S 
 
 dom of Ireland, arid that, in the language of this so- 
 lemn instrument issued by his holiness, " Henry IL 
 should enter the kingdom of Ireland, with the pious pur- 
 pose of extending the borders of the church, restraining 
 the progress of vice, correcting the manners of its inhabi- 
 tants, and increasing the influence of religion ; and that in 
 consideration for this power so vested in the English mon- 
 arch, the annual pension of one penny for every house, be 
 levied and delivered over to the service of St. Peter." This 
 bull, with a ring, the token of investiture, was presented 
 to Henry, as rightful sovereign of Ireland. 
 
 Such is the ground of Henry's justification for the inva- 
 sion of this coilntry ; and such is the flimsy covering which 
 interested historians throw over the spirit of usurpation iind 
 ambition, that first urged the English nation to trample 
 upon the liberties of Ireland, and by fraud and violence to 
 desolate a country, illustrious for its kindness and its hos- 
 pitality, its sincerity and honor: possessed of qualities 
 which would have made her a useful and powerful ally, 
 and which afterwards became the fruitful source of bitter- 
 ness and disaster to Englishmen. 
 
 It is recorded, that about the period of the English in- 
 vasion, ccrtahi ceremonies and points of discipline of the 
 Irish church were first assiwiilated to those of Rome ; that 
 cardinal Paparon was delegated by the pope to new model 
 the ecclesiastical constitution of Ireland, for which purpose, 
 Irish annalists state, that he assembled three thousand cler- 
 gymen, regular and secular, in the town of Drogheda, 
 about the year 1152; tliat at this period the discipline of 
 Rome was universally established, and the spiritual pre- 
 eminence of the pope formally recognised. The prepara- 
 tions of Plenry for the invasion were interrupted by the 
 insurrections of liis brother Geoffry in the province of An- 
 jou ; — his invasion of Wales, and his contests with Becket 
 
29 
 
 and the church, kept him in a continued state of agitation, 
 and suspended the tate of Ireland for a considerable time. 
 The circumstances of this country were peculiarly well cal- 
 culated to encourage the speculations of a king, whose force 
 was undivided and entire, whose power was uncontrouled, 
 and whose genius was equal to the magnitude of the under- 
 taking. Ireland was then governed by a monarch, the 
 tenure of whose government depended for the most part oa 
 liis personal valour and abilities : perpetually harassed by 
 Actions, and opposed by powerful rivals ; liis subjects fi'e- 
 quently disputing the extent of his powers, the rights of 
 his sovereignty, and taking up or laying down their anns 
 according to the caprice of the hour, or the influence of 
 foction. For example : — of Ulster, the family of Hy-Nial 
 were the hereditary sovereigns ; of Munster, the descend- 
 ants of the illustrious O'Brien ; of Connauglit, the family 
 of O'Connor : and Leinster gave the title of royalty to Der- 
 mod M*JVIurchad, a prince handed down to posterity by 
 Irish annalists in the most odious and contemptible ccluurs. 
 
 The rival monarchs of Ireland were, O'Connor, king of 
 Connaught, and Hy-Nial, king of Ulster. The ibrmer, 
 in conjunction with Dermod, king of Leinster, overrun 
 the territories of O'Rourk, the prince of Breliiiey or Lei- 
 trim; and seduced O'Rourk's wife, wdiose nauie was De- 
 verghall. This outrage was the fruitful parent of that long 
 series of misery experienced by Ireland for centuries after. 
 O'Rourk succeeds in his efforts to separate O'Connor from 
 his alliance with the king of Leinster, and aided by the 
 arms of tiie western monarch, recovers his wife from the 
 adulterer. Roderic O'Connor succeeded to the throne of his 
 father, Turlogh O'Connor. This prince proceeded to 
 Dublin, immediately after his father's death, and was there 
 solemnly inaugurated. He then marched to the north, 
 and was^ received by the chieftains of Ulster wiih every 
 mark of ^e most respectful submission. Dermod fled be- 
 
^^0 
 
 fore the united forces of Roderic and O'Rourk, whose 
 honor he had abused ; and his subjects unanimously deposed 
 him as unworthy to be tlicir king. Roderic, in his progress 
 through the country, appeared in all the pom}) and pride 
 of majesty, acknowledged by all as their rightful and be- 
 loved sovereign. He held a magnificent convention of the 
 states at Meath, where the honors and magnificence of his 
 country were revived with all their ancient glory ; and in- 
 dependent and imperial Ireland, which had been rudely as^ 
 sailed by factions, seemed once more to raise her head un- 
 der the guidance of a monarch whose courage and whose 
 talents were the boast and admiration of his countrymen. 
 Dermod, deserted by his people, an object of detestation 
 and conten\pt, prompted by the indignant feelings of in- 
 sulted and fallen pride, threw himself into the arms of Eng- 
 land, as the last and only refuge he could find from the per,- 
 secution of his malignant fortunes. He embarked for 
 England with sixty of his most trusty followers, where he 
 was received with unbounded hospitaUty. Henry, the 
 English monarch, was at this time endeavouring to suppress 
 the insurrection of 1ms subjects in his French dominions. 
 Dermod innnediately repaired to Henry, and laid at his 
 feet the story of his misfortunes and persecutions in his na- 
 tive country. He implored the aid of the British king, 
 and, if supt)ortetl by his arms in the assertion of hisundovibt- 
 ed rights, promised to hold his recovered dominions in 
 vassalage to Henry and his heirs. 
 
 The insurrection of Henry's French subjects, the ob- 
 stinate rebellion of his brother Gcoffry, and the more ob- 
 stinatc resistance of bishop Becket, prevented Henry go- 
 ing in person to vindicate the cause, and assert the rights 
 of the exiled Irish king; but he gave a license to such of 
 liis English subjects as were disposed to aid Dermod in the 
 recovery of his rights. Dermod returned to England, full 
 of hope and confidence. He was joined by earl Pern- 
 
31 
 
 broke and Robert Fitzstephen, both Webli nobleinert, 
 and celebrated in their own country as men of hi<'h spirit 
 and s})lendid achievements. To these adventurers Der- 
 mod promised the entire dominion of the town of Wex- 
 ford, with a large adjoining territory, as soon as by tlieir 
 assistance he should be reinstated in his riolits. After 
 Dermod had concluded this treaty with these Welsh adven- 
 turers, he proceeded to Ireland to inform liis friends that 
 he was about to be supported by a powerful foreign alliance. 
 He landed at Wexford, where lie lay concealed in a 
 monastery, until the returning spring brought round the 
 period at which the arrival and co-operation of the Eno^. 
 lish allies were expected. Roderic, king of Ireland, hear- 
 ing of the arrival of Dermod, immediately marched a- 
 gainst the latter, and forced him to fly for sh'elter to die 
 woods. Dermod, sensible of his inability to wa^-e so ui^ 
 equal a war with Roderic, submitted to the Irish monarch, 
 and gave hostages for his future peaceable and loyal con- 
 duct. Roderic agreed to the terms of submission, and a- 
 gain reposed confidence in his fidelity. These pled<>-es of 
 peace had not long been given by Dermod to Roderic, 
 when his English allies appeared on the coast of Wexford, 
 Robert Fitzstephen, with thirty ' kiiights, sixty men in 
 armour, and three hundred archers, all chosen men of 
 Wales, arrived in Ireland in the year 1170. — The army 
 was reinforced with ten, knights, and two hundred archers, 
 under the command of Maurice ap Pendergast, the valiant 
 W^elshman. The report of this formidable invasion, (for- 
 midable when we consider the divisions of Ireland,) liad 
 no sooner circulated through the neighbouring counties, 
 than the old subjects of Dermod conceived it expedient to 
 resume their allegiance, and to crowd round his standard, 
 with all the ardor of the most zealous loyaltj'. The com- 
 bined forces marched to Wexford, and the Irish and Ost- 
 men, who then governed the town, marched out to meet 
 the enemy. The Irish army were compelled to return to 
 
32 
 
 the town, and the enemy, encouraged by this temporary 
 success, pursued them to the gates of the city. The Irish 
 turned upon their pursuers, and drove back the enemy 
 with considerable loss. At length the clergy of the garri- 
 son interposed their mediation between the besieged and 
 besiegers, and Wexfcrd was given up to Derniod, and 
 earl Pembroke, who was immediately invested with the 
 lordship of the city and domain. Harvy of Mounlmauri? 
 was also head of two considerable districts^ on -the coast 
 between Wexford and Waterford. Here was settled the 
 first colony of British inhabitants, differing in manners, 
 customs, and language, from the natives, and even to thi^ 
 day preserving that difference in a very remarkable der- 
 grce, notwithstanding the lapse of many ages. Dermod 
 immediately proceeded at the head of his combined forces, 
 amounting to 3000 men, to lay waste the territory of thp 
 prince of Ossory, (a part of Leinster,) which he desolated 
 with fire and swoi'd; and though the Irish armj^ made a most 
 heroic resistance to the invader, the superiority of English 
 discipline and English arms, counterbalanced the advan-p 
 tages which the Irish enjoyed from their superior linow- 
 ledge of tlie country. Had the latter patiently remained 
 in the woods and morasses, where the English cavalry 
 could not act, they would liave wearied the courage, ancj 
 baffled the discipline of the invaders, and perhaps would 
 h.ave preserved the independence of their country. A re- 
 liance on the intrepidity of their soldiers, betrayed them 
 fi'om their native situations into the open plains, where 
 they v.'cre exposed to the superior generalship of the Eng- 
 lish invader. 
 
 English historians have laboured, with malicious in- 
 dustry, to paint the comparative superiority of their 
 countrymen, over the wild and barbarous natives of Ire- 
 land ; and hesitate not to brand with the infamous epithct» 
 of cruel, and savage, and uncultivated, these unoffending 
 
33 
 
 people, whose properties the EngHsh were desolatincr, 
 whose peace they were disturbing, and on the rights and 
 liberties of whose country they were about to trample. 
 
 The vengeance of an unprincipled and exiled Irish mo- 
 narch found refuge in the ambition and avarice of English 
 adventurers; and the miserable and afflicting scenes, which 
 the reader of Iriijh history is doomed to wade through, 
 were acted under the specious and insulting pretext of 
 order, religion, and morality — but to proceed. Dermod 
 succeeded in bringing to subjection the revolted subjects 
 of his government, and prepared to defend himself against 
 the denunciations of the Irish monarch, who now began 
 to be alarmed, at an invasion which he had hitherto view- 
 ed with contempt, and without apprehension. 
 
 The Irish reader contemplates, with a mixture of gratifi- 
 cation and melancholy, the picture of magnificence and 
 grandeur which the preparations of the monarch of Ire- 
 land present to his view, for the invasion of the territories 
 of Dermod, and the expulsion of the English army, who 
 presumed to violate the independence of Ireland. He 
 convened the estates of the nation at Tarah, in Meath. 
 He ordained new laws, raised and regulated new semi-^ 
 naries, distributed splendid donations to the various pro- 
 fessors of learning, and assembled and reviewed the army 
 in presence of the vassal Irish sovereigns, who waited on 
 their monarch. Dermod, deserted by his subjects on the 
 approach of the Irish monarch, fled to his fastnes:^es in 
 Wexford, where he strongly entrenched himself 
 
 Before Roderic unsheathed his sword, he remonstrated 
 with the English leaders on the injustice and cruelty of 
 their invasion ; on the shameful and odious connection 
 they had formed with an adulterer, and traitor to hia 
 country ; and that the war they were about to wage with 
 
 E 
 
34 
 
 tlie Irish, was as impolitic as it was unprincipled; for 
 surely, said the monarch of Ireland, Englishmen cannot 
 suppose that Ireland will surrender her rights to a foreign 
 power, without a dreadful and sanguinary struggle. 
 
 Fitzstephen, the English general, refused to desert his 
 Irish ally, and determined to abide the event of the con- 
 tests Rodcric still hesitated, before he would proceed to 
 force ; and at the moment he could have crushed this in- 
 fant effort of the English, to subjugate his country, he 
 was solicited by the clergy to enter into a treaty with Dcr- 
 mod ; the principal condition of which was, that he should 
 immediately dismiss the British^ with whom again he was 
 never to court an alliance. Soon after this treaty, we find 
 the Englii*li general, Fitzstephen, building a fort at Car- 
 riar, remarkable for the natural strenc-th of its situation. 
 Dcrraod, supported by his English allies, proceeded to 
 Du!)lin, laid waste the territories surrounding that city, 
 with fire and sword. The citizejis laid down their arnis, 
 and supplicated mercy from the cruel; and malignant ene- 
 my. It is the duty of the historian to record, that the in- 
 liabitants of this devoted city found refuge in the mercy 
 ci' the English general, who intei'posed to' allay the fury 
 cf Dermod') venofeance. Derraod was not inattentive to 
 every opportunity ^\'hich afforded him a pretext to violate 
 the treaty, into which force alone obliged him to enter 
 with the Irish monarch. He defended the son-in4aw of 
 i)onixl(l O'Brien, prince of Thomond, against the effort* 
 of Itoderic to reduce him to obedience, and again solicit- 
 ed the aid of his English allies^ to assert the rights of his 
 family, a.gainst the a^ibition and pretensions of the Irish 
 iTiioiiarch. Tlie English generals cheerfully obeyed the 
 ivivitation ; and Iloderic, alarmed by the rumours of tlie 
 forinidabl:/ strength of the allied forces, declined, for the 
 present, to curb the licentiousness of the prince of Tho- 
 
33 
 
 mond, or to dispute the rights of Derraod to the soi'ereign- 
 ty of Leiiister. 
 
 The son of Dermod was then in the power of Roderic, 
 as an hostage for the allegjiance of his father. He threat- 
 ened Dermod with the destruction of his child, if he did 
 not instantly return to his obedience, dismiss his English 
 allies, and cease to harass and disturb his unoffending 
 neighbours. 
 
 Dermod defied the power of Roderic, was careless of the 
 fate of his son, and openly avowed his pretensions to the 
 sovereignty of Ireland. The head of the young Dermod was 
 instantly struck off by order of Roderic. The English 
 continued to spread through the country the wide v/asting 
 calamities of a sanguinary war ; their thirst of blood seem- 
 ed to increase with the number of their victims, and their 
 spirit of destruction with the bountiful productions of na- 
 ture, which covered the country around them. At 
 lenglh the jealousy of the British sovereign awoke, and 
 suspended the fate of this unhappy people; and the mean- 
 est passion of the human mind prompted Henry to take 
 those measures which justice should have .dictated. 
 
 Henry issued his edict, forbidding any future suppHes 
 of men or of arms to be sent to Ireland, and commanding 
 all his subjects there instantly to return. Strongbow im- 
 mediately dispatched Raymond to his sovereign, to en- 
 deavour to allay his jealousy, and to impress his sovereign 
 with the conviction, that whatever they had conquered in 
 Ireland, was conquered fur Ilenry, and that he alone was 
 the rightful possessor of all those territories which had sub- 
 mitted to the arms of Strongbow. Raymond was received 
 with haughtiness and distrust by the English monarch, 
 ' who refused to comply with his solicitations. At this 
 period bishop Becket was murdered ; a circumstance which 
 
S6 
 
 to Henry was a source of bitter affliction. The king of 
 Leinster died, amidst the triumphs of his aUies, despised 
 by the Enghsh, who took advtintage of his treason, and 
 execrated by the Irish as an infamous and unprincipled 
 exile. The death of this prince was immediately followed 
 by an almost total defection of the Irish from the earl 
 Strongbow. The earl was compelled to shut himself 
 up : cut off from supphes, and dejected in spirits,^ he 
 was thus precipitated fi'om the summit of victory, to the 
 lowest gradation of distress. This cheering fact flew 
 dirough Ireland; and the Irish chieftains crowded from 
 all quarters, went from province to province, animatmg 
 the people to one bold and general effort against the com- 
 mon enemy of Irish hberty. 
 
 Laurence, archbishop of Dublin, distinguished himself 
 on this occasion by the zeal and vigour of his patriotism. 
 The sanctity of his character gave weight to his representa- 
 tidns. His appeals to the insulted spirit of Irish indepen- 
 dence were heard with rapture ; and an army, composed of 
 men determined to assert the rights of Ireland, rose up at 
 his call. Dublin was surrounded on all sides, the harbour 
 blocked up, and Strongbow, with an army, which had a 
 few weeks back been desolating the fields of Ireland, was 
 threatened with annihilation by a powerful and indignant 
 monarch. Roderic encamped his troops at Castlenock, 
 westward of Dublin. O'Rourke of Leitrim placed himself 
 north of the harbour, near Clontarf. The lord of O'Kin- 
 selagh occupied the opposite side, while the prince of 1 ho- 
 mond advanced to Kilmainham, within less than a mile 
 from the walls of the metropolis. Even Laurence, the 
 archbishop, appeared in arms, animating his countrymen 
 to the defence of their liberties against the cruel and deso- 
 lating invasion of foreign adventurers. The English army 
 might now have paid the forfeit of the injustice and the 
 cruelty which they practised on the Irish, had the latter 
 
S7 
 
 been animated by one spirit, or directed by one absolute 
 commander. Strongbow took advantage of jealousies and 
 rivjtlships which existed in the Irish army, and driven by 
 the desperation of his circumstances, boldly rushed upon the 
 besieging army, and succeeded in dispersing a force which 
 
 threatened the besieged with annihilation. So confident 
 
 o 
 
 was the Irish monarch of expelling from his country that 
 proud and insolent force which dared to invade its sho'res, 
 that he rejected with disdain the overtures of Stroiigbow, 
 who pro})osed to acknowledge Rodcric as his sovereign, 
 provided the latter would raise the siege. Nothing shoit 
 of Strongbow's departure from Ireland, with all his ibrces, 
 would appease the insulted majesty of Ireland. So humi- 
 liating a condition served but to rouse from despair the 
 brave and intrepid spirit of Strongbow. He made ocs 
 effort more, which succeeded m rescuing himself and his 
 faitliibl followers from the most distressing difficulties. 
 Strongbow immediately proceeded to Wexibrd and V\ ater- 
 ford, and devoted some time at Ferns to the exercise of hia 
 sovereign authority as undisputed king of Leinster. Here 
 he distributed rewards among his friends, and inflicted 
 punishments on the disaffected. Strongbow was at length 
 summoned to appear before the British monarch, who luiv- 
 ing conquered all the difficulties with which he had to com- 
 bat, both from foreign and domestic enemies, was alarmed 
 at the triumphs of his English subjects in Ireland. The 
 earl obeyed. He appeared before his sovereign, and jus- 
 tified his conduct ; :ie surrendered Dublin, with all the 
 maritime forts and towns, to Henry. Strongbow was suf- 
 fered by tlie monarch to retain all his Irish possessions, to 
 be held by the British sovereign and his hens. O'Rourk 
 of Breflhey made a vigorous attack on Dublin, which was 
 bravely defended by Milo de Cogan, one of the boldest 
 and the most intrepid of the English adventurers. O'Kourk 
 lost his son in the attack ; a source of bitter affliction to the 
 Irish army. Those extraordinary successes, by an ai'my 
 
"H'ho were reduced to the greatest extremity, impressed the 
 people of Ireland with dreadful anticipations of that force, 
 which the Endish monarch had determined to march into 
 their country. The artifices adopted by Henry were not 
 less calculated to concihate, than the fame of his arms and 
 his talents were to intimidate. He affected to be incensed 
 at the depredations committed by his English subjects on 
 the unofrcnding people of Ireland, and promised this cre- 
 dulous nation that he would inflict on their oppressors the 
 most exemplary punishment. Such professions induced 
 numbers to proffer their submission to Henry, and to co- 
 operate with this artful monarch in the conquest of their na- 
 tive land. Not less auxiliary to the designs and specula- 
 tions of Henry were the malignant jealousies of the Irish 
 chieftains towards each other. Each seemed to think only 
 for his own ambition, for his own aggrandisement ; all sa- 
 crificed their comnion country to the miserable passions 
 of envy, of jealousy, or of rivalship. Henry, with his 
 accustomed talent, seized the opportunity which Irish folly 
 affordetl him, and determined to invade Ireland, with such 
 a force as would ensui'e an easy conquest of this beautiful 
 and fertile country. He collected a fleet of 240 ships, 
 which conveyed an army consisting of 400 knights and 4000 
 soldiers, headed by Strongbow. > 
 
 William Fitzansdelm, Hugh de Lacy, and Robert 
 Fitzbernard, with this powerful force, arrived in Water- 
 ford, in October, 1 1 72. The fame of this celebrated ex- 
 pedition, the magnitude of the undertaking, the well 
 known talents of its leader, his artful and dexterous nego- 
 tiations with the respective Irish chieftains, the misfortunes 
 which flowed from struggles Vv^ith comparatively petty ad- 
 venturers; — all these circumstances concurred to induce the 
 various Irish chieftains to volunteer in doing homage to the 
 English monarch. The same sentiment seemed to influence 
 the minds of all ; and we are therefore told that Dermod 
 
39 
 
 Mac Carty, prince of Desmond,* resigned the city of Lim- 
 erick to the sovereignty of Henry ; engaging to pay tribute, 
 on condition that lie was to enjoy a certain portion of ter- 
 ritory without any furtlier molestation or restraint. The 
 chiefs of Munster vied with each other in the alacritv of 
 their submissions. Henry returned to Wexford, and sta- 
 tioned garrisons at Cork, Waterford, and Limerick. He 
 tlicn proceeded to Dublin, and in passing through the coun- 
 try, the Irish chieftains of Limerick appeared before the 
 English monarch, and became his tributaries. The raj^id 
 progress of Henry's arms and the defection of the Irish 
 chiefs, from the standard of their lawful monarch, alarmed 
 the Irish king. 
 
 Roderic, though abandoned by those vassal kings, who swore 
 allegiance to hiin, and harassed by the dissentions of his fa- 
 mily, and the factions of his people, would not resign his 
 title to the monarchy of Ireland, without a great and for- 
 midable struggle. He collected his faithful ti'oops, and 
 intrenched himself on the baiiks of the Shannon. Hu^rh 
 de Lacy, and Fitzansdelm, were ordered by Henrj' to re- 
 duce the refractory monarch to subjection. The brave and 
 powerful chiefs of Ulster still remained unsubdued, and 
 Roderic determined to surrender the dignity of his country 
 but with his life. Henry left no arts unpractised to seduce 
 the Irish chieftains from their allegiance. He dazzled the 
 eyes of the people by the splendor of his hospitality ; he de- 
 ceived them by the most concihating expressions of kindness ; 
 he intoxicated the base and degraded Irishman by the mag- 
 nitude of his professions, and consoled the aiflicted and de- 
 
 * Desmond anciently Desoiunham or south Munster, was formerlj/- a 
 country in the province of Munster, but now a part of the counties of 
 Kerry, or Cork. Its ancient kings were the Mac Cartys, hereditary chiefs 
 of Cork. After the arrival of the English, it gave title to a branch of 
 the Fitzgeralds, who were afterwards attainted by queen Elizabeth ; also 
 to sir Richard Preston, Lord Dengwale, in Scotland ; and at present it 
 gives title to the family of Fielding, earl of Denbigh ; in England. 
 
40 
 
 pressed spirits of a subjugated people, by a perpetual round 
 of costly pleasures, of empty though splendid pageantry. 
 Such for 600 years has been the insidious practice of Eng- 
 land towards this devoted country; the hospitality of the 
 viceroy's table, put into the scale against the miserable 
 consequences of a narrow and malignant policy, which, full 
 of jealousy and terror, cramps the industry, corrupts the 
 morals, and encourages the most vicious and unprincipled 
 propensities of our nature. 
 
 It is asserted by English historians, that the Irish clergy 
 pressed forward with peculiar alacrity, to make their sub- 
 mission to Henry ; but for the honor of the Irish clergy, 
 it is very remaikable, that the most celebrated prelate of 
 Ireland at that period, Gelasius, primate of Armagh, re- 
 fused to attend ; or in other words, refused to sanction by 
 his presence the usurpations of Henry. The English mo- 
 narch, it is true, found some ready instruments among the 
 Irish clergy, who prostituted their ministry in the service 
 of tlie invader. They were a small and contemptible mi- 
 nority ; and in the age of Henry II. as well as in subsequent 
 times, the majority of the Irish clei^y could not be seduced 
 by corruption, nor intimidated by terror, into a surrender 
 of their liberties, or the rights of their countrymen. The 
 synod assembled at Cashel, ordered that no marriages 
 should take place within the prohibited degrees of consan- 
 guinity ; it directed that baptism should be publickly admi- 
 nistered, that the youth should be instructed, tythes regu- 
 larly paid, and the land of the clergy exempted from secular 
 exactions. At this synod, Henry did not presume to inno- 
 vate upon the ancient discij^line and usages of the Irish 
 church. The old Irish customs remained untouched, but 
 with regard to the clergy, some mitigation of the heavy 
 penalties imposed on them was recommended and adopted. 
 It appears that Henry never hazarded the experiment of 
 imposing the laws of England on his Irish subject cliieftains. 
 
41 
 
 The latter stipulated to become his vassali, and tribu- 
 taries ; and Henry, on his part, engaged to protect them 
 in the administration of their separate govcrnmen;;s, ac» 
 cording to their own laws and customs.* They governed 
 their people, says Sir John Davis, by the Brehon law, 
 they made their own magistrates, they pardoned find pun- 
 
 • The unwarranted contempt and malignity with which Mr. Hume 
 speaks of the old Irish character, and which he so unphilosophlcally dis- 
 covers in all his observations on the people of this insulted country, can- 
 not but excite the indignation, and wound the pride of every man who 
 has read our ancient history, or who has followed the melancholy relation 
 of Irish suffering. The ancient fame of this beautiful island, in arts as 
 well as in arms, and the cruel devastation which it suffered from those 
 hands that calumniated and slandered the memory of the people v/hom 
 they plundered, are recorded by authors too powerful, and too com- 
 manding of universal credit, to be set aside by a philosophic sneer of 
 contempt, or satirical sarcasm of incredulity, though coming from the 
 pen of so great and so profound an historian as Mr. Hume. On this sub- 
 ject his usual love of truth and justice deserts him ; and we behold with 
 sorrow one of the ablest historians which the world has produced, carried 
 down the stream of inveterate prejudice with the humblest names, who 
 have presumed to defame and falsify, the character c;f the Irish nation. 
 Mr. Hume thus writes of the ancient state of Ireland : 
 *' The Irish, from the beginning of time, had been buried in the most 
 profound barbarism and ignorance j and as they were never conquered, 
 or even invaded by the Romans, from whom all the v/estern world de- 
 rived its civility, they continued still in the most rude state of society, 
 and were distinguished only by those vices to which human nature,' not 
 tamed by education, nor restrained by laws, is for ever subject. The 
 small principalities, into which they were divided, exercised perpetual 
 rapine and violence against each other. The uncertain succession ot their 
 princes was a continual source of domestic convulsions. The usual title 
 of each petty sovereign, was the murder of his predecessor. Courage 
 and force, though exercised in the commission of crimes, were raore 
 honored than any pacific virtues ; and the most simple arts of life, eveu 
 tillage and agriculture, were almost wholly unknown among them. They 
 had felt the invasions of the Danes, and other northern people ; but these 
 inroads, which had spread barbarism in the other northern parts of Eu- 
 rope, tended rather io improve the Irish; and the only towns which 
 were to be found in this island, had been planted alOiig the coast by the 
 freebooters of Norway, and Denmark. The other inhabitants esercised 
 pasturage in the open count^'y^ soiiglit protection from any danger in their 
 forts and morassea, and being divided by the severest animosities against 
 «>ach other, were still more intent on the means of mutual injury, ihan 
 on expeditions for the common, or eveii for private interest." 'I'hus 
 writes Mr. Hume, against the testimony of Bede, Camden, Keating, 
 Usher, O'Connor, and almost every name worthy of our veneration. 
 And thus does the great English historian fling into the shade, the er-ormi-- 
 ties of that power, which was the fruitful paient of all those jealousies 
 and convulsions, that rendered Ireland an easy prey to its insatiable an J 
 consuuiing rapacity. 
 
 F 
 
42 
 
 islied all malefactors within their respective jurisdictions, 
 they made war and peace, without any foreign controul 
 or dictation ; and this they did, not only in the reign of 
 Henry 11. but in all subsequent times, until the reign of 
 EUzabeth. Soon after Henry obtained possession of Dub- 
 lin, he granted it by charter to the inhabitants of Bristol, 
 to be held of him and his heirs, with the same liberties 
 and customs which they enjoj-ed at Bristol. He also di- 
 vided that part of Ireland which was immediately subject 
 to him, or which is generally denominated within the pale, 
 into shires and counties. He appointed sheriffs for coun- 
 ties and cities, with judges itinerant; officers of justice, 
 and of state, and all the appendages of English govern- 
 ment, and English law. He also appointed a chief gov- 
 ernor, who was to exercise the royal authority, in his ab- 
 sence ; and made such regulations as were in his mind cal- 
 culated to perpetuate his authority, and confirm his con- 
 quests. The affairs of England now demanded the atten- 
 tion of Henry ; and the threatened denunciations of the 
 Roman pontiff obliged him to suspend his proceedings a- 
 gainst Ireland, and to return, with all possible expedition, 
 to the protection of his English dominions. Henry was 
 thus compelled to leave the greater part of Ireland unsub- 
 dued; and those parts which submitted to him, were un- 
 der the government of men whose allegiance was ques- 
 tionable, and whose ambition and avarice were insatiable. 
 The west of Ireland, under Roderic, the north, vmder 
 O'Neil, was still unconquered. — Henry settled his confi- 
 dential officers, and gave to each the command of the 
 most principal places which had submitted to him. To 
 Hugh de Lacy, he granted the whole territory of Meath, 
 and made liim governor of Dublin. He commanded forts 
 and castles to be raised in Dublin ; and granted to John 
 de Courcy the entire province of Ulster, provided he could 
 reduce it by force of arms. 
 
43 
 
 Had not the English monarch been thus interrupted in 
 his efforts to reduce the kingdom of Ireland, the latter 
 might have escaped the tedious and lingering torture of 
 protracted warfare. The intriguing talents of Henry 
 would have achieved what the merciles sword of the merce- 
 nary soldier could scarcely effect, and pros{)erity would 
 have been rescued from the afflicting visitations of civil war, 
 flowing from the struggles of the rapacity of a vindictive 
 conqueror, with the indignant bravery of insulted freedom. 
 
 Henry embarked at Wexford, and landed at Pembroke- 
 shire on the feast of Easter 1173. From hence he proceed- 
 ed to Normand}'^, to meet the convention of cardinals there, 
 assembled by the direction and authority of the pope. It 
 is said, the Roman pontiff' Alexander, consented at this 
 convention, to confirm the grant of Ireland by pope Adrian. 
 
 Sir John Davis observes, that Henry left not one true 
 or faithful subject behind him, more than he found when 
 he first landed. A small interval of time elapsed, until the 
 old animosities and jealousies of the Irish chieftains broke 
 out with their accustomed fury, and impatient of the yoke 
 to which they had submitted, manifested a disposition to 
 rebel against the authority, to which they had so lately, 
 and so reluctantly submitted. 
 
 The followers of Henry proceeded, after the departure 
 of their master, to make such regulations, and adopt such 
 measures, as might secure the subjection of the conquered 
 Irish. They parcelled out lands to their most attached 
 English friends, and drove the unoffending natives from 
 the inheritance of their forefathers. Such measures roused 
 the indignation of Roderic the prince of Breffhey* or Lei- 
 
 * Breffney or Breghane, that is, the country of the little hills, called 
 also Hy-re L,eigh, or the district of the country of the king, the chiefs of 
 which were the O'Reillys. The subordinai-t ciistricts of this country 
 
44 
 
 trim. He repaired to Dublin, and insisted upon a confer- 
 ence at Tara. This conference was held ; but as English 
 historians relate, O'Rourk endeavoured insidiously, to en- 
 snare the unwary English general, who had nigh fallen a 
 victim to his confidence in his honor. Here it may be 
 permitted to observe, that the situation of O'Rourk, the 
 Irish chieftain, rendered him more inde])endent of the dis- 
 honourable artifices, with which he is charged, than that 
 of the English viceroy De Lacj'. That the cautions which 
 historians put into the mouths of De Lacy's friends not to 
 trust to the honour of O'Rourkj were only more artfiil 
 modesof concealing the stratagem, which was planned and 
 executed by the English, and that an Irish chieftain from 
 his rank, situation, and condition, would be less likely to 
 , pat into practice the low or the mean artifices of cowardly 
 policy, than those administrations whose diminished forces 
 were now confined to a very small portion of Irish territory, 
 and who would leave no experiment untried by which their 
 objects co\dd be obtained, or their enemy vanquished, 
 O'Rourk fell a victim at this conference, and De Lacy was 
 thus Hberated from one of his most formidable opponents. 
 
 Tlie Irish loudly proclaimed the treachery by whicfe 
 their favourite prince was sacrificed, and vowed the most 
 dreadful vengeance on his destroyers. At this period the 
 English monarch was engaged in endeavouring to suppress 
 the formidable rebellion of his son Henry in Normaixly, 
 The latter was j#ned by the French and Scottish monarchs, 
 and threatened his royal parent with the loss of his foreign 
 dominions. Henry, with that promptitude which always 
 distinguished his character, led a powerful army into France. 
 
 were each governed by their respective chiefs, viz. O'Rourk, O'Brady 
 O'Corry, O'.Shtriuan, Mac Kurnam, and Mac Gauroll, most of whom 
 v.ere in potsessioa of tlieir estates at the beginning of the last century. 
 Breffney is now called ihe county of Cavan, in the province of Ulster, 
 though foimerly it took iu Leitrim, and was divided into east and wess 
 BiffFney, 
 
45 
 
 Strongbow flew from Ireland to the assistance of his mas- 
 ter, and entrusted its government to Raymond le Gross. 
 Strongbow's departure was no sooner made known to the 
 Irish, than their chieftains disavowed their submissions, 
 and boldly hurled defiance against those of the English ad- 
 venturx^rs who presumed to remain in Ireland. The Eng- 
 lish army became mutinous and discontented, and their 
 commanders jealous, and envious of each other. Such 
 difFerences would have been fatal to the English interests 
 in Ireland, were tliey not put an end to by the appoint- 
 ment of Strongbbw to the vice regency of Ireland. The 
 latter, however useful an auxiliary to Henry, in his foreign 
 wars, was again sent to Ireland, to pursue the conquests 
 of the British monarch in that country. Raymond le 
 Gross, being called on by the unanimous voice of the Eng- 
 lish army, was appointed their general. He marched into 
 Offal}'. He overran and ravaged the country, and pro- 
 ceeded to Lismore, where he committed similar depreda- 
 tions. Raymond having performed illustrious military ser- 
 vices, flattered himself that he might, without presumption, 
 seek the sister of the viceroy in marriage. Strongbow re- 
 ceived the overture of Raymond with coldness, and the 
 latter provoked and mortified, retired abruptly into Wales. 
 The command of the English army was immediately con- 
 ferred upon Harvey of jNIountmauris. This general led 
 his army against the insurgents in Meath, but not consi- 
 dering the force he commanded sufiiciently strong, he pre- 
 vailed on the viceroy to lend 400 men to join him. The latter, 
 headed by Strongbow, proceeded on their maixh from Dub- 
 lin, and were overtaken by O'Brien of Thomond, a va- 
 liant and intrepid Irish chieftain, who conceived the design 
 of cutting off' this reinforcement. He suffered them to en- 
 camp in careless security at Thurles, in the county of Tippe- 
 rary, and falling suddenly upon them, he gave them a to- 
 tal overthrow. This memorable defeat was the signal for 
 all the Irish chieftains once more to re-assert theii' indepen- 
 
46 
 
 dence. Strongbow retreated with precipitation to Water- 
 ford. His distresses obliged him to sohcit the services of Ray- 
 mond, who was then in Wales, and who, flattered by such an 
 application and such an unequivocal acknowledgment of his 
 military superiority, immediately embarked for Waterford, 
 with thirty of his relatives, one hundred knisrhts, and three 
 hundred archers. The presence of this celebrated general 
 prevented the massacre of the English who were in that city. 
 Raymond proceeded to Wexford to meet his intended bride 
 Basilica, the sister of the viceroy, to whom he was solemn- 
 ly espoused with all the pomp and magnificence the coun- 
 try could afford. At the moment the nuptial rites were 
 celebrating, the Irish monarch crossed the Shannon, en- 
 tered the territory of Meath, expelled the English, and 
 laid waste their settlements. Raymond le Gross, with 
 Stronobow, arrived in time to check the progress of Ro- 
 deric. He re-established the English settlements in Meath, 
 and rebuilt those forts Avhich the Irish monarch had de- 
 stroyed. The spirit of disaffection was again extinguished 
 throughout the English territories, and Strongbow turned 
 Iiis attention to the affairs of Munster. The prince of 
 Thomond was then in possession of Limerick. Raymond 
 attacked it, and plunging into the Shannon, with singular 
 intrepidity, the soldiers followed him, and carried the city 
 by the terror which such an achievement excited in the 
 Irish army. He enriched his soldiers by plunder, and 
 raised his military -fame still higher than it was at any for- 
 mer period. A new scene now opens to the reader of 
 Irish history, which at cnce excites the pity and contempt 
 of every independent mind. It may conciliate the tender 
 and mild feelings of humanity, but it must raise the indig- 
 nation, and insult the pride of every independent Irish- 
 man, The Irish monarch, fatigued with the repeated ef- 
 forts which he made to restore peace to his country, and 
 depressed by the per|idy of his chieftains, determined at 
 length to submit to Henry, under whom he might be able 
 
47 
 
 \^ 
 
 to hold his sovereignty, and to preserve his people against 
 the afflicting calamities of war. It is almost impossible to 
 look back to the conduct of the Irish monarch, on this oc- 
 casion, vvithout partaking of that sensibility which seemed 
 to animate his royal bosom. Full of ardent and parental 
 affection for his subjects, he preferred even the mortifica- 
 tion of being the royal vassal of Henry, to make an un- 
 profitable effort for the assertion of his sovereignty. He 
 therefore determined on treatin<>; with the English mon- 
 arch himself, and not through the medium of his generals. 
 He sent forward his ambassadors to England, Cathoiicus, 
 archbishop of Tuam, the abbot of St. Brandon, and Lau- 
 rence, chancellor to Roderic. The terms of accommoda- 
 tion were agreed upon between the two monarchs. Roderic 
 bound himself by treaty to pay an annual tribute, namely, 
 ever}^ tenth merchantable hide, and to acknowledge the 
 king of England as his liege lord. The Irish monarch was, 
 by the conditions of his treaty with Flenry, to enjoy the 
 uncontrolled administration of his kingdom; his royal 
 rio;hts were left inviolate : the English laws were to be con- 
 fined, as we have said before, to the English pale. The 
 submission of Roderic promised days of peace to Ireland ; 
 of strength and of glory to England. But the jealousies 
 of Henry's generals, their ambition and their avarice were 
 new sources of anxiety to their king, and of distraction to 
 his Irish subjects. Rajmond le Gross (one of the most 
 distinguished officers in the service of Henry) was impeach- 
 ed by Harvey of INIoimtmorris, and were it not that 
 O'Brien of Thomond, the irrcconcileable enemy of Eng- 
 land, had 'laid siege to Limerick, Raymond would have 
 been obliged to defend' himself against the unjust and ma- 
 licious charges of his enemies. He was solicited by his 
 persecutors to lead the English army against the common 
 enemy ; he yielded, and immediately advanced against the 
 prince of Thomond, whose army he defeated. O'Erien, 
 exhausted by an unsuccessful contest, submitted to become 
 
48 
 
 the vassal of Henry ; he presented his hostages, and took 
 the oath of fealty in company with Roderic the Irish king, 
 who also gave hostages as a security for his future alle- 
 giance. The destructive quarrels and animosities which 
 frequently disgraced the first Irish families, again gave an 
 opportunity to Raym-ond le Gross, to extend his conquests 
 fn Munster. Mac Carty, prince of Desmond, was de- 
 posed by his son Cormac, and fled for refuge and revenge 
 to the English general, who instantly engaged in an enter- 
 prize which promised to extend his lame. He invaded the 
 territories of Desmond, and plundered them without mer- 
 cy; a great portion of that part of Desmond, called Kerry 
 was conferred by Mac Carty on Raymond for this achieve- 
 ment. About this period (1176) the viceroy earl Strong- 
 bow died. The manner of his death is accurately descri- 
 bed by the pen of superstitious vengeance, nor is it to be 
 wondered by the impartial reader of the sad variety of suf- 
 fering inflicted upon Ireland, by the arms of England, that 
 the Irish annalist should have given credit to the rumours 
 that devoted this celebrated English adventurer to a mys- 
 terious and miserable termination of his existence. The de- 
 solation and calamity with which this unhappy country was 
 visited, the degradation with which it was threatened, 
 and the sad and afifecting story which history was doomed 
 to record, must have naturally called up those honest feel- 
 ings of resentment which fill the bosoms of fallen pride and 
 insulted honor. No wonder the persecuted Irish should 
 look up to Heaven for its vengeance on their oppressors, 
 and that their tortured fancies should anticipate the medi- 
 ation of that God whose altars were insidted, and whose 
 temples were laid prostrate. 
 
 Rajmiond le Gross being informed of Strongbow's 
 death, immediately repaired to Dublin. He entrusted to 
 Donald O'Brien, prince of Thomond, the protection of 
 Limerick. Raymond had no sooner departed, than O'Brien 
 
49 
 
 declared that Limerick should no longer be a nest of 
 foreigners. In the mean time, Strongbow was interred 
 with the most solemn pomp in Christ church, Dublin, 
 and the ceremonies performed by the celebrated prelate, 
 Laurence O'Toole. Soon after, a council was called, and 
 Raymond le Gross unanimously elected viceroy of Ireland* 
 This election, notwithstanding the past "services of Ray- 
 mond, did not meet with the approbation of Henry; 
 he forbade the nomination, and substituted William Fitz- 
 ansdelm, a nobleman alHed to Henry by blood. John de 
 Courcy, Robert Fitzstephen, Milo de Cogan, and Vivian, 
 the pope's legate, accompanied the viceroy to Ireland. 
 The legale Avas the bearer of the pope's brief, confirming 
 Henry's title to Ireland. Raymond received the new 
 viceroy with all due respect. An assembly of the Irish 
 clergy was convened at Waterford, at which the brief of 
 Alexander, and the bull of Adrian, were solemnly pro- 
 mulgated. This assembly of the clergy took place in the 
 year 1177. The administration of Fitzansdelm seemed 
 to be more directed against his predecessors in power, 
 than to the extension of his royal master's interests. Gi- 
 raldus Cambrensis says, that he was sensual and corrupt, 
 rapacious and avaricious ; and though not formidable from 
 the terror of his arms, yet full of craft, of fraud, and dis- 
 simulation. Raymond le Gross was thrown into the shade, 
 his property exchanged, and every mark of indignity and 
 insult offered to those adventurers who had succeeded in 
 makinff the first English establishment in Ireland. The 
 north of Ireland was now marked out by the English ad- 
 venturers, as a scene of plunder and confiscation, which 
 would afford ample rewards to the spirit of heroic 
 enterprise, and ample compensation for the hardships and 
 difficulties to be contended with. The cruel and rapaciouij 
 De Courcy selected the north as the theatre of kis military 
 fame. He was the first to visit its- inhabitants '^f/jth the ca- 
 lamities of war, and the more disastrous ^^fTects of foreign 
 
 G 
 
50 
 
 intrigue, with domestic treachery. Astonished and con- 
 founded at the horrid outrages committed by those un- 
 provoked invaders, they abandoned their habitations, and 
 for some time, made but a feeble resistance to their per- 
 secutors. At length the people collected, and appeared 
 in arms under their prince ; and in a short time De Courcy 
 was doomed to trace back his sanguinary steps with morti- 
 fication, and give up those places which his cruelty 
 had desolated. Such were the persecutions of De 
 Courcy, that Vivian, the pope's legate, who accom- 
 panied this English leader to Ireland, and was the bearer 
 of the bull for its annexation to England, could no longer 
 restrain his indignation, and boldly stimulated the Irish to 
 fly to their arms. An Irish army was immediately col- 
 lected, and marched against De Courcy ; who, depending 
 on the discipline and experience of his tioops, advanced 
 to meet the tumultuous Irish forces. The northern Irish 
 fought many severe and obstinate battles, before they 
 ^yieldeil to the superior skill of the English general. In 
 one of those, Murtogh O' Carrol, chieftain of Oriel, or 
 Louth, particularly distinguished himself He attacked 
 De Courcy in his camp, and ^ilmost destroyed his entire 
 force, within his own entrenchments. While John . de 
 Courc}^ was thus wasting the beautiful province of Ulster 
 with fire and sword, Milo de Cogan marched into Con- 
 naught, to support the rebellion of Murrough, son of 
 Roderic O'Connor. Such was the dreadful impression 
 which these visits of the English adventurers made on the 
 Irish mind, that on the approach of Milo de Cogan, the 
 iahabiLants drove away the cattle, secreted their most va- 
 luable effects, and reduced their country to a desert. It 
 was the practice of the Irish to deposite provisions in their 
 churches, where, amidst all their domes- tic quarrels, they 
 i;iy secure, as in a sanctuary. To the English those con- 
 se-crated temples were not more sacred nor more respected 
 than any other place where treasure might be secreted — • 
 
51 
 
 all were indiscriminately destroyed. The Irish of the 
 "west determined to anticipate the fury of tlieir invaders. 
 Tlicy prostrated their churches, destroyed the property 
 they could not carry away, and left the country to be in- 
 vaded without human sustenance or shelter. This policy 
 succeeded — the Enghsh were compelled to a mortifying and 
 disgraceful retreat. They abandoned their ally, Murrough, 
 to an ignominious fate, and regained their quarters in 
 Dublin, after an unsuccessful effort to plmider an unof- 
 fending people. 
 
 Nothing can so much excite the indignation of an honest 
 or feeling heart, as the insolent reflections of the English 
 historians, on the miserable feuds and animosities which, 
 they say, disgraced all parts of this most devoted country. 
 *' Even," say they, " the presence of the invading enemy 
 could not unite those infatuated people : it could not ob- 
 literate the impressions of domestic jealousy, and family 
 rivalship." ^Ma}'^ it not be asked, what so calculated to 
 keep alive those distracting divisions, as the hope of fo- 
 reign support to domesti-c treachery ; what so much as the 
 distribution of foreign gold, the artifices of foreign policy, 
 the intrigues of English fraud, and the insatiable ambition 
 of English adventurers? What treacherous or rebellious 
 child could not find an asylum in the arms of an English 
 general ? Or what bad or malignant passion would not the 
 breath of English ambition blow into a flame, when such 
 a policy extended the triumphs of their arms, increased 
 the wealth of their families, and gratified the ambition of 
 their monarch ? It is not to be wondered that we should 
 see so much treachery, and so much mutual bloodshed ; 
 that father and son should draw their swords against each 
 other, and that the nobler virtues of humanity should hav« 
 been lost in the conflict of those malignant passions which 
 found protection and encouragement in the destructive 
 policy of England. Much better had the sw^ordannihiiat- 
 
52 
 
 ed every Irish arm which was willing to defend the liber- 
 ties of the country, than to wade through centuries of a 
 lingering struggle, in which nothing is to be seen but cou- 
 rage betrayed on one side, and ambition sanguinary and 
 insatiable on the other : an innocent and brave people 
 contending for their families, their properties, their al- 
 tars, and their liberties, against the unprincipled machi- 
 nations of English adventurers, whose motive was plunder, 
 whose pretext was religion and social order, and whose 
 achievements were marked with the bravery of the mid- 
 night robber, who exposes his life to satiate his passions, 
 and estimates his heroism by the atrocity of his courage, 
 and the fearless contempt of the laws of God, and civi- 
 hzed society. Such are the reflections which must occur 
 to every mind, not rendered callous by corruption, or not 
 sacrificing his conviction to the hired purposes of the mo- 
 ment at which he is writing the history of his country. 
 
 The complaints against the viceroy Fitzansdelm, having 
 reached the ears of Henry, the latter removed him from 
 the government of Ireland. Hugh de Lacy was appoint- 
 ed to succeed the late viceroy; an active and Adgorous of- 
 ficer, well calculated to extend the power of his master. 
 
 His administration was marked with a spirit of equity 
 to which the Irish were unaccustomed since England first 
 invaded their shores. It atoned, in some degree, for the 
 violence and injustice of those who preceded him. In this 
 year (1178) Henry constituted his son John, lord of Ire- 
 land : this prince never assumed any other title. He also 
 made grants of large portions of Irish territory to his 
 principal generals. The power with which John was now 
 invested by his father, seemed to supersede the treaty made 
 by Henry with the Irish monarch, and John was now what 
 Roderic stipulated to be. The adventurers to whom 
 Henry had made large grants of Irish territory, were re- 
 
5S 
 
 sisted, when endeavouring to take possession of tliem. 
 The present possessors were unconscious of any act M-hich 
 could justily the English monarch to expel them from 
 their properties. They therefore unanimously resisted the 
 bold and despotic order, and compelled their dcspoilers 
 to the surrender of claims so unjust and so indefensible. 
 The mild spirit of 1 lugh de Lacy's administration was not 
 very congenial to the feeluigs of his English companions 
 in arms ; and secret whispers and calumnious insinuations 
 were communicated to Henry against the fidelity and 
 allegiance of the viceroy. Hugh de Lacy was rccalleil* 
 but, on investigation, the charge against his administra- 
 tion was found to be malicious and unfounded, and Heurj 
 immediately restored him to power. While Huoh da 
 Lacy was endeavouring, by the mild and efficient mea- 
 sures of a humane and equitable system, to preserve the 
 English power in Leinster, De Courcy was desolating Ul- 
 ster with fire and sword. — The Irish exhibited in their bat- 
 tles with the English leaders, an heroism worthy of n)eu 
 fighting for their liberties and properties; and under 
 Murtough O'Carrol, reduced De Courcy and his veteran 
 troops to the most disastrous extremities. The Eng}i>-;h 
 government succeeded in keeping alive, throughout the 
 south and west, the most desperate spirit of faction amon t 
 the principal Irish families, and thus conquered by division 
 with more effect than by the sv/ord. According to Henry's 
 treaty with the Irish m(»narch, the former was bound to 
 support him against his rebellious vassals. Such a policy, 
 however, would have been considered but little calculated 
 to extend tlie English power; and we therefore see the 
 opportunity warmly cheridied by Henry, to widen the 
 breach between Roderic and his subjects, and thus take 
 advantage of divisions which must ultimately extinguish 
 the country. — About this period (1181) died Laurence 
 O'Toole, the prelate of Dublin ; a man illustrious for his 
 conscientious hatred of English oppression ; his imconquer- 
 
54 
 
 able spirit in defence of his country; his enthusiastic at- 
 tachment to her interests ; his honest indignation at the 
 calamities with which she was afflicted ; and his unwearied 
 efforts to obtain justice for her wrongs, and punishment 
 against her persecutors. — When he was obhged by force to 
 submit to the Enghsh monarch, his sympathy for the suf- 
 ferings of his country did not diminish : he frequently re- 
 monstrated against the practices of his English subjects, 
 and at length appealed to the council of Lateran -against 
 the persecutions of England. So formidable were his re- 
 presentation^, that Henry would not suffer him to return 
 to his native land. He was succeeded in the archbishopric 
 of Dublin' by an Englishman, named John Comyn; a 
 jnan, it may be anticipated, remarkable for qualities of an 
 opposite character to the humane and lamented O' Toole. 
 While the English historians feel gratification in relating 
 those circumstances of our history, calculated to humble 
 the Irish character, and while they anxiously seize the pen 
 to paint those scenes in which Irish vengeance fi*equently 
 gained the ascendancy over the native benignity of the 
 Irish heart — be it my office to set down those anecdotes 
 which elevate my countrymen, and record those characters 
 who command the veneration of posterity. It is a 
 source of melancholy reflection, that a modern Irish his- 
 torian* of talents is to be found, and living in an age of 
 liberality and refinement, to echo those tales which were 
 fabricated, perhaps, by malice ; or which, if ever they had 
 an}^ foundation in fact, may be palliated by the exasper- 
 ations with which this devoted people were cruelly visited. 
 
 The most determined calumniator of the Irish character 
 now came to Ireland by order of Henry, as the adviser 
 and historian to his son John, who, created lord of Ire- 
 land, was immediately to follow. This celebrated histo- 
 
 * Mr. Iceland, 
 
55 
 
 rian of falsehood and malignity, Giraldus Cambrensis, or 
 Gerald Ban'y, inflated with all the pride of the conqueror, 
 and the more disgusting petulance of the pedagogue, 
 came to Ireland with the pre-determined purpose of mock- 
 ing and insulting the misery the arms of his master had in- 
 flicted. We find him constantly engaged in the most ir- 
 ritating controversies with the Irish clergy, wounding their 
 patriotic feelings by his arrogance, and insulting them by 
 his menaces — yet this is the authority which some Irish his- 
 torians will follow, when writing the history of the English 
 inyasion of Ireland. 
 
 Ireland was now about to be sacrificed to another whim 
 of the English monarch. He again removed De Lacy 
 from the government, and substituted Philip de Braosa, 
 or Phihp of Worcester : a man of furious and vindictive 
 temper, voracious and iilsatiable, whose object was plun- 
 der, and whose means to obtain it were fraud and violence. 
 The Irish clergy were the victims of his avarice, and their 
 churches the object of his unlimited rapacity. The gover- 
 nor was at length obliged to surrender his administration to 
 young prince John, son of the English monarch ; who, being- 
 knighted by his father, proceeded to Ireland with a train of 
 Norman courtiers, and dissolute and abandoned bankrupt 
 adventurers, who, desperate in their fortunes, transported 
 themselves to Ireland, as the last refuge from the persecutions 
 of their difficulties. Glenvil, the celebrated lawyer, also 
 accompanied prince John. The royal retinue arrived at 
 Waterford in the latter end of the year 1185, when they 
 were received with the accustomed hospitality of the 
 Irish. The courtly and dehcate companions of the young 
 prince, astonished at the foreign and warlike appearance 
 of their Irish visitors, indiscriminately jdelded to those 
 sentiments of contempt and abhorrence which the savage 
 would have excited. They thoughtlessly practised on the 
 Irish chieftains, of whose hospitality they were partaking, 
 
56 
 
 the most insulting indignities. Such treatment roused the 
 Irish to furious courage, and had the extraordinary effect 
 of extinfTuishinij the voice of faction, obliteratinop domestic 
 jealousies, and uniting every heart and arm. of the coun- 
 try. 
 
 Tlie flame of national resentment spread through every 
 county, and one unanimous determination prevailed, to li- 
 berate Ireland from the insolent oppressors of their rights. 
 The English Avere attacked in all their strongest positions, 
 and the most sig^nal ravage inflicted on the violators of the 
 national pride of Ireland. Thus the administration of 
 this inexperienced and insolent prince had nearly destroy- 
 ed the hopes of England, when Henry ordered De Courcy 
 to take into his hands the reins of administration. Hugh 
 De Lacy fell a victim, about this period, to the knife of 
 the assassin, who, historians say, was found among his 
 own countrymen ; and it may be truly said, that the wis- 
 dom of his mercy did more to extend the EngUsh power in 
 Ireland, than the most determined valour of Henry's best 
 generals. De Courcy was considered by the British mo- 
 narch best qualified to succeed De Lacy. The whole 
 country was now torn with civil war ; the fury of faction 
 facilitating the progress of the invader's sword. 
 
 The Irish monarch, unable and unwilUng to make any- 
 further efforts in stemniin<T the torrent which threatened 
 to sweep away every vestige of Ireland's glory, retired, 
 in despondency and sorrow, to the solitude and protection 
 of a convent. His unnatural children triumphed over aft 
 indulgent father, and the nominal sovereignty of Ireland 
 was doomed again to be disputed by the most furious com- 
 peti'doii. 
 
 The viceroy endea.voured to take advantage of the 
 feuds of the Iiish, and confidently and incautiously march- 
 
57 
 
 ed his farces intp Connauglit. Such a step had the effect 
 of uniting the Irish chieftains of the West, who assem- 
 bled iheir forces, and compelled the viceroy to measure 
 back his hasty and imprudent steps. De Courcy lost his* 
 most distinguished officers in this rash adventure. 
 
 This victory over the English, if followed up, would 
 have annihilated their power in Ireland ; but the victo- 
 ries of the Irish were almost always the sources of new di- 
 visions among themselves, and of new hopes to their ene- 
 mies. Party spirit destroyed the spirit of perseverance, 
 overthrew th? operations of system, and rendered it im- 
 possible jEbr the most undaunted heroism to complete an 
 achievement always bravely commenced. Such was the 
 situation of Ireland when Henry died. 
 
 The character of tbis monarch, as far as that character 
 can be drawn from his conduct towards Ireland, may be 
 described in a very few words; — cruel, and humane, ac- 
 cording to the expediency of either to promote his specu- 
 lations of conquest. As the extension of his power in Ire- 
 land was the grand object of his ambition, he little con- 
 sidered the morality and integrity of the means by which 
 he was to obtain its possession. Pie was careless about the 
 reproaches of the humane or the just, and deaf to every 
 monitor, but that which could facilitate his conquests, 
 and minister to his avarice of plunder. The cries of an 
 unoffending and innocent nation reached his cars in vain. 
 He answered those cries by the sword, or by fraud ; and 
 heard the accusation of the usurper and desti'oyer of Irish 
 rights without compassion, and without pity, eyen in 
 those pfirts of Ireland which submitted to his arms.. 
 
 We have seen that the English monarch practised to- 
 wards his English subjects the same duplicity, and tlie 
 same cunning, which distinguishes his first operations in 
 
 hi 
 
58 
 
 Ireland. He deprived his English colony of the admi- 
 nistration of De Lacy, because it was mild and merciful, 
 and parental ; and he substituted De Courcy, because he 
 was cruel, and vindictive, and unprincipled. The sam^ 
 apprehensions which Henry's successors have always en- 
 tertained lest Irishmen should be united, operated on the 
 mind of Henry against the union of the first English 
 settlers in Ireland. The adventurers who first devoted 
 their lives and fortunes to the conquest of Ireland, he dis- 
 couraged ; and changed his governors and generals, when^ 
 ever he suspected they had obtained the confidence of the 
 Irish, either by their courage, or their wisdom. A mo- 
 del of the same unprincipled and varying system of poli- 
 tics which has distinguished the English government in 
 their administration of Irish affairs for the last century, 
 may be found in the uncertain policy of Henry towardst 
 his English colony. 
 
 Giraldus Cambrensis, Mathew Paris, and a crowd of 
 defamers of the Irish character, labour to prove that the 
 treaty between Henry and Roderic amounted to the con- 
 quest of Ireland ; and that when the Irish monarch vol- 
 unteered in becoming the tributary of Henry, he surren- 
 dered his Irish crown, and became the subject of Eng- 
 land. " The calumny can be best replied to" says the in- 
 genious Dr. Campbell, " by taking into consideration 
 the difference between subjects and tributaries. A tribu- 
 tary is not a subject, but a vassal who stipulates to pay 
 tribute, and perhaps do homage and swear fealty to a 
 superior power, that he may live in peace. A sovereign 
 may be tributary to a more potent sovereign, without 
 obeying any of his ordinances ; that is, he may acknow- 
 ledge his own inferiority by these tokens of submission, 
 yet retain his sovereignty over his subjects, without own- 
 ing any other duty to his liege lord. This was precisely 
 the case of Ireland before Henry set foot in this kingdom, 
 
v59 
 
 and after he departed from it. Tlie- provincial kings paid 
 tribute to the monarch, and the subordinate toparchs to 
 the provincial kings, without any diminution of their juris- 
 diction over their respective subjects. 
 
 Roderic the monarch did not submit to Henry during 
 his stay in Ireland ; but in a year or two after he volun- 
 teered to do homage, and swear fealty, and resigned by 
 deed the sovereignty of certain districts, that he might en- 
 joy the remainder. This is placed beyond doubt by the 
 *' Finis et Concordia" that final agreement made between 
 them at Windsor, wherein it is expressly stipulated, that 
 except in those districts he had surrendered, the jurisdic- 
 tion of Roderic was to remain undiminished over the rest 
 of the island, " totam illam terrain" and " hahitationes ter~ 
 rcc habeat subse." Tints was Roderic pledged to make the 
 vassal princes pay their tribute to himself, and through his 
 hand it was to be conveyed to Henry : so that Roderic no 
 more ceased to be monarch of Ireland, than he did to be 
 
 kins: of Connauorht. To those who have read the tri- 
 es o 
 
 umphant arguments of Mr. Molyneaux, in his inestimable 
 tract called " The Case of Ireland," or the fourth Dra- 
 pier's letter, by our immortal countryman Swift, little need 
 be urged to demonstrate the fallacy and folly of the 
 assertion that Henry II. conquered the kingdom of Ire- 
 land. 
 
 "We have devoted more time to the reign of Henry II. 
 than such a work as the present would, perhaps, have war- 
 ranted ; but, as the circumstances which crowd the reign 
 of this monarch are, for the most part, re-acted in many of 
 the reigns which are to follow, and as the policy acted upon 
 by the first English invaders of Ireland has been industri- 
 ously imitated by his successors, it was deemed useful and 
 instructive to detail more particularly the events of a reign 
 which opened a scene of misery and distraction to Ireland, 
 
60 
 
 vhich even the Inpse of six hundred years has not yet 
 terminated.* 
 
 • "Had it not been," says sir WilFiam, T(Mnple "for circumstancffi 
 prejudicial to the increase of trade and riches in a country, and which 
 seem natural, or at least, to have been ever incident to the government 
 of Ireland, the native fertility of the Irish soil and seas, in so many rich 
 comn^odities, improved by a multitude of people and industry, with the 
 advantage of so many excellent havens, and a situation so commodious for 
 all foreig;u trade, must needs have rendered the kingdom one of the rich- 
 est in Europe, and mace a mighty increase both of strength fnd revenue 
 to the crown of England." 
 
 " Ireland" sayb Mr Brown, an intelligent writer in the commencement 
 of the last century, "is, in respect of its sitwation, the number of its com- 
 modious harbours, and the natural wealth which it produces, the fittest 
 island to accjuire riches of any in the European seas. For as by its situa- 
 tion it lies the most commodious for the West Indies, so it is not only 
 supplied by nature with all the necessaries of life, but can, over and above, 
 export I «rge quantities to foreign countries, insomuch that had it beea 
 mistress of a free trade, no nation in Europe of its extent could in an 
 equr.l number of years acquire greater wealth." Such is the testimony 
 of the greatest enemies, as well as the best friends of Ireland, yet how 
 •bused have ijeen the bounties of God ! 
 
 The friends cf Ireland, and the ardent supporters of British connection-, 
 creduously hoped that the year I7fc'J would have been the commencement 
 of an sera of peace and happiness', and independence to their country, 
 and of harmony attd strength to the empire : — that the two coutitrici, 
 united by a free constitution, would also be united in mutual aflection 
 and respect; that the wealtii and prosperity of otich woulJ have been cons> 
 dered the vv-ealth Mid piesperity of both ; that all further causes of jealousy 
 were removed, and that one common sentiment of sincere attachment to 
 the English consiitutiou would have pervaded all parts of the empire. 
 
 These hope?, however just and reasonable, were doomed to be frustra- 
 ted by the presiding genius of discord which has perpetually governed 
 English coun^ris with regard to Ireland. The confidence reposed by tbie 
 catholic in the liberality of his protestant fellow citizen, the growing 
 prosperity of the country, a!arm?d the avaricisus and contracted policy of 
 the British cabinet, and Ireland was again doomed to be the victim cf 
 schemes of oppression, and new arrangements of cunning and insincerity, 
 
 IrisiUnieu were again to be divided in order to be plundered of their 
 liberty, securexi to them by the pledg2d faith of England ; and the Union 
 ■was to be the closing act of that bloody tragedy which extinguished oar 
 freedom, irishmen of rank an^ property were to be seen carried down 
 the streanv of British deception, and idly and infamously administering to 
 the V)iews and the stratagems of the English minioter, conspirators agamst 
 their own consequence, and the degraded betrayers of the rights and cha- 
 racter of tl.eir country. The pohcy of Mr. Pitt was not more liber?,! 
 than tiie policy of Henry II., and the same frauds and violence which 
 were priiCti^cd a.gii\nst Ireland in the tvv-elfth, were acted over again, with' 
 equal zii.'.iigi ity and success, in the eighteenth ceaturv. 
 
TUS 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Richard I. 
 
 Tre reign of Richard I. was too much devoted to the 
 prosecution of the holy wars, which at this period almost 
 depopulated Europe; and this monarch was so distinguish- 
 ed as the great and illustrious leader of those fanatical and 
 destructive expeditions, we are not to wonder that we find 
 him not only regardless of his own countiy, but complete- 
 ly indifferent to his Irish dominions, and to that authority 
 which his brother John continued to exercise therein. 
 
 The deputies appointed to govern in Ireland, were cho- 
 sen by John ; and the style and title always assumed by thtj 
 latter was earl of Morton and lortl of Ireland. To Dub- 
 hn he gave new franchises and increased immunities, and 
 the same scene which has wearied our eyes in the last reign, 
 presents itself again to us^ in the present, the buildinoc 
 of churches in one part, while plunder and devastation are 
 making their baneful progress in another — the destruction 
 of Irish convents and monasteries, and the erection of new 
 convents and monasteries, with English monks, devoted to 
 the English interests. 
 
 We find the authority of John solely confined to those 
 parts immediately possessed by the Irish. Satisfied with. 
 
62 
 
 tiie exercise of those safe duties of raising monasteries and 
 forts in various parts of his Irish dominions, John retired 
 to England, and entrusted his Irish administration to the 
 younger De Lacy; an appointment which excited the jea- 
 lousy and resentment of the late viceroy, De Courcy. This 
 indignant English baron retired to Ulster, separated from 
 his countrymen, and determined to confine himself to the 
 promotion of his own personal interest and ambitious views, 
 unaided and unsupported by England. Such was the 
 weakness of the English government, that they were un- 
 able to punish the rebellion of De Courcy, or restrain the 
 dangerous spirit of rivalship which at this period distin- 
 guished the British adventurers. 
 
 A new and powerful enemy arose in the west of Ireland, 
 animated with the vindictive spirit of his family, and an 
 ardent ambition for military glory. He vowed the most 
 implacable vengeance against the English, who had de- 
 solated with fire and sword the fairest and most fertile parts 
 of Ireland, and were then threatening to reduce the en- 
 tire country to a degrading subjection. This formidable 
 Irish chieftain was named Cathal the bloody-handed. 
 Possessed of all those qualities which could recommend 
 him to a brave people, they followed Cathal to the field 
 with confidence, and obeyed him with alacrity. De Cour- 
 cy, alarmed at the progress of this furious and vindictive 
 Irish chieftain, ordered his friend and adviser, Armoric of 
 St. Laurence, to march without delay and join his forces. 
 Armoric being obliged to pass through a part of Cathal's 
 territories, was intercepted; and, after a furious engage- 
 ment, in which he and his troops peculiarly distinguished 
 themselves, his brave though small detachment was anni- 
 hilated. This partial defeat was the signal for miiversal 
 insurrections and confederacies among the Irish ; and the 
 misery of the nation was peculiarly aggravated by a des- 
 tructive fire, which at this period consumed the greater 
 part of Dublin. ' Cathal the bloodj^-haiided, animated by 
 
63 
 
 the late triumph of his arms, roused the surrounding chief- 
 tains to the assertion of their country's rights ; and Daniel 
 O'Brien, prince of Thomond, gained an important victory 
 over the English at Thurles. 
 
 The arms of this celebrated chieftain were at length re- 
 pulsed, and his territories, with those of the prince of Des- 
 mond, were over-run by the English, who, in their pro- 
 gress, practised the most barbarous cruelties. They put 
 out the eyes of the young prince of Thomond, and tearing 
 his brother from the sanctuary in which he concealed him- 
 self, they put liim to a cruel and lingering death. Cathal, 
 the king of Connaught, took ample and immediate ven-i 
 geance on the enemies of his country. He entered Mun- 
 ster at the head of a powerful army, ravaged the Enghsh 
 castles, drove the English armv before hiiu, and, had he 
 followed up his victory, would perhaps have expelled those 
 adventurers from Ireland. But such was not to be the 
 Irish destinjr. For her the Irish hero seemed to be born in 
 vain. The victories of a province or a county were con- 
 sidered by the bravest and most renowned Irish chieftain as 
 the victory of Ireland, and the expulsion of the English 
 from their respective territories, satisfied the vengeance, 
 and completed the ambition of the Irish chiefs. Cathal, 
 content with this partial defeat of his enemies, retu'ed to 
 his kingdom of Connaught, and thus disappointed the 
 hopes and expectations of the nation. The English had 
 no sooner restored the castles and forts which Cathal had 
 destroyed, and repau'ed the injuries which his armies had 
 inflicted on their territories, than they were again attacked 
 by Mac Carty of Desmond, who drove them out of Limerick, 
 and twice baffled their efforts to recover this important sta- 
 tion. Cork, the best and most considerable port in Mun- 
 ster, now occupied by the Enghsh,^ would have fallen into 
 the hands of the Irish, had it not been for the fatal jeal- 
 ousies which existed between the rival Irish chieftains, Ca- 
 thal, the king of Connaught, and O'Laughlin, cliief of 
 
64 
 
 tlie ancient house of the northern Hi-Nial, The milita- 
 ry fame of Cathal awoke the envy of the northern prince, 
 whose pride of genealogy was insulted by the acknowledged 
 superiority of his ally in arms. He contrived, therefor^, 
 by a secret intrigue with Mac Carty, to raise the siege of 
 Cork, and the fate of the second strongest English settle- 
 ment in Ireland was for the present suspended. At length, 
 in want of provision, and hopeless of succour, this brave 
 garrison surrendered to the prince of Desmond. Nothing 
 can demonstrate the miserable weakness of the English go- 
 vernment in Ireland at this period more than the feeble 
 efforts that were made to preserve the most important plac- 
 es in the kingdom. Notwithstanding the infatuated divi- 
 sions which distracted the councils of the Irish chieftains, 
 the English suffered themselves to be deprived of all those 
 conquests, which cost them so much treasure in the ac- 
 quisition. 
 
 Hamo de Valois was now (1197) appointed viceroy of 
 Ireland. The English interest, since the invasion, was 
 never weaker than at this moment — even the province of 
 Licinster v/as with difficulty maintained. Hamo had re- 
 course to the only measure which he thought calculated 
 to restore the arms and strength of England. He seized 
 the lands granted to the see of Dublin; plundered the 
 Irish, \vhose properties were considerable, under the pro- 
 tecting plea of necessity ; accumulated all the treasure his 
 rapacity could embrace. — Comyn, the English archbishop, 
 expostulated against this act of usurpation, in loud and 
 bitter lamentations ; threatened the denunciations of the 
 church, and appealed to the British monarch, and the 
 lord of Ireland for redress. Coniyn appealed in vain. 
 Richarcl and John w ere deaf to his entreaties ; but in some 
 years after, Hamo de Valois gave to the archbishop some 
 compensation for the property of which he was despoiled. 
 During this scene of disaster, Roderic, the Irish monarch, 
 died in the monastery of Cong, where he resided for 
 
, 65 
 
 twelve years in the peace and tranquillity of a pious soli- 
 tude. Were we to regulate our opinions of the character 
 of Roderic by the estimation in which his country held him, 
 we should describe him as a great warrior, a humane and 
 tender prince, possessing all those good and amiable qua- 
 lities which are calculated to inspire us with reverence and 
 affection; but looking back to the history of the events 
 which we have been relating, it is not easy to disc-ern those 
 distinsuishinfr characteristics for which the Irish annalists 
 have celebrated him. It should be admitted, however, 
 that great allowances are to be made for the distraction of 
 mind created by the unnatural rebellion of his oM'n chil- 
 dren, as well as by the nature of the authority which the 
 constitution of his country enabled him to exercise over 
 those provincial sovereigns whom he brought out to the 
 field with him, uncertain in their allegiance, and whimsi- 
 cal in their support of the common cause. Tlie virtues of 
 the monarch were often sacrificed to the painful peculiarity 
 of his situation ; and during this struggle with England, 
 we have often as much cause to commiserate the distress of 
 an amiable mind, as we have to applaud its undaunted 
 spirit, and indefatigable exertions for the independence of 
 Ireland. The last hours of his long life were somewhat 
 cheered by the reflection, that at length a hero arose a- 
 midst the distractions of his family, whose genius promised 
 to obliterate the disgraceful impressions of the past, by 
 the glorious achievements of the future; and the Irish 
 monarch ; in his ninet^'-ninth year, sunk into the grave, 
 consoled and comforted by the hope, that Cathal was des- 
 tined by Providence to restore the liberty and pride of his 
 country, and to exterminate the foreign invader, who 
 struggled to enslave it. In this year also, died the English 
 monarch, to whom John, the lord of Ireland, succeeded, 
 bringing with him to the English throne, those right* 
 over Ireland with which he had been invested, ' 
 
♦r«ij 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, 
 
 John, 
 
 TitE first act of the British monarch, when he eame to 
 the throne, was to yield to the complaints of his Irish 
 Subjects, against the oppression of his viceroy, Hamo de 
 Valois, who was amassing considerable wealth from the 
 plunder of the clergy and laity under his immediate juris- 
 diction. He was succeeded by Meyler Fitzhenry, natural 
 son of Henry I. and one of the most distinguished barons 
 who had originally adventured ir;to Ireland. 
 
 Hugh de Lacy, and John de Courey, two of the most 
 powerful of the English settlers in Ireland, had for some 
 time assumed a state of complete independence of the 
 English monarch. De Cowrcy impeached the title of John 
 to the English crown, asserted the claims of Arthur, and 
 boldly renounced his a.llegiance to England. Philip de 
 Burgo, to whom Jolm, when lord of Ireland, made a 
 grant of Limerick, proceeded to form a settlement in 
 Munster, which threatened the destruction of Cathal's 
 authority in the kingdom of Connaught. 
 
 Cathal, from whose arms and valour so much was ex- 
 pected by the Irish, fell a victim to the intriguing practice* 
 of his enemies^ and the artful conspiracy of Carragh 
 
67 
 
 O'Connor, a prince of his blood, who made overtures to 
 Philip de Burgo, and with his co-operation expelled Ca- 
 thai from his dominions, and took possession of the royal 
 dignity of Connaught. Such a revolution was he^rd with 
 astonishment, and Cathal fled to O'Nial of Tyrone for 
 protection against the arms of the usurper. A confederacy 
 was immediately formed to effect the restoration of Ca- 
 thal ; and it is v/orthy of observation, that in this confede- 
 ration, we see the English lords, De Courcy and De Lacy, 
 engaged with O'Nial, to assert the claims of Cathal a-? 
 gainst the usurpations of Carragh O'Connor, supported 
 by the arms of another English lord, Philip de Burgp, 
 So various and so conflicting were the interests of par- 
 ties and factions in Ireland, and so reduced the Enghsh 
 power, that Englishmen are to be seen shedding the blood 
 of Englishmen in the cause of the rival chieftains of Ire? 
 land. 
 
 Battles were fought by tliose contending factions with 
 various success, till at length victory declared in favour of 
 the usurper, Carragh O'Connor, and Philip de Burgo. 
 O'Nial was deposed by his subjects, and the powers of De 
 Burgo were greatly increased by the triumph of his arms. 
 He also forjjot his allemance to his sovereign, and made 
 war and peace by his proper authority. He laid waste 
 the territories of Desmond, and obliged many of the 
 neighbouring chieftains to pay him tribute. 
 
 The deposed Cathal having succeeded in separating 
 Philip de Burgo from his alliance with the usurper. Car* 
 ragh O'Connor, and supported by the arms of the English 
 baron, recovered his kingdom of Connaught. Cathal re- 
 turned the services of Philip de Burgo with the basest 
 ingratitude ; he refused to perform his promises of large 
 and valuable accessions of territory, vrhich he made to the 
 English baron, when pressed by adverse fortune ; and the 
 latter having recourse to arms, to enforce Cathal's adhe- 
 rence to his engagements, was obliged to make a dishon- 
 ourable retreat. 
 
68 
 
 In the mean time the viceroy, Meyler FItzhenry, having 
 raised a considerable force, determined to reduce to sub- 
 jecticflL those English barons, who had appeared in arms 
 figainst his royal master. He proceeded first to Limerick, 
 ao-ainst De Burgo ; and the sword of the viceroy was no 
 sooner unsheathed, than the king of Connaught, and 
 O'Brien of Thcmond, immediately made him a tender of 
 their services ; prompted more by the mean desire to hum- 
 ble the common enemy, Philip de Burgo, than intimidat- 
 ed by the threats, or the arms of Meyler Fitzhenry. 
 Limerick was besieged, and Philip de Burgo, having no 
 hopes of making an efiicient resistance, surrounded on all 
 sides by his enemies, capitulated to the viceroy. Cathal's 
 submission to the British monaich on this occasion waji 
 most important ; being no less than two parts of his king- 
 dom of Connaught, absolutely ; and to pay one hundred 
 marks for the other part. The spirit of resistance to king 
 John, which at this period distinguished the English barons 
 in England, animated with equal zeal the bosoms of their 
 countrymen in Ireland ; they were equally indignant at his 
 oppression and his cruelty. The baron de Courcy, yield- 
 ing to the natural sincerity of his character, loudly ex- 
 claimed against his sovereign. Hugh de Lacy, more art- 
 ful, suppressed his indignation ; and, affecting a zealous 
 loyalty, gave secret information of the thoughtless and has- 
 ty expressions of his countrj'man. John summoned De 
 Courcy to appear before him ; De Courcy treated the sum- 
 mons with contempt] De Lacy was ordered by his sove- 
 reign to reduce this refractory vassal to obedience. The 
 result of the various battles fought by those English barons 
 was the submission of De Courcy, on condition of obtain- 
 ing a safe conduct to Engknd. A romantic and idle tale is 
 told of the fefCts and achievements of this celebrated English 
 adventurer : he was condemned by king John, to perpetual 
 imprisonment ; and, as English historiansrelate, was released 
 from prison to enter the lists with a champion of Phihp king 
 
69 
 
 of France, whom that monarch s^nt to England to assert 
 his master's claim to Normandy ; or, as others say, to some 
 castle of this province. The stern aspect, the enormous 
 giant-size, the notorious strength of De Courcy^ arc said 
 to have alarmed the French champion, who declined the 
 combat, and fled into Spain. He exhibited before the 
 English monarch, extraordinary proofs of bodily strength, 
 for which he obtained his liberty, and regained the pos- 
 session of his extensive properties. John further granted to 
 De Courcy, and to his heirs, the privilege of standing co- 
 vered in their first audience with the king of England. 
 Upon the death of this celebrated baron, the earldom of 
 Ulster was conferred by John upon Hugh de Lacy. The 
 latter, with the viceroy, Meyler Fitzhenry, were about 
 this period called over to England to defend their monarch 
 against the inci'easino; combinations of his enemies. In ad- 
 dition to the numberless embarrassments by which, the Bri- 
 tish king was pressed, he was also involved in a contest 
 with the pope, relative to the election of the prelate of 
 Armagh. The Irish clergy, encouraged by the Komaa 
 pontiff, proceeded to elect a countryman of their own, 
 Eugene, as successor to Thomas O'Connor^ late prelate of 
 Armagh. The king forbade his Irish subjects to acloiow- 
 ledge Eugene as the prelate ; and sent forward the arch- 
 deacon of Meath, to take possession of the see of Armagh. 
 This contest continued a long time ; till at length it is writ- 
 ten, that the king, soothed by a present of three hundred 
 marks of silver, and one hundred of gold, consented that 
 Eugene should be invested with all the rights of the see. 
 The exemplary character of Eugene, his great virtues, 
 and well-merited popularity, contributed more particular- 
 ly to establish his election, than the pre-eminence of papal 
 authority, or the corruption of the English monarch. 
 However the latter may have come in aid of the piayers 
 of the nation, they cannot be ^^onsidered the leading causes 
 of the victory obtained over the pride and passions of the 
 British sovereign. 
 
70 
 
 The English interest, in the south and west of Ireland, 
 was now (1208) considerably established and secured by the 
 active and efficient administration of the viceroy, Meyler 
 Fitzheniy; and scarcely a power remained in Ireland suf- 
 figiently formidable to excite the reasonable apprehensions 
 of the British monarch ; but, anxious to enjoy the oppor- 
 tunity which would enable him to raise an army in Eng- 
 land without offending his sturdy and independent barons, 
 he affected to dread the growing power of tlie De Lacys; 
 and under the pretext of circumscribing their authority 
 Within reasonable bounds, marched an army into Ireland. 
 Tlie English monarch arrived in Dublin, in the year 1210; 
 where not less than twenty Irish chieftains attended to do 
 ium homage. Hugh and Walter de Lacy fled to France. 
 The Irish princes consented to pay tribute to John, but 
 refused to invest him with their lands, resign their respec- 
 tive sovereignties, or accept the English laws. They always 
 insisted upon tlie right of administering their own govern- 
 ment, according to the Irish laws and customs. — John 
 brought with him the most celebrated lawyers of England ; 
 by whose counsel a regular code of laws was prepared and 
 determined upon for Ireland, and deposited under the 
 king's seal, in the exc^iequer of Dublin. The lands of 
 Ireland, unmediately in possession of the British monarch, 
 were divided into counties, where sheriffs and other officers 
 were appointed. Twelve counties were established by 
 John — Dublin, Meath, Kildarc, Argial, (now called 
 Louth,) Katerlagh, (now called Carlow,) Kilkenny, 
 Waterford, Wexford, Cork, Kerry, Lunerick, and Tip- 
 perary. 
 
 During the three months king John remained in Ire- 
 land, he was for the most part, engaged, in assimilating 
 its laws and jurisprudence to those of England ; that the 
 two coimtrics might be governed by the same system of 
 legislation, as >vell as the same monarch. 
 
 On the departure of John, tlie administration of Ireland 
 
71 
 
 was given to John de Grey, first Bishop of Norwich ; who 
 first caused money to be coined of the same weight with 
 that of England ; and by whose vigorous and firm rcgula- 
 <tions, the English colony were able to send a large force 
 to the assistance of John, when threatened by an invasion 
 irom the king of France. It would, perhaps, be more 
 correct to attribute the undisturbed and peaceable state of 
 the English power in Ireland, to the mild and conciliating 
 policy which the English councils then adopted. They 
 found, by experience, that little was to be obtained by vio- 
 lence; and that much had been sacrificed. John therefore 
 ordered his viceroy to treat his Feodaries, or those Irish 
 "chieftains who had submitted to do him homage, with all 
 respect and attention ; to protect them against theii' rebel- 
 lious vassals ; and as long as they demeaned themselves wilh 
 loyalty to his government, to treat them with kindness and 
 regard. Perhaps, in accounting for this unusual extension 
 of royal benignity, we may be permitted to observe, tliat 
 the patriotic and successful struggles of the English barons 
 against the unjust pretensions of their monarch, may have 
 inclined the latter to court the allegiance of his Irish sub- 
 jects by kind and parental concessions. The history of 
 mankind demonstrates, that the liberties of a nation only 
 rise as their governments have been weakened and hum- 
 bled ; and that the people have always found the surest 
 refuge in the adversity of the monarch. To protect ths 
 erown against the insolent and usurping demands of aris- 
 tocracy, the former has had recourse to the people; and 
 the consequence of all has been usually promoted by the 
 alternate rise and decline of monarchy, aristocracy, and 
 democracy. Cathal, the prince of C/Onnaught, was thus 
 protected by John against his vassals, and a present of 
 costly robes was delivered by the viceroy to each Irish 
 chieftain, as a mark of favour and protection. Some his- 
 torians have supposal, that the object of the present was 
 to seduce the Irish to the wearing of English attire, and 
 
72 
 
 to an assimilation of. dress with that of the people to whom 
 they were united. John was now engaged in that disgrace- 
 ful and memorable transaction which stains his memory 
 and country; namely, his abject submission to the pope, 
 and his resignation of the kingdoms of England and Ire- 
 land to the see of Rome. In return for this act of national 
 debasement, pope Innocent addressed a letter to the pre- 
 lates and princes of Ireland, commanding them by his 
 apostolical mandate, to persevere in their allegiance to the 
 king and his heirs, who were now the objects of his parental 
 protection. The celebrated contest between the British mo- 
 narch and his barons immediately followed these transac- 
 tions; and the Magna Charta, or the great charter of 
 English freedom, was signed by a reluctant king, in the 
 presence of his armed subjects, at Runnimead. This 
 sacred instrument, so deservedly the object of British ven- 
 eration, gave freedom only to the clergy, the barons, and 
 the gentry of England : it did not abolish slavery among 
 the great body of the people. A long interval elapsed^ 
 before they enjoyed a free ami impartial constitution. 
 
 On this memorable occasion, Ireland, (or rather the 
 English colony in Ireland) was forgotten or unnoticed, 
 nor was any concession obtained by the English barons 
 in this country, until the commencement of the reign of 
 Henry III. when we find them petitioning for the removal 
 of those grievances, which they suffered so severely under 
 the reign of his father, and a cessation of that violence, 
 which he so wantonly practised, in the confiscation and 
 plunder of their properties, the levying exorbitant taxes, 
 and the practice of every mode of oppression which his 
 avarice could susigest. 
 
 Or) 
 
 They also prayed that the queen dowager, or the king's 
 
 brother, sliould reside in Ireland. To this petition, a 
 
 most gracious answer was given by Henry. He declared 
 
 *^tkat the same liberties 'which have been grmited to his sub" 
 
 jects of Etiglandy shall be extended to his subjects in Ir eland J\ 
 
13 
 
 Thus were the rights and privileges of the English colony 
 in Ireland, or of those Irish who had submitted to Eng- 
 land, ascertained and confirmed. All the advantages of a 
 free constitution, were hereafter to be enjoyed by the Eng- 
 lish colony, and their descendants, -in as full and as am- 
 ple a manner as their countrymen in England, who suc- 
 ceeded in their glorious struggles with their king for the 
 assertion of human right, and laid the foundation in their 
 great charter of the future glory and splendor of the Eng- 
 lish nation. — The English monarch at length fell a victim 
 to the indignation of his insulted and injured subjects. It 
 is said he died of a broken heart, after a usele.' s and de- 
 structive struggle agamst the liberty of his country. 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND, 
 
 Henry ILL 
 
 No event of importance took place in the first year of 
 Henry III. (1216-) The acknowledged vigour and ability 
 of William Marshall, earl of Pembroke, who was appoint- 
 ed protector during tlie minority of Henry, prevented the 
 recurrence of those distractions in the English colony, which 
 "we have witnessed in the reign of John, and which were 
 nioh undermininir the Enolish interests in Ireland. The 
 celebrated Henry de Londres, who was branded with 
 the name of " Burn- Bill," was appointed coadjutor to 
 Geoffry de Maurisco, in the administration of Ireland. He 
 was also made archbishop of Dublin; and in his ecclesias- 
 tical, as well as political character, was remarkable for his 
 insolence and tyranny. He summoned the. tenants of his 
 see to produce the instruments by which they held their 
 lands ; which he no sooner received, under the pretence of 
 examining them, than, in an affected passion, he cast 
 them into the fire. Hence the ignominious title of Burn- 
 Bill, which ever adhered to him. 
 
 "A striking example," t^-ys Mr. Leland, " of the contempt 
 with which the rights of the subject in Ireland were treated 
 in those times, by the more powerful of the neighbouring 
 kinedom," 
 
75 
 
 On the death of the earl of Pembroke, who possessed 
 most extensive estates in Ireland, and whose character 
 seemed to "awe into silence and submission, the vicious 
 passions of the colonists, Hugh de Lacy immediately 
 laid claim to some lands held by that distinguished English- 
 man. 
 
 Tlie son of the earl of Pembroke proceeded to Ireland, 
 to defend his inheritance against de Lacy, and both, after 
 wasting the territories of each other, and sacrificing the 
 innocent inhabitants of Leinster and Meath, they termin- 
 ated tlieir idle and sanguinary efforts by mutual concessions. 
 In the mean time new rebellions sprung up in the coun- 
 try of the Mac Cartys, against whom tlie viceroy was 
 obliged to draw the sword. Donald O'Brien, of Tho- 
 moiid, to defend himself against the Irish, on one side, 
 and the English colonists on the other, petitioned, and ob- 
 tained from Henry, a grant of the kingdom of Thoraond 
 now called Clare, to be held of the English king, at a 
 yearly rent of 100 pounds, and a fine of 1,000, marks. 
 
 This low and humble tribute seems to be rather the evi- 
 dence of the homage which was to be rendered, than of 
 tlie measure of value of the county conceded. Henry, at 
 this period, also granted to Richard de Burgo, the re- 
 version of the whole kingdom of Connaught, on the de- 
 cease of Cathal, the bloody -handed. With so little atten- 
 tion to justice were the poor people of this country hand- 
 ed from one adventurer to another, to gratify* the avarice 
 of a favourite, or appease the vengeance of an enemy. 
 
 * Notwithstandintf tlie distractions with which the Irish mind must 
 have been oppressed during iliis melancholy predatory warfare, it is soma 
 consolation to find mention made of the great learning with which some 
 of our CGuatrymen were then di-stinguished. We meet in our annals 
 many names eminent for the extent of their literature-rr-among thtjse was 
 the celebrated Cornehus, called Historicus ; of whom Bale and Stanihurst , 
 make honourable mention. He was tl.e great source from which future 
 historians collected the materials of their works. His Muttamm rerum 
 Ckronian., is referred to by the old authors, English and Scotch, with the 
 most implicit reliance on the soundness and fidelity oi his tcatemenct. 
 
76 
 
 The death of the celebrated Cathal, gave Richard de 
 Burgo an opportunity to plead the grant of his sovereign ; 
 but the Irish would not depart from their old customs, and 
 proceeded to elect a successor. 
 
 The prince of Ulster interposed, and assisted Turlough, 
 the brother of Cathal, in the assertion of his right to the 
 crown of Connaught. The viceroy led an army into the 
 Jatter kingdom ; and by the triumjJis of his arms, substitu- 
 ted the son of Cathal in the sovereignty of the west. The 
 encroachments of the colonists on the territories 6f 
 this prince, established by tiieir interposition, were so in- 
 tolerable as to oblige him to take up arms. After a deso- 
 lating struggle, he surrendered to the viceroy. Fedlim, 
 or Phehm, the second son of Cathal, succeeded his bro- 
 ther, and repelled, with dreadful effect, the struggles of 
 the English to subdue him. The Irish prince* had re- 
 course to an expedient, which strongly establishes the 
 truth of the complaint, that the people of this country 
 were eternally the victims of calumny : of a party inte- 
 rested in concealing the grievances under which they la- 
 
 • So true is the remark of sir John Davis, " That the people of Ire- 
 land merited far different treatment from the crown of England : for," 
 he continues, " when they were a imitted to the condition of subjects, 
 they gave many signal proofs of their dutifulness and obedience; and 
 •would gladly continue in that condition, as long as they might be pro- 
 tected, and justly governed, without oppression on the one hand, or ins- 
 punity on the other ; there being, in hi? opinion, no nation under the suu 
 that did love equal and indifferent justice better than the Irish, or that 
 would rest better satisfied with the execution thereof, although it were 
 against themselves; so as they might have the protection and benefit of 
 the law, when upon a just cause they did desire it." — " I dare affirm," 
 says the same liberal and enlightened Englishman, who was attorney- 
 general to James I. " that for the space of five years last past, there have 
 not been found so many malefactors, worthy of death, in all the six cir- 
 cuits of this realm, (Ireland) which is now divided into thirty-six shires 
 at large, as in one circuit of six shires, namely, the western circuit of 
 England. For the truth is, that in times of peace, the Irish are more 
 fearful to offend the law than the English, or any other nation whatever." 
 Is not this a good lecture to those legislators who recommend the fiery 
 decisions of niariial )aM-. in prefVrr-nce to the sober and impartial inquiry 
 of a constitutional iribujul. wucuever a disturbance exists, or a grievance 
 •i» to be remedied. 
 
77 
 
 boured; or, in magnifying the reasonable resistance of 
 violated right into wanton rebellion, and canseless insur- 
 rection. Phelim, of Connauglit, addressed himself to the 
 king of England, and represented in respectful and pathe- 
 tic terms, the persecutions which his people had suffered 
 from the representative of his majesty; that he was driv^en, 
 by injurj^, to rebellion ; that he was the victim of the avar- 
 ice of his English subjects; and that he challenged his 
 enemies to an inquiry into the truth of the charges which 
 he brought against them before the common parent of the 
 colonists and the native Irish. So sad and so aftectins: 
 a story excited the astonishment of Henry, who had becu 
 listening to exaggerated accounts of Iri&li treason ; to 
 whom Phelim had been represented as the head and cause 
 of an unnatural rebellion, without provocation or injury,- 
 laying waste the territories of his majesty's subjects, and 
 exciting the people of Ireland to universal resistance. In 
 answer to Phelim's humble petition, praying an interview 
 with the British sovereign, the latter w-rites a letter to the 
 viceroy, desiring him to inquire into the statement made 
 by Phelim ; and to ascertain the real situation of Ireland. 
 *^ To guard against deception," writes the English mo- 
 narch, " be cautious of the channels through v.hich yoa 
 shall receive your informations ; let tl\em be as impartial 
 as possible to either party." The result of this applica- 
 tion by Piielim, was, the peaceful settlement of the king- 
 dom of Connaught, and the satisliiction of its plundered 
 inhabitants. So easy is it for a spirit of justice to tran- 
 quillize the people of any nation, that no instance can be 
 found in the histor}' of Ireland, nor in the history of any 
 other countx-y, where the lionest anxiety of the monarch, 
 or the ruling powers, to do justice to their subjects, does 
 not excite corresponchng sentiments of gratitude, loyalty, 
 and alleo-iance.* 
 
 _ * Notwithstanding the long continuance of tragic scenes, in a land 
 violently torn by all the horrors of anarciiy and oppresaion, it may be 
 
78 
 
 The death of the son of the earl of Pembroke, which took 
 place about tliis period, (1231) gave i ise to a train of events 
 which involved Ireland in new scenes of anarchy and con- 
 fusion. 
 
 Richard, the second son of that illustrious nobleman, 
 succeeded to the princely inheritance of his brother ; and 
 possessed that bold and indejiendent spirit, which distin- 
 guished the life of his illustrious predecessor. Such qua- 
 lities incurred the suspicion, and excited the fears of the 
 l^ing; and every artifice which the most malignant inge- 
 nuity could suggest to remove so formidable an enemy, 
 was practised by the insidious prelate of Winchester, who 
 was then the minister of England. Earl Richard remonstra- 
 ted against the insolent and violent usurpations of this mi- 
 nister ; and particvdarly expostulated with liis sovereign on 
 the alarming increase of foreigners in every part of the 
 state ; he absented himself from parliament ; and at length 
 flew to arms in defence of his country. This being an in- 
 surrection against an odious minister, rapidly acquired 
 strength ; and, at length, a treacherous and cowardly con- 
 spiracy was formed against the spirited and gallant Rich- 
 ard. By this stratagem the large estates of this English 
 baron, in Ireland, were divided among the rapacious set- 
 tlers in that country. A price was put on his head, and 
 eveiy inducement held out to encourage the infidelity of 
 his followers. — He fell a victim to the treason of his friends., 
 The inforniation of his fall, drew from the king tears of the 
 most degrading hypocrisy; and the universal sympathy in 
 favour of the betrayed and beloved baron, extorted even 
 
 some relief to the mind to reflect, that strong traces of erudition are to 
 be discovered. Joannes de S. Bcsco has been claimed for Irelaiid, by Ware, 
 ■ Harris, and Abbe Groghcgan : he wrote a Treatise on the Sphere ; oa 
 the Calculation of the Ecclesiastical Year ; a Breviary of Law. He died 
 at Paris, in 1256, where he was long a highly esteemed professor. Flo- 
 rence Mac Flin, chancellor of the church of Tuam, is another celebrated 
 name in the Irish axinab ; he was remarkable for his knowledge of canon 
 law. 
 
79 
 
 from his enemies the affectat-on of sorrow for his untimely 
 and unwortliy flito. , So great was tlie popular sentiment 
 in favour of his memory, that tlie king, in all the mean- 
 ness of hypocrisy and terror, yielded to the public indif>-- 
 nation; and the death of this illustrious Englishman, had 
 tlie eftect of accomplishing what the triumphs of his arms 
 could only have achieved, namely, the banishment of those 
 foreigners which had rnonopolized all tlie places of profit 
 and confidence under the crown, and tlie total annihilation 
 of that fabric, which the ambition and the obstinacy of the 
 bishop of Winchester had «o lately raised. The people of 
 Ireland sympathized with the friends of Richard, earl of 
 Pembroke, and the people of Leinster, laying claim to the 
 honour of being governed by tlie family of the earl of Pem- 
 broke, manifested the most ardent zeal against the murder- 
 ers of their prince. 
 
 Soon after the death of Richard, earl of Pembroke, 
 Fedlim, or Phelim, prince of Connaught, presented him- 
 self before his sovereign, to complain of the grievances un- 
 der which he and his^ people laboured from Richard de 
 Burfo. Plis complaints were heard with respect, and im- 
 mediately attended to by the king. — Orders were issued to 
 suppress the outrages of the baron De Burgo, who was 
 the oppressor of his Irish subjects. This act of justice by 
 the English monarch is a good deal diminished in value 
 by the royal conquest which immediately tbllowed. It aji- 
 pears as the result of royal policy, more than of royal 
 mercy ; and discovers the arts of the politician, more than 
 the protection of the sovereign. 
 
 Henry immediately summoned the prince of Connaught, 
 in return for the protection he afforded the Irish, to as- 
 sist him against the kino- of Scotland. 
 
 We find Fedlim soon after leading his troops into 
 Wales, against David, and co-operating with the Irish 
 viceroy to reduce the Welsh. The deaths of Richard de 
 Burgo, Hugh de Lacy, and Geoffry de Maurisco, became 
 
so 
 
 new sources of national cUstn^ction and misery. The dis- 
 orders and calamities of England gave opportunity to the 
 ambition of the English adventurers in Ireland ; and the 
 native Irish, amidst the contending great families, vi^ere the 
 common* victims of ambition, jealousy and avarice. The 
 reader ofthe scenes just related, cannot suppress his smiles 
 at the stories so gravely told by the apologists of England, 
 of the two mandates which were issued by king Henrj'^, di- 
 recting that the nobility, knights, fi-eeholders, and bail- 
 iffs of the several counties, should be convened, in order 
 that the great charter should be read over in their presence ; 
 and that they should be directed to adhere to the laws and 
 customs received from king John, and strictly to obey them; 
 ,that the Anglo-Irish barons be requested to permit Ire- 
 land to be governed by the laws of England; and that 
 peace sliould at length be restored to that unfortunate 
 country. 
 
 * The following observations are made by an Irish historian (Mr. 
 Taaffe) who discovers in every page of his work, an ardent sensibility 
 to the sufferings, and an honest anxiety for the fame of his countrymen. 
 •' It is surprising tiie incessant din of arms did not entirely banish the 
 muses from this ill-fated island ; but it seems the person of a bard was 
 held more sacred than that of a pricbt. The English settlers frequently 
 plundered and massacred the clergy ; while we find few or no instances 
 of similar cruelty exercised on the children of the muses. In addition to 
 the high respect entertained for thtir profession, ambition was interested 
 in their protection. Ihcy were, in a great mtasue, arbiters of fame; 
 and the murder of one of their body, would iiiUHme the whole irritable 
 race of poets and harpers, to consign the perpetrator to the execration of 
 posterity. Sensible that character forms one species of power, the chief 
 of the settlers not only avoided insulting men possessed of such influ- 
 ence on public opi'.iion, but he kept pensioned bards, to sound and extend 
 his credit : at his command they sounded the war song, inveighed against 
 his enemies, extolled his success in collecting their spoils, and praised the- 
 munificence with which he shared the fruits of his victories among his fol- 
 lowers. Ip the book of Fcrmoy, there remains a curious collection of 
 liuch mercenary rhapsodies, composed by Roche's bards. In those tiir.es 
 of anarchy they were generally employed a» trumpeters of war, and ser- 
 ved by their melodious nctes and rapturous strains, to attract enthusias- 
 tic youth to the standard of the chief, and to influence their ardour in 
 the day of battle." — For COO years the enemies of Ireland have found their 
 mercenary poets and historians to sing tlieir praises and conceal their 
 tyranny ; and to the hour in which this tine is writing, may we see the 
 interests and liappiness ol Ireland sacrificed to the mercenary poverty of 
 some despicable calumniator, whose only hope of decent eiisteuce is his 
 jycophaiicy to the worst passion of an avaricious monopoly. 
 
81 
 
 May it not be permitted us to ask, at this distant period 
 of time, how came it to pass,' that the power wl)ich was 
 able to extino-uish the efforts of those barons, whenever 
 they rebelled against the English interests, was so feeble 
 and so petitioning, when the object of its interposition was 
 the peace and happiness of Ireland ? May it not be con- 
 jectured, without any great stretch of sagacity, that the 
 Enghsh government connived at the extortions and the 
 plmider of the colonists, in order the more effectually to 
 compel the devoted inhabitants of Ireland to solicit the 
 royal interposition, in terms sufficiently humiliating to 
 ^he national pride ; and thus obtain by the slow and linger- 
 ing torments of continued persecution, those advantages 
 which could not, perhaps, be won in the field ? 
 
 In this view of the subject, we shall not be surprised 
 when we see Henry humbly suing for the permission of his 
 barons ; or some of the persecuted people of Ireland 
 petitioning, in turn, for royal patents, by which they may 
 enjoy the rights and privileges of English subjects. It is 
 idle to talk of the obstinate resistance of the Irish to th« 
 English laws and customs, after perusing the history of 
 national suffering we have already passed through, produc- 
 ed by English ambition and avarice. It is worse than 
 idle, to express our wonder at the inflexible attachment of 
 the Irish to their old laws and customs, under which they 
 experienced the blessings of independence ; or to be sur^ 
 prised that they would close their eyes and their ears to the 
 instruction of their enlightened invaders, who were deso- 
 lating their beautiful country with fire and sword. 
 
 It is said that Henry, in order to repress the violence of 
 his barons in Ireland, made the experiment of sending, 
 as his representatives, a succession of Englishmen, who 
 would have no interest to consult but that of their master, 
 and the country to which they were sent. But such rapid 
 successions always produce the miseries inseparable from 
 distracted and conflicting councils ; and the wisdom and 
 
 L 
 
82 
 
 virtue of one viceroy, was counteracted by the folly or 
 the vices of his successor. 
 
 An event of high importance occurred at this period, 
 (1253) which, if the circumstances of the English nation 
 iiad permitted, might have been attended with the most for- 
 tunate Consieqiiences to Ireland. Prince Edward, the son 
 of the English monarch, being married to the infanta of 
 Spain, was invested by Iiis royal father with the sovereign- 
 ty of all that part of Ireland then under English do- 
 minion, excepting the cities and counties of Dub- 
 lin, Limerick, and Athlone ; excepting also the 
 lands of the cluu'ch, on the proviso that the territories so 
 granted should never be separated from the crown, but 
 remain for ever to the king's of England. The lands, 
 therefore, which were claimed, or possessed by the king's 
 subjects in Ireland, were called the lands of lord Edward, 
 and all writs ran in this prince's name. Edward, from whose 
 great talents much might have been expected, had he as- 
 sumed the administration of Ireland, was carried down 
 the current of the day, which ran so strongly in favour of 
 the wild ' and adventurous expeditions of the crusades. 
 Ireland, in the mean time, suffered all the calamities inse- 
 parable from a state of anarchy and civil war. The Fitz- 
 geralds and the Mac Cartys desolated each othei''s terri- 
 tories, till at length the family of the Geraldines were com- 
 pletely destroj'ed, by one general engagement. 
 
 The English government v,-ere indolent or indifferent 
 spectators of the sanguinary scene. The Englisli monarch, 
 as it is recorded, made no greater effort than to write to 
 the rival combatants, commanding thein to suspend their 
 animosities. The miserable confusion which was created 
 by those rival factions, generated death and disease in 
 every part of Ireland. 
 
 The severity of the season aggravated the miseries cf 
 civil v, ar ; and the finest portion of the British dominions 
 lay mangled and torn by the barbarity of the most rancor- 
 
83 
 
 ©us feuds. In addition to the afflictions under which Ire- 
 land now suffered, we have to enumerate the insolent ex- 
 actions of the papal authority, as well as of the English 
 monarch, 
 
 Henry, whom we saw, some time back, lamenting the 
 distraction of the kingdom of Ireland, we now find co- 
 operating with the pope in levying exorbitant taxes on the 
 beggary of the country, a fifteenth of all the cathedral 
 churches, and a sixteenth of all ecclesiastical revenues, as 
 well as the raost intolerable taxes on the laity. Thus do 
 we see this ill-fated country, in the extremity of her disr 
 tress, resorted to by the English monarch, to remunerate 
 him for the loss he sustained in his foreign wars; and while 
 Ireland is thus writhing under the miseries of English in- 
 vasion, we are stopped by the historians of the colonists, 
 jo reflect on the singular want of judgment evinced by the 
 Irish nation, in not embracing the laws and customs of 
 England. Ireland was, at this period, as well as Eng- 
 land, overrun with Italian ecclesiastics, who were invested 
 with the dignities and revenues of the church, within the 
 territories of the English powers. It is to be observed, that 
 the oppressive exactions of the pope, and usurpations of 
 the Italian ecclesiastics, were confined to the popish limits 
 of English jurisdiction, and were effectually resisted by 
 the native catholics. The native Irish, sensible of thq 
 abuse of the pope's spiritual authority, were little incUnetJ 
 to pay him tribute, or to submit to the indolent impo-' 
 sitions of his foreign emissaries, 
 
 The Irish princes, who as yet retained their indepen- 
 ilcnce, scornfully rejected such encroachments as unchris- 
 tian. The evils of this ecclesiastical tyranny became so 
 oppressive to the colonists, that remonstrances crowded 
 from every corner of the pale to the viceroy, against so 
 destructive a practice. Thus unfortunate Ireland seemed 
 to be doomed the resting place for every greedy adventuj-e;-^. 
 
64 
 
 lay and ecclesiastical, who pleased to fatten on her spoils, 
 or plunder her of her property. 
 
 The native Irish came to a determination on this occa- 
 sion, that no foreigner should be admitted or received into 
 any of the Irish churches ; and it should not be forgotten, 
 that within the English pale alone, do we find the Italian, 
 or foreign clergy, presume to obtrude themselves. It is a 
 well ascertained fact, that the native Irish clergy preserved 
 the most uninterrupted harmony with their countrymen, 
 and that the exactions of which some historians speak, in 
 those days, were practised solely by the English and 
 Italian clergy, who had no other object but the enriching 
 themselves, and the beggary of Ireland. 
 
 The native Irish exulted in the venerable antiquity of 
 tlieir church. They gloried in their catalogue of saints, 
 and found consolation in the piety and sanctity of their 
 clergy. They despised the English, as well as the Italian 
 intruders on the peace and independence of their country ; 
 And though they bowed to the spiritual, they as firmly 
 denied this temporal power, and repelled the exactions 
 of papal authority, with as much boldness as they resisted 
 the usurpations of the English adventurers. Such has 
 been the religion of the Irish cathohc for eighteen hun- 
 dred years, during which period we see numberless in- 
 stances of the compatibility of that spiritual power of the 
 pope, which the Irish acknowledge, with the political 
 freedom of their country, and the most ardent aUegiance 
 to a protestant government. 
 
TKS 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Edxsoard L 
 
 A.D. 
 
 He who has read the history of England, 
 1 5*72* ^*^^ ^^^*^ ^^^ observed the wisdom and policy of 
 
 those regulations which Edward here introduced 
 and enforced, will perhaps expect that the distractions of 
 Ireland would have attracted the attention of so wise a 
 monarch ; and that some effort would have been made to 
 heal those wounds, from which the life blood of the most 
 valued member of the British dominions was so abmidant- 
 ly flowing. The conquest of Wales, and of Scotland^ 
 however, were, in the eyes of Edward, a more important 
 concern ; and little alteration is to be found in those me- 
 lancholy scenes which we are about to record, during the 
 reign of one of the wisest and most powerful monarchs 
 that ever ascended the English throne. The same miseries, 
 and the same petty >varfare ; the same recital of usmpa- 
 tions on the one hand, and resistance on the other; the 
 same partial and puny effort to preserve the interests of 
 the colony ; the same narrow and contracted policy, 
 which was satisfied with the temporary suppression of an 
 insurrection, and the ephemeral triumph of a particular 
 family. All this wearying round of miserable civil war is 
 ■Ugain to be witnessed during the reign of a prince, bj 
 
86 
 
 ■iviiom Ireland could have been made the most productive, 
 as she was the most beautiful portion of the British em- 
 pire. On the accession of Edward to the English throne, 
 INIaurice Fitzmaurice was appointed his representative in 
 Ireland. 
 
 The ro3-aI letter was received by the viceroy, promising 
 protection to his Irish subjects; and the nobility, knights, 
 and free tenants, were called on to take the oaths of alle- 
 giance to Edward. 
 
 Maurice Fitzmaurice was not long in the scat of ffo- 
 vcrnment, when a formidable insurrection broke out in the 
 most flourishing parts of Leinster, and after a feeble strug- 
 gle with the Irish, he was taken })risoner in Ophaly, (King's 
 county) and committc4 to prison. The conquerors reta- 
 liated on the colonists, the depredations committed on 
 their own territories ; and Glenville, the successor of Fitz- 
 maurice, also experienced a singular defeat. In the mean 
 time, the north of Ireland, supported by the marauders 
 from the Scottish isles, was involved in the most afflicting 
 dissentions, and Maurice Fitzmaurice, when released from 
 prison, united with the lord Theobald Butler, and invad-. 
 ed the territories of the O'Brien*. The family of Fitz- 
 maurice had gained a great accession of force, by their 
 connection with Thomas de Clare, to whom Edward made 
 extensive grants in the country of Thomond. This young 
 nobleman was followed by a powerful train of attendants. 
 The O'Briens expostulated, and the contest was at length 
 to be terminated by the sword. Thus the perpetual en- 
 croachments of some Enolish adventurer was wastinjj and 
 usurping the property of the natives. 
 
 O'Brien fell a victim to treachery; but his sons, who suc- 
 ceeded, took most ample vengeance, and this furious waj; 
 ended in the total overthrow of the family of the Geral- 
 dines: the O'Briens were declared sovereigns of Thomond, 
 and the castles and forts surrendered to their generals. 
 
 De Clare appealed to Edward for protection ; but ncvr 
 
87 
 
 distractions and commotions in the west of Ireland, seemed 
 to obliterate the remembrance of De Lacy's misfortunes 
 from the royal bosom. Edward issued his royal mandate 
 to the prelates of the pale, to interpose their spiritual au- 
 thority, and to endeavour to compose the public di.soiders; 
 but the impotence of such mandates can well be conceived, 
 when thrown into the scale against the insatiable ambition 
 and avarice, v/hich perpetually stimulated the plunderers 
 of the Irish. 
 
 llie miseries experienced by that people, the uninter- 
 rupted persecutions with which their families and proper^ 
 ties were desolated, the unsuccessful efforts which they 
 made to expel the invaders of their country, broke down 
 their spirits, and reconciled them to the alternative of peace, 
 though on the condition of surrendering the ancient laws 
 and customs of their country. The historians of the Eng- 
 lish write, that the Irish embraced the laws, from the con- 
 viction that only under such laws, and such an adminis- 
 tration, could the peace and tranquillity of their country 
 be restored, the blessings of freedom communicated, and 
 the rights and privileges of man asserted. The fact is not 
 so ; and if this calumny on the Irish nation were not refu- 
 ted by the most respected authorities, it would be contra- 
 dicted by the observation of every man who attends to the 
 working of the human heart. As well may it be said that 
 the Irish petitioned for the desolation of their properties, as 
 the overthrow of their laws and constitution. " They peti- 
 tioned, it is true, under the torture of the lash, but this," 
 says Mr. Taaffe, " only proves their deplorable situation, 
 and not a preference of English law to the old established 
 and clierished laws of the country, under which their mon- 
 archy so long and so illustriously flourished." Mr. Leland, 
 after endeavouring to convince his readers that the Irish 
 solicited the protection of English law, is obliged to admit 
 the general sentiment of opposition, which animated that 
 people against any innovation whatever : " Nor did those 
 
of the Irish who. lived most detached from the English, 
 perceive any advantage in exchanging their old institutions 
 for another system. On the contrary, it was with the ut- 
 most labour and difficulty, and the most obstinate reluct- 
 ance on their part, that the English law could be obtruded 
 on them, even some centuries after the present period." 
 
 The answer of Edward to the petition of the perse- 
 cuted people of Ireland, is so very remarkable for the 
 hard and rigid terms on which he concedes to their wishes, 
 that if we had no other reason to conclude against the 
 degradinfj charge brought against them, that thev volun- 
 teered in surrendering the laws and customs of their 
 country, this instrument alone would prove that the king 
 of England was determined to make his Irish subjects 
 pay very dear indeed for what he and his generals called 
 the blessings of the English constitution. Perhaps hu- 
 man pride can sustain no greater insult, nor the human 
 heart be mors bitterly afflicted, than by the promise ot 
 protection from that power, who at the moment he is 
 making professions of kindness and afiection, is plunder- 
 ing our property, degrading our country, and tramp- 
 ling on the most honourable feelings of our nature. 
 With the sword in one hand, and his free constitution 
 in the other, it would be perhaps more than can be 
 expected from the firmness of human nature to resist 
 the kind and protecting offer. Vv'ith tlie Irish, at this 
 period, it would have been folly ; because it was a choice 
 of evils on which the mind could not balance for a mo- 
 ment, distracted and divided as they were by foreign 
 tyranny, and domestic treachery. The answer of Ed- 
 ward is too remarkable in its policy and its language, 
 to omit it even in this compendium of Irish history.* 
 
 • Have we not seen a similar reply to the petition of those infamous 
 aad prostituted characters, who agreed to that humblinoc and degrading 
 measure, called " an union between England and Ireland," — I;ave we not 
 had i^reat and flattering promises of a more substantial communication of 
 E.igliah priyiiejes, Engtiali capita!, English manners, English improve- 
 
89 
 
 It seems to be the artful model of subsequent conces- 
 sions to Ireland ; wliich are, in substance, " give me your 
 liberties — give me your properties at my disposal — give 
 up your country, and I will give to you in return the 
 blessings of the Enjjlish constitution." 
 
 It thus proceeds : 
 
 " Edward, by the grace of God, king of England, lord 
 of Ireland, and duke of Aquitaine, to our trusty and well- 
 beloved Robert de Clifford, justiciary of Ireland, greeting: 
 
 " The improvement of the state and peace of our land 
 of Ireland, signified to us by your letter, gives us exceed- 
 ing joy and pleasure. We entirely commend your diligence 
 in this matter, hoping, by the divine assistance, that the 
 things there begun so happily by you, shall, as far as in 
 you lieth, be still uirther prosecuted with the greater vigour 
 and success. 
 
 " And whereas the community of Ireland hath made a 
 tender to us of eight thousand marks, on condition ihat 
 we grant to them the laws of England, to be used in the 
 aforesaid land, we will give you to know, that inasmuch as 
 the laws used by the Irish are liateful to God, and having 
 held diligent conference and full deliberation with our 
 council in this matter, it seems sufficiently expedient to us 
 and to our council, to grant to them the English laws ; 
 provided always that the general consent of our people, or 
 at least of the prelates and nobles of that land, well affected 
 to us, shall uniformly concur in this behalf. We there- 
 fore command you, that, having entered into treaty with 
 those Irish people, and examined diligently into the wills 
 of our commons, prelates, and nobles, well affected 
 to us, in this behalf, and having agreed between you 
 
 ments in arts and industry ; and for these specious and intoxicatinsj bles- 
 sings, we should stipulate to surrender that liherty which raised our coun- 
 try from beggary to independence, and should again agree to rely on the 
 parental protection of that power, which chained dovvu the rich and pro- 
 lilic energies of our cuuntry for 600 years. 
 
 M 
 
90 , 
 
 and them on the highest fine of money that you can 
 obtain, to be paid to us on this account — ^you do, 
 with the consent of all, at least of the greater and sound- 
 ei* part aforesaid, make such a composition with the said 
 people, on the prenaises, as you shall judge in your dili- 
 gence, to be most expedient for our honour and interest ; 
 provided, however, tliat these people should hold in readi- 
 ness a body of good and stout footmen,' amounting to such 
 a number as you shall agree upon with them, for one turn 
 only, to repair to us when we shall think fit to demand 
 them." Such is the language of a king, communicating 
 what he terms the blessings of English law ; and such are 
 the conditions on which the tortured Irish inhabitants of 
 the pale were to obtain the protection of his majesty 
 Edward the first. But such is the language of tyranny 
 over every conquered people; the bayonet and the sword 
 are the forerunners of the blessings which despotism dis- 
 penses; and the sighs of a persecuted nation are generally 
 answered by hypocritical professions of kindness from the 
 hand which caused them. 
 
 Such v/as the influence of the petty tyrants of the Irish, 
 that they were able to intercept the rays of royal mercy, 
 however feeble in their heat; and the English ascendancy 
 of the pale struggled with their sovereign, for the perpe- 
 tuity of that monopoly of despotism, i\-om which the na- 
 tive Irish petitioned to be relieved. It should be here ob- 
 served, that the men who opposed the conununication of 
 English laws to the native Irish, professed the same reli- 
 gion and the same faith, as the unfortunate people over 
 whom the}' ruled ; that the ascendancy here complained of 
 was an English ascendancy, and that the same opportu- 
 nities, enjoyed by catholic, as well as protestant, would 
 be equally abused, and the same tyranny equally exercised. 
 No Irish protestant has oppressed his countryman, because 
 he is a catholic — no-~he has oppressed him because it was 
 the policy of England to er::courage and support a mono- 
 
91 
 
 poly of power in the hands of a few, and when England 
 became protestant, her Irish tyrants were protestants, as 
 her Irish tyrants were catholics in the time of Edward, be- 
 cause England was catholic. 
 
 The commons, the prelates and nobles, who threw 
 themselves between Edward and his subjects, and who en- 
 deavoured to preserve the little petty tyranny of monopoly, 
 were catholics ; but such is the nature of man under such 
 circumstances; the temptation is too seducing, and the 
 motive too strong to be weighed against the remote, thougli 
 certain rewards of integrity and public virtue. Two years 
 elapsed, and a second petition was presented by the na- 
 tive Irish, and a second time resisted by tlie catholic ba- 
 rons, clergy and commons. The consequence of this tan- 
 talizing policy, was the universal distraction of the coun- 
 try, the renewal of the most implacable hostilities, and a 
 wild, barbarous, and destructive civil Avar. 
 
 The English adventurers, the Fitzgeralds, the Burkes, 
 the Butlers, Eustaces, and Lacys, rose on the ruins which 
 spread around them, and notwithstanding the wise and be- 
 nevolent remonstrances of Mac Carty, the deluded natives 
 seemed to vie with each other in promoting the schemes 
 and confederacies of their common enemy. The great and 
 important undertakings in which the arras of Edward were 
 now engaged, (1286) involved his government in embar- 
 rassment, and the sufferings of Ireland were no reason why 
 an experiment to raise new resources should not there be 
 tried: he therefore demanded of the clergy, or rather of 
 all the spiritualities within the pale, an ftdditional fifteenth. 
 After some altercation and delay, this demand of Edward 
 was acceded to. 
 
 The distractions of Ireland were so great at this period, 
 that Edward determined to make some effort to prevent 
 thsir recurrence. For this purpose he deputed sir John 
 Wogan, in 1295, to administer the affairs of Ireland, oi;" 
 rather of that part of Ireland in possession of England. No 
 viceroy as yet appeared better qualified, from the mildness 
 
92 
 
 ©f his temper, his excellent understanding, and sound dis- 
 cretion, to heal the bleeding wounds of Ireland. With 
 firmness, to put into execution, the well digested resolu- 
 tions of parliament, he suppressed those whom he could 
 not soothe ; and we therefore see much done by this no- 
 bleman to compose the exhausting' dissentions of the Eng- 
 lish barons with each otLer, and of the native Irish with 
 both. He summoned parliament more frequently than 
 usual, and we find the acts of this assembly at this period, 
 more deserving of notice than those which have prece- 
 ded them. Various regulations were made to restrain the 
 insolence an^ tyranny of the barons, to put a stop to their 
 perpetual encroachments on the territories of each other, 
 and to ju'evcnt the recurrence of those exasperating prac- 
 tices which so frequently drove the native Irish to rebellios^ 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Edward 11. 
 
 The important events of this reign should have 
 ' ' been to England a source of useful instruction on 
 
 the inevitable evils flowing from that narrow and 
 confined policy, which estimated its security by the dis- 
 tracting divisions of Irishmen, by its success in running 
 county against county, the Irish within the pale against 
 their native countrymen, and erecting on the ruins and 
 weakness of both parties, a disgusting and torturing Eng- 
 lish ascendancy. 
 
 The successful invasion of Edward Bruce, brother of 
 the celebrated Scottish monarch, the devastation commit- 
 ted by his arms, and the universal shock then given to the 
 English interests in Ireland, should have taught the sister 
 country, the necessity of no longer relying on the power of 
 a faction to keep down the resentment of an injured and in- 
 sulted people. From this example, succeeding rulers 
 juight have learned the wisdom of mild and parental go- 
 vernment. They might have seen that the avarice of Eng- 
 lish speculators on the misfortunes of the people was the 
 cause of general dissatisfaction, and that the first opportu- 
 nity which may offer to a nation to release itself fi:Om the 
 
94 
 
 persecution of its enemies, will be embraced with equal 
 ardour, as the Irish received the Scottish alliance of Ed- 
 ward Bruce. 
 
 Mr. Hume, who does not often sympathise with the suf- 
 ferings of this country, whose sensibility would be more 
 affected by the misfortunes of a royal individual, than the 
 miserable scene of distress which covered the whole people 
 of Ireland for centuries, breaks out into the following in- 
 dignant obsei-vation on the oppression practised by his 
 countrymen on its devoted inhabitants : " The horrible 
 and absurd oppressions which the Irish suffered under the 
 English government, made them at first fly to the standard 
 of the Scots, whom they regarded as their deliverers." 
 Should not such an example have operated as a source of 
 instruction to succeeding governments, not to be making 
 so important a member of the British empire as Ireland, 
 the common subject on which every experiment suggested 
 by tyranny or by ambition was hereafter to be tried ; the 
 retreat of an odious favourite, or a bankrupt lord; the 
 resting place of eveiy political adventurer who would sub- 
 mit to be the instrument of the sovereign, administering 
 to his views of folly, passion, or tyranny. In the time 
 of Edward II. we see the royal favourite. Pierce Gaveston, 
 odious to Englishmen, appointed the representative of 
 majesty in Ireland. In succeeding times we shall find Ire- 
 land the grand refugium peccatorum of Englishmen ; the 
 place of refuge for every bad or vicious passion, and the 
 great scene of remuneration for every public delinquent, 
 who has incurred the resentment, or merited the displea- 
 sure of the English nation. The vicegerent of Edward 
 II. Pierce Gaveston, had so much offended the pride, and 
 independent spirit of the English barons, by the insolence 
 of his demeanour, and the abuse of his royal master's 
 partiality, that Edward was obliged to yield to the general 
 sentiment against his favourite ; and, to blunt the edge of 
 public vengeance, sent him to Ireland, where the services 
 
95 
 
 of Gaveston might, in some degree, obliterate the re- 
 membrance of those injuries of which the barons erf Eng- 
 land so loudly complained. The personal qualities of 
 Gaveston were highly calculated to raise great public ex- 
 pectations of the effects of his administration ; and in this 
 hope the English colonists were not disappointed. He 
 displayed great vigour and abihty as viceroy; he extin- 
 guished rebellion the moment it raised its head, and estab- 
 lished peace and tranquillity throughout his government, 
 as much by the independent firmness of his administra- 
 tion, as by the promptitude and triumph of his arms. The 
 splendor of the governor threw the English barons into the 
 shade. Accustomed to dictate to the viceroy, those petty 
 lords could not brook the high and supercilious demeanor 
 of Gaveston; and a rivalship of parade and ostentation 
 between those lords and the viceroy, had frequently the 
 effect of protecting the people against the insolence and 
 torture of petty tyranny. 
 
 Those symptoms of discontent had just appeared, when 
 the favourite Gaveston was recalled; and the government 
 was again intrusted, but with limited powers, to sir John 
 Wogan, who was compelled to consume his time, and 
 that of parliament, with an idle contest for precedence 
 between the prelates of Armagh and Dublin. 
 
 New wars were carried on between the lords of the pale, 
 and the native Irish; and the earl of Ulster, vv^hose am- 
 bition had no bounds, wantonly invaded the territories of 
 Thomond, where he suffered a signal defeat from the 
 Geraldines. The result of those sanguinary contests was 
 the union of the two families, of the Geraldines, and the 
 family of the earl of Ulster, an union which promised 
 an interval of repose to the people of Ireland. A new 
 •cene now opened, which brought back all the miseries 
 and distress from which Ireland flattered herself ui some 
 degree released. The triumph of liberty in Scotland 
 roused the patriotic ardour of the native Irish, and tlie 
 
96 
 
 degrading contrast which their own situation exhibited, 
 when compared with the glorious independence en- 
 joyed by the Scottish nation, prompted the bold and 
 intrepid spirits of Ireland, to emulate the conduct of the il- 
 Kistrious Bruce, who successfully asserted the freedom of 
 his countrymen. They entered into correspondence with 
 the monarch of Scotland : they solicited his protection in 
 stron.o- and pathetic language, and promised the universal 
 co-operation of Ireland with his invading arms. The pre- 
 parations making throughout Ireland for the reception of 
 the Scottish invader, alarmed the government of the pale so 
 much, that a deputation, composed of the lords of Ulster, 
 Edmond Butler, and Theobald de Verdun, was sent for- 
 ward to consult with the king, his prelates, and nobles, on 
 the critical and alarming situation of the English interests. 
 We find these commissioners, who had communicated 
 with the British monarch and his parliament, sent back to 
 Ireland, to lay a statement of the royal determination in 
 favour of the Irish, before the principaJ chieftains of the 
 latter ; promising redress of grievances, cessation of per- 
 secution, and stooping to the humility and meanness of 
 soliciting the alliance of those people whom the violence 
 of English persecution had driven into the arms of re- 
 bellion. 
 
 ^m.on -mother measures, offensive and defensive, adopted 
 on this occasion by the Irish people, and the English mo- 
 narch, we find an appeal to the pope, the grand arbiter of 
 Ea op.", the thunders of whose bulls were heard with ve- 
 neration in the remotest corners of the civilized world. 
 
 The pathetic and able remonstrance presented by the 
 Irish people, on this occasion, to the most holy father, is 
 the best picture which can be presented to posterity of the 
 Euiferinvis which Ireland experienced from the invasion of 
 Enoland. It is a comnendium of human sorrow, and of 
 goading exasperation, which no future pen could more 
 strongly delineate ; which brings tears into the eyes of the 
 
97 
 
 Irish reader, and justifies, in a loud and emphatic tone, 
 the efforts of our ancestors, who struggled for their deli- 
 verance. 
 
 The Irish chieftains, being only catholics, and not having 
 the claims on papal partiality which the English monarch 
 had, relied on the justice of their cause; and, fearless of 
 contracUction, related the story of their sufferings in such 
 strong and glowing terms, as called for the sympathy of the 
 royal father, and moved him to interpose between the per- 
 secuted people of Ireland and the British monarch. Even 
 in this abridgment of Irish history, we cannot refrain from 
 giving, at length, and without curtailment, this interesting 
 document of Irish grievances. To the English reader, 
 it should be a fertile source of instruction ; and to the rui-* 
 ers of Ireland it should be strong and satisfactory evidence 
 of the necessity of securing the allegiance of Irishmen by 
 services, rather than weakly endeavouring to humble and 
 reduce their spirit by persecution. This Irish remon-* 
 strance is an able recapitulation of English administration, 
 from the invasion of Henry II. ; and is a triumphant vin-» 
 dication of their present resistance to England 
 
 " To the most holy father in Christ, lord Jolin, by the 
 grace of God ; his devoted children, Donald O'Neil, kino- 
 of Ulster, and by hereditary right true heir of Ireland, as 
 also the chieftains, and nobles, and the people of Ireland, 
 recommend themselves most humbly, &c. &c. 
 
 " It is extremely painful to us, that the vicious detrac- 
 tions of slanderous Englishman, and their iniquitous sug- 
 gestions against the defenders of our rights, should exas-. 
 perate your holiness against the Irish nation ; but alas I 
 you know us only by the misrepresentation of our ene^ 
 mies ; and you are exposed to the danger of r.dopting the 
 infamous falsehoods which they propagate, without hearing 
 any thing of the detestable cruelties they have committed 
 against our ancestors, and continue to commit ev£A tp tliis 
 dav against oui'selves. 
 
 N 
 
98 
 
 Heaven forbid that your holiness should be thus mis- 
 guided ; and it is to protect our unfortunate people fi'om 
 such a calamity, that we have resolved here to trive you a 
 faithful account of the present state of a kingdom we can 
 call the melancholy remains of a nation that so long groans 
 under the tyranny of their kings of England, and of the 
 barons : some of whom, though born among us, continue 
 to practise the same rapine and ci'uelties against us, which 
 their ancestors did a<;ainst ours heretofore. We shall 
 speak nothing but the truth, and we hope that your holi- 
 ness will not delay to inflict condign punishment on the 
 authors and abettors of such inhuman calamities. 
 
 " Know, then, tliat our forefathers came from Spain ; 
 and our chief apostle, St. Patrick, sent by your predecessor 
 pope Celestine, in the year 435, did by the inspiration of 
 the Holy Ghost, most effectually teach us the truth of the 
 holy Roman catholic faith, and that, ever since that period^ 
 our kings, well instructed in the faith that was preached to 
 them, have, in number sixty-one, without mixture of 
 foreign blood, reigned in Ireland, to the year 1170; and 
 those kings were not Englishmen, nor of any other nation 
 but oar own ; who v* ith pious liberality bestowed ample 
 endowments in lands, and many immunities on the Irish 
 church ; though in modern times our churches were most 
 barbarously plundered by the English, by whom they are 
 almost despoiled ; and though those our kings so long and 
 so strenuously defended against the tyrants and kuigs of 
 different regions, the inheritance given them by God, 
 preserving their innate liberty at all times inviolate, yet 
 Adrian IV, your predecessor, an Englishman more even 
 by affection and prejudice than by birth, blinded by that 
 affection, and the false suggestions of Heniy II. king of 
 England, under whom, and perhaps by whom, St. Tho- 
 mas of Canterbury was murdered, gave the dominions of 
 this our kingdom, by a certain form of words, to that 
 £.-vme Henry II. whom he ought rather to have stripped of 
 
99 
 
 his own, on account of the above crime — thus omitting all 
 legal and judicial order : and also, his national jirejudices 
 and predilections blindfolding the discernment of the pon- 
 tiff, without our being guilty of any crime, without any 
 rational cause whatever, he gave us up to be mangled to 
 pieces by the teeth of the most cruel and voracious of all 
 monsters ; and if, sometimes nearly flayed alive, we escape 
 from the deadly bite of those treacherous and greedy wolves, 
 it is but to descend into the miserable abysses of slaver}', 
 to drao- on the doleful remains of a life more terrible tlian 
 death itself, ever since those English appeared first upon 
 our coasts, in virtue of the above surreptitious donatioji. 
 They entered our territories under a certain specious pre- 
 text of piety and external hypocritical show of religion ; 
 endeavouring in the mean time, by every artifice malice 
 could suggest, to extirpate us root and branch, and with- 
 out any other right than that of strength, they have so .far 
 succeeded by base and fraudulent cunning, that they have 
 forced us to quit our fair and ample habitations, and pa- 
 ternal inheritances, and to take refuge, like wild beasts, 
 in the mountains, woods, and morasses of the country ; 
 nor can even the caverns and dens protect us against their 
 insatiable avarice. They pursue us even into those frightful 
 abodes, endeavouring to dispossess us of the wild uncul- 
 tivated rocks, and arrogating to themselves the property of 
 every place on which we can stamp the figure of our feet ; 
 and through the excess of the most profound ignorance, 
 impudence, arrogance, or blind insanity, scarcely conceiva- 
 ble, they dare to assert that not a single part of Ireland is 
 ours, but by right entirely their own ! 
 
 " Hence the implacable animosities and exterminating 
 carnage which are perpetually carried on between us ; hence 
 our continual hostilities, our bloody reprisals, our num- 
 berless massacres, in which, since their invasion to this day, 
 more than 50,000 men have perished on both sides ; not to 
 speak of those who died by famine, despair, the rigours of 
 
100 
 
 captinty, and a thousand other disorders, which it is im- 
 possible to remedy, on account of the anarchy in which Ave 
 11 ^'8 — an anarchy which, alas ! is tremendous, not only to the 
 state, but also to the church of Ireland ; the ministers of which 
 are daily exposed, not only to the loss of the frail and tran- 
 sitory things of this world, but also to the loss of those so- 
 lid and substantial blessings which are eternal and im- 
 mortal. 
 
 " Let those few particulars, concerning our origin, and 
 the deplorable state to which we have been reduced by the 
 nboA-e donation of Adrian IV. suffice for the present. 
 
 '' We have now to inform your holiness, that Henry 
 kinp" of England, and the four kings his successors, have 
 violated the conditions of the pontifical bull, by which 
 they were empowered to invade this kingdom ; for the said 
 Henrv promised, as appears by the said bull, to extend 
 the patrimony of the church, and to pay to th^ apostolical 
 see, annually, one penny for each house. Now this pro- 
 mise both he and his successors above mentioned, and their 
 iniquitous ministers, observed not at all withTegard to Ire- 
 land ; on the contrary, they have entirely and intentionally 
 eluded them, and endeavoured to force the reverse. 
 
 " As to the church lands, so far from extending them, 
 they have confined and retrenched and invaded them on 
 all Sides; insomuch that some cathedral churches have 
 been, by open force, notoriously plundered of half their 
 possessions : nor have the persons of our clergy been more 
 respected ; for in every part of tlie country, we fin;l bishops 
 and prelates cited, arrested and imprisoned without dis- 
 tinction ; and they are oppressed with such servile fear, by 
 these frequent aiul unparalleled injuries, that they have not 
 the courage to represent to your holiness the sufferings 
 tlicy are so wantonly condemned to undsrgo. 
 
 " The English promised also to introduce a better code 
 of laws, and enforce better morals among the Irish people; 
 but instead of this, they have so corrupted our morals. 
 
101 
 
 tliat the holy and dove-like simplicity of our nation is, on 
 account of the flagitious example of those reprobates, 
 changed into the malicious cunning of the serpent. 
 
 *' We had a written code of laws, according to whicli 
 our nation was governed hitherto : they have deprived us 
 of those laws, and of every law, except one, which it is 
 impossible to wrest from us; and, for the purpose of exter- 
 minating our people, they have established other iniquitous 
 laws, by which injustice and inhumanity are combined for 
 our destruction, — some of which we here insert for vour 
 inspection, as being so many fundamental rules of English 
 jurisprudence, established in this kingdom." 
 
 (The statement of the Irish then sets foilh the laws by 
 which the lives, and properties, and feelings of their coun- 
 try, were sacrificed to the rapacious and cruel ascendancy 
 of England. It then goes on in the following strong and 
 emphatic language :) 
 
 " All hope of peace between us is therefore completely 
 destroyed ; for such is their pride, such their excessive lust 
 of dominion, such our ardent ambition toxshake off this 
 insupportable yoke, and recover the inheritance which 
 they have so unjustly usurped, that as there nfever was, so 
 (here never will be any sincere coalition between them and 
 us ; nor is it possible there should, in this life ; for we en- 
 tertain a certain natural enmity against each other, flowing 
 from mutual malignity, descending by inheritance from 
 father ta son, and spreading from generation to generation. 
 Let no person wonder, then, if we endeavour to presei-ve 
 our lives and defend our liberties as well as we can, against 
 those cruel tyrants. So far from thinking it unlawful, we 
 hold it to be a meritorious act ; nor can we be accused of 
 perjury or rebellion, since neither our fathers nor we did at 
 any time bind ourselves by an oath of allegiance, to their 
 fathers or to them; and therefore, witliout the least re- 
 morse of conscience, while breath remains, we will attack 
 them in defence of our just rights ; and nevdr lay down our 
 
102 
 
 arms until we force them to desist. Besides, we are fully 
 satisfied to prove in a judicial manner, before twelve or 
 more bishops, the facts, which we have stated, and the 
 grievances which we have complained of; not like these 
 English, who, in time of prosperity, discontinue all legal 
 ordinances, and, if they enjoyed prosperity at present, 
 would not recur to Rome, as they do now ; but would crush 
 with their overbearing and tyrannical haughtiness, all the 
 surrounding nations, despising every law, human and 
 divine. 
 
 " Thereupon, on account of all those injuries, and a 
 thousand otiiers which human wit cannot easily compre- 
 hend ; — and on account of the kings of England, and their 
 wicked ministers, who instead of governing us, as they are 
 bound to do, with justice and moderation, have wickedly 
 endeavoured to exterminate us oiF the face of the earth, — 
 and to shake off their detestable yoke, and recover our na- 
 tive liberties, which we lost by their means, we are forced 
 to carry on an exterminating war, choosing, in defence of 
 our liberties and lives, rather to rise like men, and expose 
 our persons bravely to all the dangers of war, than any 
 longer to bear like women those atrocious and detestable 
 injuries; and in order to obtain our interest the more spee- 
 dily and consistently, we invite the gallant Edward Bruce; 
 to whom, being descended from our most noble ancestors, 
 we transfer, as we justly may, our right of royal dominion ; 
 unanimously declaring him our king, by common consent, 
 who in our opinion, and the opinion of most men, is as just, 
 prudent, and pious, as he is powerful and courageous; 
 who will do justice to all classes of people." 
 
 The pope had strong and intiuential reasons for his 
 partiality to England, which did not exist in favour of 
 Ireland. The English allowed his holiness both temporal 
 and spiritual power — the Irish confined him to spiritual 
 power. This accounts, in no small degree, for the papal 
 partiality in favour of the former. A bull of excommuni- 
 
103 
 
 cation was published some time afterwards, in wliich Robert 
 and Edward Bruce are mentioned by name. 
 
 The thunders of the Vatican, however, were but a small 
 impediment to the Scottish chief. Lord Edward Bruce 
 appeared on the north-eastern coast of Ireland, on the 
 25th of May, 1315, with a fleet of 300 sail, carrying 
 6,000 men ; with this force he laid waste the English set- 
 tlements in the north of Ireland. Dundalk and Atherdee 
 opened their gates. 
 
 The west and south hailed their deliverer with enthusi- 
 asm, and flocked to his standard, animated with the hope 
 that the hour had arrived when the wrongs of their coun- 
 try would be redressed. The disunion of the English 
 lords facilitated the progress of the enemy ; and the arti- 
 fices of Bruce, practised with success on the ambition of 
 Fedlim O'Connor, the king of Connaught, detached a 
 large and powerful force from the ranks of his enemies. 
 
 Fedlim O'Connor is deposed by his brother Roderic ; 
 and the former, aided by English auxiliaries, recovers his 
 throne, and, contrary to his solemn engagements, joins 
 the forces of the Scotch invader, Edward Bruce. O'Brien 
 of Thomond, the chieftains of Munster and Meath, de- 
 clare for Bruce ; the clergy proclaim him as the deliverer 
 of Ireland from the tyranny of England ; and the coro- 
 nation of Edward Bruce at Dundalk, gave confidence to 
 the timid, and increased boldness to the friends of Irish 
 freedom The illustrious Robert Bruce came over to Ire- 
 land with a large force, to confirm the pretensions of his 
 brother to its sovereignty; and though opposed by the 
 most unprecedented dearth of provisions, took many of 
 the strongest places in Ulster, and laid waste the country 
 through which he passed. 
 
 The fears of the colony at length began to rouse tliem " 
 from their lethargy : and the danger of being expelled 
 by the Scotch invaders from those great and pi-incely 
 estates which they had purchased with their blood, united 
 
101 
 
 the English lords in one common sentiment, and deter- 
 mined them to make one general effort against this formi- 
 flablc enemy. On this occasion, the most distinguished 
 Eni^lish barons received new titles and new honors from 
 tlie hands of the British monarch. John Fitzthomas, 
 baron of Ophaly, was created earl of Kildare j lord Ed- 
 mund Butler received the title of earl of Carrick. — An 
 army was sent by the colony into Connaught, against 
 Fedlifti O'Connor, who laid waste the territories of a 
 number of English barons surrounding liis kingdom., and 
 threatened an universal annihilation of the English name, 
 had it not been for the battle of Athunree, in which the 
 Enti-lish put forth all their strength, and gained a most 
 decisive victory. Fcdlim O'Connor fell on the field of 
 battle, with eight thousand of his troops. In the 
 mean time Bruce proceeded in , his destructive progress 
 throuo-h the north, and met with no obstacle to his am- 
 bition, until he arrived at the walls of the metropolis. 
 Here the Scottish chief met with a resistance that com- 
 pelled him to march into Kildare, wliich he desolated 
 with all the cruelty of a disappointed and baffled general. 
 The fury of Bruce, and the havoc committed by his army 
 on the proj^erty of the English colony, imited those barons 
 whom a more artful policy might liave divided, and ren- 
 dered tributary to his purposes. The miserably impover- 
 ished state of the country at this period, proved more for- 
 inid:ible to Bruce than the sword of his enemies. It is re- 
 lated, that the famine was so dreadful, that the carcases of 
 tlie dead soldiers were the only sustenance of the living. 
 Bruce, however, after all his losses from the visitation of 
 Providence, made a desperate effort to maintain his c<m- 
 quest. He met the English nearDundalk; the conflict 
 was violent, and sustained on each side with equal bravery ; 
 but at length victory declared for the English general. — 
 Edward was slain in this desperate enga^-ement; and thus 
 terminated an expedition, which promised in its commence- 
 
105 
 
 ment a speedy deliverance from the English power, and 
 which, at the end of three years, left her an object of 
 pity and wretchedness to surrounding nations. 
 
 The miseries of the people were greatly aggravated, at 
 this period, ( 1 3 1 8) by the different modes of jurisdiction that 
 governed the native and the colonist. The calamitous ef- 
 fects which flowed to the governors as well as the governed, 
 demonstrated the fatuity of such a policy. To murder 
 an Irishman was punishable only by fine ; the ijjurder 
 of an Englishman was a capital offence. The English- 
 man who plundered his neighbour was condemned to 
 death ; the Irishman who committed the same crime was 
 often handed over to his Brehon, or Irish judge, who had 
 it in his power to compound with the offender ; an indulf 
 gence which, it is related, seduced numbers of disorderly 
 Englishmen to renounce their name and nation. This 
 wretched policy gave unlimited reins to the vengeance 
 of an enemy, and exposed society to all the horrors of 
 civil war and anarchy. The worst passions found protection 
 in the law, and the weak and innocent fell victims to 
 the strong and the guilty. The partial adininistratioji 
 of ji^stice, the corruption of the judges, the depraved 
 Stat- ^ of the public mind, were evils sufficiently grea^ 
 to impoverish the political body; but the absurd and 
 cruel practice of quartering the soldiers on the miser- 
 able inhabitants, and exposing them to the insatiable exac- 
 tions of an unbridled soldiery, filled up the cup of Irish 
 suffering, and presented to the eye a universal scene of 
 anarchy, rapine and massacre. The consequence of this 
 baneful practice was, that the English freeholders, rather 
 than endure such perpetual torture, fled to the counti-y 
 of the native Irish, learned their language raid their man- 
 ners, and were undistinguished, in the course of time, from 
 the native inhabitants. Among those of the English bar- 
 ons who imposed those arbitrary exactions on the unfor- 
 tunate people, was Mam'ice Eitztliomaa cf Deair^or.dj 
 
 O 
 
106 
 
 who, it is said, to preserve the power he had usurped, 
 (having expelled all the English settlers from his immense 
 estates, which were soon occupied by his Irish followers,) 
 he became an Irish chieftain, and only acknowledged those 
 laws which secured him undiminished or unlimited pow- 
 er over his tenantry. The English and Irish soon imited 
 into one mass, and became one people, united against Eng- 
 lish law, and English connection. Such was the scene 
 which Ireland exhibited when Edward III. came to the 
 English throne. 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Edward III, 
 
 . ^ 1 HE miserable situation to which Ireland was 
 p,27* reduced by the Scottish invasion, which let loose 
 the violent and furious passions of a people unre- 
 strained by law, and uncontrouledby a settled and impartial 
 sj'stem of jurisprudence, would incline us to suppose that 
 the barbarities and atrocities committed by the colonists on 
 the natives, were rather the offspring of particular circum- 
 stances, and peculiar only to that country in which such 
 circumstances existed, than a miniature of the universal 
 anarchy which the British empire then exhibited. 
 
 Mr. Hume, when describing the manners of the Eng- 
 lish people in the reign of Edward II. writes thus : " The 
 estate of an English baron was managed by his bailiiFsj 
 and cultivated by his villains. Its produce was consumed 
 in rustic hospitality by the Baron and his officers. A 
 number of idle retainers, ready for any mischief or disor- 
 der, were maintained by him : all who lived upon his estate 
 were absolutely at his disposal ; and instead of applying 
 to courts of justice, he usually sought redress by open 
 force and violence. The great nobility were a kind of in- 
 dependent potentates, who, if they submitted to any regu- 
 
lOS 
 
 lations at all, were less governed by tlie municipal law than/ 
 by a rude species of the law of nations." 
 
 How the historian who in the impartial spirit of histo- 
 ry gives such a description of the state of society among his 
 own countrymen, in tJie reign of Edward II. can be se- 
 duced to designate the Irish as barbarians, whose manners 
 and customs were exactly similar, can only be accounted 
 for by that determined spirit of hostihty which Mr. Hume 
 always manifests against the Irish nation. It is not sur- 
 prising that a nation like Ireland, which has been the com- 
 mon prey of foreign invasion, of the Danes, the English, 
 and the Scotch, should contain within its bosom all the 
 pernicious materials of intestine warfare and distraction — 
 that an English party and a Scotch party should be found 
 to fly to arms in the hour of invasion, and that a system 
 of government which put the great mass of the people 
 out of the protection of the law, should have generated all 
 those miserable scenes which perpetually present them- 
 selves. 
 
 In England, we find from Mr. Hume, that the strong 
 arm of the sovereign could not restrain the barbarous 
 tyranny of the English baron. How then could it be 
 expected that the feeble orders of the royal deputy should 
 have silenced the clamours of faction, repressed the violence 
 of the petty lord, or introduced a spirit of order or civiliza- 
 tion into the great political body of the Irish people ? 
 
 Amidst the distractions which disfigured the liiir lace of 
 Ireland at this melancholy sera of her depression, ^ve are re- 
 lieved in some degree by the philanthropic efforts made 
 by a tew prelates to check the vices and disorders of the 
 community. Two archbishops laboured to establish a 
 university in Dublin, not only for the study of theology, 
 but that of the civil and canon law, then a fashionable 
 part of European literature. Archbishop Bricknor distin- 
 guished himself on this occasion by the liberality of his pa- 
 tronage, and Edward III. enlarged the original endow- 
 
109 
 
 inent, and granted his protection to the students of the 
 new seminary, some years after its first establishment ; but 
 the dawn of public instruction w'as greatly clouded by the 
 sad examples of fanaticism which some of the ecclesiastical 
 colonists exhibited at this period. Charges of heresy were 
 brought by private resentment and vengeance agahist the 
 most distinguished families, and the punishment of the 
 church made instrumental to the gratification of malice 
 and ambition. Richard Ledred, bishop of Ossory, a man 
 of violent and vindictive passions, encouraged the perse- 
 cutions of the fanatic; and charges of heresy were brought 
 against the magistrate as well as the peasant, who in many 
 instances were destroyed by the faggot, or witliered away 
 in a prison. The bishop of Ossory himself became a victim 
 in turn, and was obliged to fly the country v.'hich he had 
 visited with the fury of his superstition. 
 
 We do not find that the accession of Edward III. to the 
 British throne, contributed in any degree to restrain the 
 violence of faction, or to prevent each English baron 
 from pursuing, as usual, his own personal schemes of am- 
 bition. He despised the authority of the deputy, and 
 treated with equal contempt the royal m.andate of Edward, 
 who wrote letters to the principal parous, enjoining them, 
 on their allegiance, to pay due obedience to the chief go- 
 vernor, Thomas Fitzjohn, earl of Kildare. 
 
 Private wars continued to be waged as usual ; and the 
 calling a name, or offering a personal insult, involved the 
 Irish chiefs, with their respective followers, in the most 
 sanguinary contests. Hence the destructive battles of 
 Maurice of Desmond with John de la Poer. The king 
 commanded them to lay down their arms ; and at length 
 the apprehension that the native Irish would take advan- 
 tage of their divisions, put an end to hostilities which 
 desolated the English territories. 
 
 Another effort is now made by the native Irish to en- 
 joy the shelter of British law, and no longer to be the vie- 
 
no 
 
 tims of the ambition and avarice of the contending barons, 
 who were perpetually oppressing the Irish, and goading 
 them to insurrection, in order to plunder them of their 
 properties. The Irish petition for the privileges of English 
 subjects, and their petition is insolently rejected by an Ang- 
 lo-Irish parliament, who?e monopoly could only be pre- 
 served by the persecution of the people. The conse- 
 quence of such contumelious treatment was a most formi- 
 dable insurrection of the Irish ; and so formidable was 
 this Irish insurrection, that the power which could not be 
 conquered by the sword, they practised on by brib- 
 ery. Maurice of Desmond was invited by the English 
 to join their forces, and promises of the ■ most alluring 
 kind were held out to this Irish prince, if he deserted the 
 ranks of his countrymen. They created him earl of 
 Desmond, and bestowed new territories on him. 
 
 Tlie Irish, with the celebrated O'Brien at their head, 
 contmued to harass the English settlemenir, and almost 
 threatened it with annihilation. Sir Anthon}' Lacy was 
 appointed to the government of the colony. He deter- 
 mined, by a prosecution of the war, to reduce the Irish, 
 as well as to disconcert that formidable confederacy formed 
 by the Enghsh barons to circumscribe his power. He sum- 
 moned a parliament to meet him at Dublin : his order was 
 neglected ; — he seized the earl of Desmond, Mandeville, 
 Walter de Burgo, William and Walter Birmingham. 
 
 It was about this period, (1330) that Edward III. de- 
 claimed his intention of visiting Ireland. He issued some 
 ordinances for the better regulation of the kingdom, and 
 the more impartial administration of justice : he resumed 
 all the Irish grants made during the reign of his mother, 
 and her favourite, Mortimer. 
 
 Notwithstanding the magnitude of the preparations which 
 Edward made for his visit to Ireland, it soon appeared 
 that his real object was the invasion of Scotland, and, 
 iiiiitating the example of his illustrious grandfather, to re- 
 
Ill 
 
 cover the dominion of that important kingdom. Ireland 
 was thus left to be preyed upon by new competitors for her 
 riches, and new adventurers for plunder. The denuncia- 
 tions of a rio'orous government subsided into the timid con- 
 cessions of a wekk and impotent administration ; and the 
 assassination of the earl of Ulster completed the despair of 
 all those who trembled for the security of the English co- 
 lonists. Many of the English barons declared for the 
 Irish ; and the governor had not only to contend with the 
 common enemy, but with the treason of those chictlains 
 on whose allegiance he thought he might reasonably rely. 
 He seized two of the noble house of De la Poer ; he con- 
 fined Maurice Fitzmaurice of Kerry, and visited with 
 severe punishment those who had disturbed the peace 
 of Leinster. 
 
 Such a state of things as we have been describing, was 
 ill calculated to enrich the treasury of the ambitious and 
 martial Edward. His Irish resources were far below 
 his expectations ; and his disappointment at the alarming 
 deficiency so extreme, that he withdrew all confidence 
 from those of his Irish servants who had the administration 
 of Irish affairs. He therefore resolved on th-D most violent 
 and oifensive measures : all the principal ministers and 
 officers of government were discharged ; the justices of 
 the king's bench and common pleas. He issued the most 
 rio-id and severe ordinances for the future regulation of his 
 possessions in Ireland ; and by one very remarkable order, 
 he withdrew his confidence entirelv from all those English- 
 men who held any Irish properties, under the impression 
 that they were interested in the distractions of that unhappy 
 country, which gave them an opportunity of increa^ing the 
 extent of their territories, and pi underingthe devoted natives. 
 ^The spirit and purport of tlais order is so very singular, 
 and so well describes the total sacrifice of the Eriglish inte- 
 rests by the colonists to their own aggrandizement, that we 
 shall set it down here for the satisfaction of the reader. 
 
113 
 
 "The king to his trusty and beloved John D'Arcy^ 
 justiciary of Ireland, greeting. 
 
 «' Whereas it appeareth to us and to our council, for 
 many reasons, that our service shall the better and more 
 profitably be conducted in the said land, by English offi- 
 cers', ha^'^ng revenues and possessions in England, than by 
 Irish or Englishmen married and estatcd in Ireland, and 
 •without any possessions in our realm of England ; we en- 
 join you that you diligently inform yourself of aU our 
 officers greater or leaser within our land of Ireland afore- 
 said ; and that all such ofliccrs beneficed, married, and 
 €stated in the said land, and having nothing in England, 
 be removed from their offices : that you place and substi- ' 
 tutc in their room other jff/ Englishmen, having lands, te- 
 nements, and benefices in England ; and that you cause 
 the said offices for the future to be executed by such Eng- 
 lishmen, and none other, any order of ours to you made 
 in contrarywise notwithstanding." 
 
 The effect of such an ordei* was the immediate disaffec- 
 tion of all the principal barons of the colony, whose pride 
 ■R'as wounded, and whose past services were thus rewarded 
 by the most wanton and contumelious insult. The chief 
 governor, sir John Morris, undistinguished by birth or by 
 property, deemed it necessary to summon a parliament in 
 Dublin on this critical occasion ; but the lords whom he 
 had to govern, were determined not to be insulted with 
 - impunity. They therefore embarrassed, by every possible 
 expedient, the administration of the colony. Under the 
 direction of Desmond, they convened a parliament at Kil- 
 keimy ; they styled themselves the prelates, nobles, and 
 commons of the land ; and prepared a remonstrance to be 
 transmitted to the British monarch. In this remonstrance 
 the barons charged the viceroy with a base and unprinci- 
 pled neglect of the king's interests ; the desertion of his 
 castles; the abandonment of his territories to the nativis. 
 Irish, which cost so much treasure and blood in the ac- 
 
11 
 
 o 
 
 quisition ; the insolent exercise of authoi'ity over the nobles 
 of the land ; the plunder and extortion of their properties, 
 and an infamous monopoly of the wealth of the country. 
 They complained that they had been misrepresented to tlie 
 throne, by mean, ignorant, and avaricious adventurers 
 from England ; that they had been ever faithful in their 
 allegiance to his majesty; that they had borne arms in his 
 cause at their own expense ; and that, in return for such 
 services, they had been plundered of their properties, and 
 insulted in their feehngs. To this remonstrance, Edward 
 replied in a gracious and condescending tone; — he promis- 
 ed a milder administration, and a future correction of the 
 evils complained of by his subjects. 
 
 The remonstrance, which wehave just mentioned as be- 
 ing presented by the English lords of the colony, against 
 the rapacity of the new adventurers, is a good picture of 
 the oppression and sufferings of which the native Irish could 
 have complained, and with the perpetration of which they 
 mighthave justly charged those very lords, who were now 
 swept away by the new tide of rapacity, which rushed in 
 from the chief source of misfortune. It was a just reta- 
 liation for the barbarities inflicted on the ancient Irish, and 
 the sreat retribution of Providence for the miseries which 
 they had inflicted on an unoffending people; — "Whatever 
 measure you measure unto others, the same measure shall 
 be measured unto you." 
 
 In the course of this history, it will be fomid that one 
 wave of English enterprise v»^ashed away the preceding; 
 that evei-y fresh swarm of English adventurers annihilated 
 their predecessors, and gave them the exact measure v. hicU 
 was given to the ancient inhabitants. 
 
 The dissensions and discontents were biit little diminish* 
 ed by the royal promise to redress the grievances of the 
 remonstrancers. The spirit of monopoly among the new 
 rulers of the pale, counteracted the purpose and interests 
 of tiif monarch ; and tlie same jealousies between the ^lo 
 
 P 
 
114 
 
 English settlers and the new English settlers continued 
 with unabated rancour. The attention of Edward was too 
 much occupied with his grand - and magnificent specula- 
 tions of conquest and glory in France, to turn for a mo- 
 ment to a careful consideration of the best remedies for 
 the disorders which convulsed his Irish dominions ; but a 
 chief governor happened to be appointed about this period 
 (l^^S) who possessed those qualities of vigour and dcter- 
 Tnination, which were well suited to curb and restrain the 
 vindictive and violent passions of the people he was to 
 govern. 
 
 Sir Ralph de Ufford was entriisted with the Irish admi- 
 nistration. This liim and active deputy not only suppress- 
 ed the common enem}-, but he also reduced to obedience 
 those Enijlish barons, of whom Desmond and Kildare were 
 at the head. The sudden death of this efficient chief go- 
 vernor, ropiunged the colony into its old tactions, and re- 
 vived all its old animosities. Sir John Morris, possessing 
 a mild and conciliating disposition, succeeded, and was 
 unequal to the task of awing into obedience these turbulent 
 lords whom Sir Ra.I^^h de EfFord had put down. 
 
 Edward had now (ISl-S) completed his preparations for 
 the invasion of France; and Desmond having appeared 
 before this monarch to complain of the injuries he had re- 
 ceived from the chief governor, was solicited by Edward 
 to join his standard, and participate in the fame ajid lau- 
 rels he was about to acquire against the common enemy of 
 England. The complaints of Desmond and Kildare were 
 attended to ; their lands restored, and those noble and 
 powerful barons, with their numerous followers, contri- 
 buted in an eminent degree to the fame of English arms, iu 
 the celebrated battle of Cressy. Edward witnessed with 
 the enthusiasm of a hero, the agility and strength, and 
 skill at arms, displayed by his Irish auxiliaries; and the 
 earl Kildare so greatly distinguished himself at the siege of • 
 Calais, that he received the honor of knighthood from the 
 
115 
 
 king's hand, and returned to Ireland, covered with mili- 
 tary glory and roj'al honors. 
 
 The restoration of Desmond and Kildare to their exten- 
 sive estates in Ireland, contributed in a great degree to 
 tranquillize the colony ; but the animosity of the old Eng- 
 lish against their newly arrived brethren, was too deeply 
 rooted to suffer that complete harmony wliich would have 
 insured the stability of the English interests in this country. 
 The old English formetl alliances with the native Irish ; 
 their manners and customs and affections became Irish, 
 and the miion of the people was considered by the vicerov, 
 as the certain forerunner of the destruction of the English 
 power. It was therefore enjoined by ji'oyai mandate, that 
 *' No mere Irishmen should be admitted into any office or 
 trust in any city, borough, or castle in the king's land; 
 that no bishop or prior, under the king's dominion and 
 allegiance, should admit any of this race' to an ecclesiasti- 
 cal benefice or into any religious house, on account of con- 
 sanguinity or other pretence whatever ;" thus breaking up 
 all those social and endearing connections which time had 
 formed,^ which good policy would have strengthened, and 
 which only excited the -envy, the jealousy, and malig- 
 nity of a short-sighted monopoly. Such is the epitome of 
 Irish histor}', and in those few w^ords might Ireland's sto- 
 ry be told, for 600 years of English domination. Of those 
 impolitic ordinances the native" chiefs took advantage, and 
 *' Belluvi ad internccionem" Vv'as the signal from one corner 
 of the kingdom to the other; O'Neil from the north, 
 O'Brien from the south, recruited their forces by the fool- 
 ish denunciations of their inveterate enemies. They deso- 
 lated the English territories, and threatened the English 
 power in Ireland with complete annihilation. " A want of 
 concert and union," writes Mr. Leland, " among the 
 Irish, prevented them from demolishing the whole fabric 
 of English power, by one general and decisive assault." 
 Edward, habituated to victory, saw with considerable 
 
116 
 
 agitation, the miserable disorders of his Irish dominions. 
 He sent forward his second son, lord Lionel, who was 
 affianced, in his tender years, to the daughter of the earl 
 of Ulster, and by riglit of his wife, claimed immense 
 property in Ireland. A royal proclamation was issued, 
 that all Englishmen holding lands in Ireland, should join 
 the prince's standard. Fifteen hundred men were thus 
 collected; and in 1361, lord Lionel, accompanied by 
 Ralph, earl of Stafford, James, earl of Ormond, sir John 
 Carew, sir William Windsor, and other knights of dis- 
 tinction, landed in Ireland. 
 
 Lionel, diffident of the old settlers, trusted entirely to 
 his ne^y companions in arms, who were ignorant of the 
 uature of the country, the habits and manners of the 
 Irish, and unequal to the struggle with their experienced 
 leaders. Defeat and disaster were the consequences of 
 such imprudent steps. This partial policy therefore was 
 abandoned, and the old English settlers were invited to 
 the prince. This new system in some degree checked the 
 career of the Irish ; but Lionel having carefully observed 
 the circumstances of the colony, did not place any great 
 confidence in temporary expedients. He summoned a 
 parliament at Kilkenny, which proved more respectable 
 and more numerous than was ever before convened in 
 Ireland. 
 
 The prelates of Dublin, Cashel, Tuam, Lismore, 
 Waterford, ^•(^illaioe, Ossory, Leighlin, and Cloyne, o- 
 beyed the summons of the king's son. The temporal 
 peers and commons cheerfully attended. It is to be ob- 
 served, that both estates sat together; and the result of 
 their deliberations was that famous ordinance, the statute 
 of Kilkenny. It is impossible to look back upon thi^ 
 statute without deploring that barbarous selfishness, and 
 absurd antipathy, which such an instrument exhibits to 
 posterity. That a people remarkable for tlieir hospitality 
 and kindness to strangers, as the Irish ajre acknowledged 
 
117 
 
 to be ; that the connections formed by the imperative ordi- 
 nances of time, among a people distinguished by the 
 strength of their social affections, the acute sensibility of 
 their feelings, and the honesty and candor of their hearts, 
 should be thus driven out of the pale of civilization, and 
 denied the common rights of mankind, is only to be ac- 
 counted for by that infuriate and poisoned sentiment which 
 monopoly generates in the human breast; which makes 
 man a tyger among his species, swallowing up and devour- 
 ing with insatiable appetite, all those rights, privile^res, 
 and advantages, which it imagines would be lost by par- 
 ticipation among his countrymen. The same blind and 
 wretched sentiment characterised the Spartan, as well as 
 the English settler; and the miseries of the Helot, and 
 the Irish native, were sweet sounds to the ears of the mo- 
 nopolist, whom it had pleased Providence to arm with 
 ascendancy. " This statute of Kilkenny," says Mr, 
 Taaffe, with honourable feelings of indignation, " empaled 
 the pale from social life; it formed an insulated Jewish 
 cast, abhorring all, and abhorred by all ; the Jews were 
 insulated from the neighbouring idolatrous nations toguai'd 
 them against idolatry." 
 
 " This English pale excluded the intercourse of a people 
 better Christians than they, better men, more civilized. 
 y/hat crime," says Mr. Taaffe, " could be in the melody 
 of the Irish harps, chanting the sweet strains of Erin's 
 bards ? Why should Irish learning and piety be excluded 
 from benefices founded by Irishmen, or from monasteries 
 founded by them? — The Norman conquerors passed no 
 such statute in England, nor the heathen Danes in Ire- 
 land." Yet, let it not be forgotten, that the parliament 
 which enacted this statute was a popish one ; that its de- 
 imnciations against catholics are by catholics, and that 
 the same unwearied despotism, which, in succeeding time?, 
 poured new blood on the pages of our statute book, caused 
 the enactment of this infamous statute of Kilkenny. To 
 
118 
 
 England alone should our eyes be perpetually turned, the 
 prolific source of all our sorrows, and the indefatigable 
 corrupter of our people. A catholic or a protestant par- 
 liament, under its malignant influence, is equally blasting 
 of the energies, and torturing to the feelings of our coun- 
 tiy. The catholic is a blockhead who condemns the pro- 
 testant as the enemy of Irish freedom. The catholic, un- 
 der the burning heat of an English treasury, would be 
 equally malleable to English purposes. We should there- 
 fore learn to look to the first cause of Ireland's treachery 
 to herself. 
 
 The statute of Kilkenny enacted, that marriage, nurture 
 of infants, and gossipred, with the Irish, should be con- 
 sidered and punished as high treason. It enacted, that if 
 any man of English race shall use an Irish name, the Irish 
 language, or the Irish apparel, or any mode or custom of 
 the Irish, he shall forfeit lands and tenements, until he 
 hath given security in the court of chancery, to conform 
 in every particular to the English manners ; or if he has 
 no lands, that he shall be imprisoned until the like security 
 be given. This kind and benevolent statute made it penal 
 to the English to permit their Irish neighbours to graze 
 their lands, to present to ecclesiastical .^benefices, or re- 
 ceive them into monasteries or religious houses. It also 
 enacted, that the colonists shoukl not entertain the Irish 
 bards, who perverted their imaginations by romantic tales, 
 or their news-tellers, who seduced them by false reports. 
 Such are the provisions of an act for the better securing 
 the English interests in Ireland, and the more effectually 
 extirpating the Irish name and nation. Such has ever 
 been the impotent instrument, and the barren expedient 
 of despotism, in all ages and countries, which has no se- 
 curity but in chains, reposes no confidence but in the sword, 
 and looks at every object around it with eyes of jealousy 
 and suspicion. The reflection of Mr. Leland on this cele- 
 brated statute, is very unworthy thd kind and benignant 
 
119 
 
 feelings which should distinguish the Irish historian. 
 " Such," he writes, " were the institutions of" an assembly 
 quoted in Ireland with reverence, confirmed and renewed 
 in after times as of most salutary influence." What Irish- 
 man, with the feelings of an honest man, can quote with 
 reverence the provisions of such an act as the statute of 
 KiJJtenny, unless proscription, barbarity, selfishness, and 
 a complete abandonment of principle, be such qualities as 
 human nature will praise and admire. The effect of 
 this cruel statute was the suppression of those factions, in 
 some degree, which distracted the pale ; but it had also 
 the effect of making the hostility of the Irish take a deeper 
 root; and we soon find tiiat O'Brien and O'Connor visit 
 the colonists with implacable vengeance. So miserable 
 was the state of Ireland, so barbarised were the natives 
 by the enlightened legislation of English adventurers, that 
 we have to record the refusal of sir Richard Pembridf e to 
 administer the affairs of Ireland, or to fill the hazardous 
 and dangerous station of viceroy of Ireland. It was there- 
 fore assigned to sir William Windsor, He obtained 
 fi-om the king an annual appointment of eleven thousand 
 pounds, to defray the charges of his government ; and we 
 are informed by sir John Davis, that the whole revenile of 
 the pale, certain and casual, did not amount to ten thou- 
 sand pounds annually. 
 
 The barren and unproductive effects of that system 
 which Edward acted upon in Ireland, are well illustrated 
 by a remarkable occurrence which now (1376) took place. 
 It should teach government how unprofitable are the 
 evisccrations of tyranny, and the extortions of avarice. 
 The distractions and poverty of Ireland were now so great, 
 that Edward sent forward an agent, Nicholas Dagworth, 
 to ascertain the real cause of deficiency of revenue ex- 
 perienced in his Irish dominions. Edwai'd summoned 
 the parliament of the pale to Westminster. The Irish 
 representatives sat at Westfninster ; and what success 
 
120 
 
 Edward had from this interview with his Irish parhament 
 is not on record ; but the impotency of the statute of Kil- 
 kenny is acknowledged by the rapid declension of the 
 English interest, the multiplication of English and Irish 
 connections, and the necessary relaxation of the severe 
 and cruel provisions that statute contained. The reign of 
 one of tlie most renowned of the English monarchs closed 
 without imparting a single benefit to this ill-fated country. 
 Too much occupied with the brilliant and unproductive 
 glories of foreign conquest, he consigned his kingdom of 
 Ireland to the passions and follies, and experiments of 
 deputies, who had neither the talents nor the power to , 
 promote any lasting scheme of sound or profound policy. 
 Mr. Leland truly observes, " It was the perverse fate of 
 Ireland to suffer more from the most renowned, than the 
 weakest of the English monarchs." 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Hichard IL 
 
 1377. 
 
 The events of this reign are well calculated to 
 exhibit the follies of the last ; and tlie devastation 
 which the colony suffered from the veno-eance of 
 the Irish, is no bad commentary on the wretched effects of 
 that policy which seeks its safety rather in the strength of 
 the chain, than the affections of the heart. The English 
 were either driven from their lands, or those who were 
 suffered to preserve them were obliged to pay tribute to 
 the native Irish chieftains. 
 
 The parliament of England murmured at the constant 
 waste of blood and treasure incurred by the maintenance 
 of the Irish dominions. The national treasury, exhausted 
 by the foreign wars in which England was so long involved 
 by the ambition of Edward, had recourse to every ex- 
 pedient which ingenuity or wisdom could suggest. Absen- 
 tees were heavily taxed. The Irish were permitted to 
 work their mines, on condition of paying a ninth of the 
 produce; they were allowed to coin money, and to hold 
 a free trade with Portugal ; thus granting to Ireland, from 
 necessity, what should have been long before suggested 
 
 Q 
 
122 
 
 by sound riiVcional policy. The foreign enemies of Eng- 
 land took advantage of the unfortunate counsels of the 
 colony, and the Scotch and French invaded the Irish 
 shores. Those strong illustrations of the folly of govern- 
 ing Ireland by harsh and violent measures, were not suf- 
 ficient to open the eyes of England. Richard, always the 
 victim of his passions and partialities, intrusted the Irish 
 government to Philip de Courtney, a man of the most 
 violent and oppressive disposition. So excessive were the 
 extortions of this baron, that even Richard was obliged 
 to surrender him to the vengeance of his accusers. 
 
 A new scene now opens, in which the v/eakness, the va^ 
 nlty, and the tyranny of Richard, eminently contribute to 
 increase the calamities of Ireland. To a monarch, pos- 
 sessed of a good understanding, and armed witii the power 
 which Richard was able to command, the opportunity en- 
 joyed by the latter to put an end to the distractions of Ire- 
 land, niight have been the beginning of a nevir and pros- 
 perous era, and the establishment of such a system as 
 would give permanent tranquillity tp the empire; but the 
 most unmeaning partialities for the most worthless 'bf his 
 subjects, and a complete abandonment of the solid and sub- 
 stantial interests of his empire to the gratification of his fa- 
 vourites, kept Ireland exposed to a perpetuity of that bad 
 government which generated so much calamity to the col- 
 ony, as well as the native Irish. 
 
 Richard, in obedience to Ris ruling passion, invested 
 the corl'upt and profligate earl of Oxford 'with the mar- 
 quisate of Dublin. He also granted to him the entire do- 
 minion of Ireland, and empowered this young and giddy 
 lord to appoint all officers of state and justice. The latter 
 was bound in return to pay into the English exchequer five 
 thousand marks annu^iUy. The inordinate partiality of the 
 king would not suffer his favourite to leave the royal pre- 
 sence ; but he continued to heap new honors on his head, 
 
123 
 
 and sent forward deputies to perform the duties of the earl 
 of Oxford as duice of Ireland. 
 
 The indignation of the Enghsh barons at the impudent 
 arrogance of Oxford, who trampled on their dignity and 
 their feelings, broke out in every corner of England, and 
 Richard and his favourite were obliged to yield to the storm 
 of public vengeance. The earl of Oxford was stripped of all 
 his honors, and the Irish administration ceased to be car- 
 ried on in the name or under the seal of the deposed earl. 
 
 We find nothing very novel in the transactions of the 
 colony until the determination of Richard to visit his Irish 
 dominions. This monarch landed at Waterford in the 
 year 1 394f, with a royal army, consisting of 4000 cavalry, 
 and 30,000 archers, attended by the duke of Gloucester, 
 carls of Nottingham and Rutland, Thomas, lord Percy, 
 and other distinguished personages. The reflection of 
 Mr. Leland on this royal visit to Ireland, is both just and 
 philosophic. — " An army," he says, " commanded by some 
 of the pj-irae nobility of England, with the monarch at 
 their head; the presence of the king to inspect the con- 
 duct of his ministers, to hear and examine the complaints 
 of his subjects, were circumstances of considerable moment, 
 if duly improved ; and, if united with a liberal and equitable 
 spirit of policy, must have established the authority of the 
 Enghsh government, and the general pacification and ci- 
 vility of the kingdom, on the firmest basis ; but," he con- 
 tinues, " the pride of the English forbade them to propose 
 the generous s-pheme of receiving all the mhabitants into 
 the body of English subjects, or of communicating the be* 
 nefits of a free and equitable constitution to those whom 
 they most absurdly called their inferiors. However lively 
 their own regard to liberty, they accounted it a blessing too 
 precious not to be confined to themselves ; for," says Mr. 
 Leland, *' they had not acquired that extended and com- 
 prehensive benevolence which is the effect of refinement 
 and deep moral reflection." This is a great admission. 
 
124 
 
 from such an authority, of the folly of those counsels that 
 would close the door of a free constitution against a people 
 petitionmg for its benefits. It well describes the selfish 
 spirit of monopoly, and the events which follow in the reign 
 of the unfortunate and foolish Richard, demonstrate, to the 
 most superficial thinker, the weakness and distraction which 
 must unavoidably flow from bigoted and contracted coun- 
 sels. 
 
 Had that spirit of equitable policy, of which Mr. Le- 
 land speaks, influenced the English counsels in Ireland, we 
 should have been long since united to the sister country 
 by the ties of kindness and gratitude ; their injuries and 
 triumphs would bs ours; we should have rejoiced as they 
 rejoiced, and the defeat and depression of the English pow- 
 er would never have been proclaimed the elevation and 
 victor}^ of Ireland. 
 
 Richard, instead of making such an-angements as might 
 give permanent security to the Irish dominions, employed 
 himself and his followers in an idle display of his royal 
 magnificence. He brought over his crown jewels, and 
 seemed more anxious to dazzle the Irish chieftains by the 
 splendor of his living and retinue,* than by the wisdom of 
 his counsels, or intimidate them by the terror of his arms. 
 He considered the voluntary surrender of the principal 
 chieftains as equivalent to their complete reduction. Pos- 
 
 • " We have already" says Mr. Taaffe, " observed the rudeness and 
 511-breeding of J')hn's courtiers ; but then — they were young! Well; let 
 us see the beh.iviour of RicLara's cc ur, iers, the prime nobility of Eng- 
 land. Thfc fo'.ir pnucipal kin 4?, O'Neil, O'Connor, O'Brien, Mac Mur- 
 chad, sat at king Richarfl's table, in their robes of state. Ormond, and 
 Henry Castile, a geiit:eman of Richard's court, interpreted. The staring 
 courtiers importuned them with such questions as argued the meanest 
 conceptions of their manners and understanding, and were answered 
 * with indignation and affected dignity.' Why, Mr. Leland, ' a/^rfti/ dig- 
 nity ?' Dignity was a sentiment habitual to the mind of an Irish chief- 
 tain, needing no affectation. Froissard, an eye-witness, does not call 
 that dignity affected. Rudeness may be a part of English politeness : 
 i c.iniun otherwise account for the supercilious and unmannerly conduct 
 of the English courtiers towards their master's guests, men every way 
 their supeiiurs," 
 
125 
 
 sessed with the importance of his achievements, he com- 
 municated them in form to the duke of York, regent of 
 England. He pointed out the three distinctions of inha- 
 bitants in Ireland — the Irish enemies, the rebels of both 
 races, and the English subjects. The Irish, he said, had 
 submitted and became his vassals ; the rebels, he conceiv- 
 ed, had received but too just provocation, and was there- 
 fore disposed to grant them a general pardon. l^hus, 
 after a residence of nine months in Ireland, Richard em- 
 barked for England, without being able to boast cf having 
 added a single acre to the English pale, or having gamed a 
 single advantage, though the leader of the largest force ever 
 brought into Ireland. The immediateeffect of the departure 
 of Richard was the renewal of hostilities, the infraction of 
 treaties, by the avarice and ambition of both parties : the 
 flame of war broke out with its old fury, and every part of 
 the colony was again involved in confusion and anarchy. 
 
 Ormond marches against the O'Byrnes of Wicklow, 
 and the sept of O'Toole annihilate a large body of the 
 royal forces. Mortimer, the son of Lionel, duke of Cla- 
 rence, is slain in a battle with the O'Byrnes, and the death 
 of this gallant baron again prompts the British monarch 
 to revisit his kingdom of Ireland, and revenge the death of 
 bis favorite. 
 
 In the spring of the year 1399, his preparations were 
 complete : the reports of secret conspiracies which reached 
 the royal ear, did not slacken his determination ; and, ac- 
 companied by the duke of Exeter, the earl of Salisbury, 
 some prelates, and the young lord Henry of Lancaster, he 
 sailed for Ireland, to re-act the same scene of folly we have 
 already witnessed. 
 
 The character of Richard was now tolerably well aj^pre- 
 ciated by the Irish chieftains; and the celebrated Arthur 
 Mac Murchad O'Kavenagh, a 3-outli of sixteen, determin- 
 ed that the English monarch should dearly purchase his 
 conquests in Ireland. We find that this Irish hero, at 
 
126 
 
 the head of 3000 men only, was able, \^y tlie admirable 
 skill and dexterity of his movements, to baffle the immense 
 force which England brought into the jfield against him. 
 His knov.icdge of the country, — the numberless resources 
 it offered to an ingenious mind, full of resources, and 
 prompt and vigorous to put them into effect, — the various 
 artifices and traps which he laid to embarrass the progress 
 of the enemy — at length succeeded in compelling the 
 boasting Richard to make him offers of castles, and forts, 
 and territory, on condition of his sheathing his avenging 
 and powerful sword. The Irish prince for some time he- 
 sitated ; but having at length agueed to enter into a ne- 
 gociation, Richard appointed Gloucester to meet the Irish 
 chieftain. 
 
 Froissard describes the Irish prince, tall in stature; 
 formed for agility and strength ; of aspect fierce and se» 
 vere; mounted on a swift and stately horse, without sad- 
 dle, and darting rapidly from a mountain between two 
 woods adjacent to the sea, attended by his train. At his 
 command they halted at due distance, while their leader 
 casting the spear from him, which he grasped in his right 
 iiand, rushed forward to meet the English lord. The par- 
 ley was continued for a considerable time ; the Irish prince 
 was reminded of his late engagements, his grievous infrac- 
 tions, his attack of the king's vicegerent, and the .daugh- 
 ter both of him and his forces : the fcish chieftain proudly 
 answered, and with dignity justified his conduct. He 
 would be at peace with the English monarch, but woidd 
 yield to no humiliating conditions to procure it. 
 
 Gloucester returned to the king ; and the result of the 
 conference so severely wounded the feelings and pride of 
 the English monarch, that he passionately vowed he would 
 never depart from Ireland, until he had possessed himself 
 of this rebel, dead or alive ; — a vain and empty threat. He 
 retreated with his routed army to Dublin, where he re- 
 mained six weeks, hurling impotent proclamations against 
 
127 
 
 the illustrious TNTac Murchad O'Kavenagli, till the rapid 
 strides of his rebel subjects of England, roused him from 
 his idle dreams of con(}uest in Ireland. He returned to 
 England, where he fell a victim to an indignant and abused 
 nation. The sufferings of this unfortunate monarch, in- 
 flicted on him in his last moments, incline the feeling, heart 
 to forget the errors of his government. The barbarity of 
 his English enemies obliterates the remembrance of the op- 
 pression and folly which ended the reign of the weak and 
 miserable Richard. 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Henry IV. 
 
 A. D. 
 
 1400. 
 
 The accession of the house of Lancaster gave 
 birth to a new epoch in Irish suffering, and threw 
 back the hopes of those who sighed for the re- 
 turn of tranquilhty and peace. Ireland, during the reigns 
 of Henry IV. V. and VI., presents to the reader one 
 uninterrupted scene of anarchy and confusion ; of preda- 
 tory warfare, and retahating violence ; of violated, rights, 
 and insatiable revenge ; of impolitic and absurd cruelty, 
 and resolute and unconquerable patience ; of furious laws, 
 and more furious resistance to those laws ; of narrow- 
 sighted monopoly, and victorious rebellion. It appears 
 that no calamity could teach wisdom or mercy to the 
 rulers of Ireland; and that the principle of extermina- 
 tion of the natives was the only mode within the under- 
 standing of the British cabinet, to preserve the English 
 interests in Ireland. 
 
 Henry sent his son Thomas, duke of Lancaster, to ad- 
 minister the affairs of Ireland, in the hope that a person- 
 age of such distinction would give weight and dignity to 
 his government, and that the pride of those English barons, 
 
129 
 
 who could not brook an association with an humbler char- 
 acter than the son of a king, might in some degree be 
 checked by the priesence : of the royal duke. The north 
 is invaded by the Scotch ; who, supported by the native 
 Irish, obtained some important settlements in that country. 
 The duke of Lancaster, anxious, if possible, to satisfy the 
 complaints which were made to him by his subjects of the 
 colony, of the oppressions and exactions under which 
 they suffered, appointed coipmissioners to hold inquisition 
 in several counties, to ascertain the names of the sufferers, 
 and the actual damage they had sustained Even the hope 
 of redress tranquillized the public mind. Several of the 
 Irish chieftains of Leinster renewed' their submissions to 
 the duke; and the whole province being considered as 
 restored to peace, a parliament was summoned at Castle- 
 dermot, to consider of the most effectual means of re- 
 pelling the Scotch invasion. 
 
 The citizens of Dublin and Drooheda collected their 
 troops, and carried the marauding war to the coast of 
 Scotland, where they amply revenged the depredations of 
 the enemy. " Amidst all this parade and triumph," says 
 Mr. Leland, " the celebrated Arthur Mac Murchad lay 
 like a canker in the heart of the Leinster territory." This 
 unwearied spirit was not to be soothed by concessions, 
 nor in;in\idated by the sword. He despised the power of 
 the Eno-lish, and was iudeiatioable in seducing from their 
 allegiance those chieftains who had submitted to the duke 
 of Lancaster. The deputy, aided by the arms of Ormond 
 and Desmond, marchetl against him ; and, after a furious 
 battle, Mac Murchad retreated, with a diminished though 
 unconquercd army. The English had no sooner repelled 
 Mac jMurchad, than they were attacked from other quar- 
 ters, and the impositions and exactions which such repeat- 
 ed contests with the native Irish induced, were so exces- 
 sive, that the deputy found it necessary to put in force the 
 provisions of the statute of Kilkenny. 
 
ISO 
 
 The duke of* Lancaster, convinced of the necessity of 
 the most vigorous and decisive measures, not only for the 
 purpose of repelHng with effect the common enemy, biit 
 also for restraininir the insolent licentiousness of the a-reat 
 lords of his government, armed himself with powers more 
 extensive than those he possessed when he first landed i« 
 "Jreland. He insisted on an annual pension of one thou- 
 sand marks, to render him independent of the precarious 
 issues of the Irish revenue. But all the measures adopted 
 by the duke of Lancaster to preserve the peace of the 
 colony were inefJectual, when opposed to the desperate 
 valour of Mac Murchad. The viceroy was pursued to 
 the walls of Dublin, wounded^ and forced to surrender 
 his administration to Butler, the prior of St. John of Je- 
 rusalem. Thus were the Enolish abandoned to their own 
 resources and expedients. The necessity of the times, 
 and power of the great lords, again imposed the torturing 
 taxes of coyne and livery. Hie statute of Kilkenny was 
 put in force ; but, as the historian very properly observes, 
 *' such a statute was only politic or useful in ease the par- 
 ties putting it in force, were able to follow up with the 
 sword, the pririciplcs of extermination it enacted :" The 
 Lish were too powerful, and the sanguinary statute of 
 Kilkenny served but to recruit their ranks, and inflame 
 their animosity; its absurd provisions were defeated by 
 tiie circumstances of the colony; and the excluding and 
 barbarous object of the legislator was counteracted by the 
 weakness of the hand which was doomed to "execute his law. 
 
 The colony, by this statute of Kilkenny, were prohibit- 
 ed from holding any commerce or traffic with the Irish 
 enemy ; but their richest and most flourishing towns were 
 so environed with the native Irish, that tliey had no othei' 
 people to trade with, and were often reduced by legal 
 restraints to the danger of being utterly impoverished. 
 Still so refined was the cruelty of English policy against 
 the native Irish, that the very same malignity which di«- 
 
131 
 
 tated the statute of Kilkenny, recommended the act which 
 would not permit tlie persecuted Irish to migrate. Thus, 
 in the same moment, refusing to incorporate them with 
 their own people, and denying them the opportunity of 
 seeking peace and tranquillity in a foreign land. 
 
 By an act of the Irish parliament, in the eleventh year 
 of Henry IV. it was ordained, that no natjve Irishman 
 should be permitted to depart from the realm, without spe- 
 cial license, under the great seal of Ireland; and that the 
 person and goods of an Irishman, attempting to transport 
 himself without such licensre, might be seized by any sub- 
 ject, who was to receive one moiety of the goods for such 
 service, the other to be forfeited to the king. The devot- 
 ed Irish would not be received as subjects, nor even suf- 
 fered to leave their country, where perpetual persecution 
 awaited them. — " This can appear in no other light," says 
 Mr. Taaffe, " than a game-act, not unlike the act forbid- 
 ding the transportation of hawks, under a penalty heavier 
 than the eric allowed for the murder of tv/entj-four mere 
 Irishmen, residing within English juribdiction." 
 
 Notwithstanding the ingenious cruelty with which the 
 native Irish were hunted by the law-makers of the colony, 
 it is consolatory' to find that the effects of such legislation 
 •were as unprofitable as the policy was infamous ; and that 
 the English interests declined in exact proportion to the 
 fury and multiplicity of their statutes against humanity an4 
 justice. The English were forced to the dishonorable re- 
 fuge of paying to the victorious Irish the annual tribute 
 called the black rent; thus reco£;^nizing the ancient sov- 
 ereignty of the Irish chieftains, ministering to their pride^ 
 and gratifying their vengeance. Such has ever been the 
 consequence of vicious and cruel coiinselg — defeat, po- 
 verty, and dishonor. 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Henry V. 
 
 . yN The same melancholy scene of distress, turbu- 
 lence, disaiFection, oppression, and resistance, 
 14'14". ^ Ml • 1 /• 
 
 continues to weary our eyes until the arrival ol 
 
 sir John Talbot, in the reign oi" Henry V. This Eng- 
 lishman was distinguished by his militaiy al)ihties ; his vi- 
 gorous and decisive character. Even the proud and in- 
 trepid Mac Murchad bowed to his superior talents, and 
 gave his son as an hostage for his })eaceable demeanour. 
 Other chieftains in the west and in the north, followed the 
 example of Arthur Mac Murchad. Though vigorous and 
 able in his military acliievements, and pecuharly successful 
 in checking the progress of the common enemy, yet sir 
 John Talbot is handed down to posterity as partial, op- 
 pressive, and severe in the administration of his govern- 
 ment. We find at this period a notable instance of the 
 barbarous policy v/ith which Ireland was pursued by the 
 sister country. An act was passed by the Enghsh parha- 
 inent, that all those Irish who wandered from. their own 
 country in search of that protection denied them in their 
 native land, sb.onld inmiediately depart from the English 
 territory ; and this infamous and inhospitable statute was 
 
133 
 
 not only directed against the poorest or the meanest of tlie 
 Irish, but against the Irish students, who were contume- 
 Ilously excluded from the British inns of court, lest the 
 English people should be infected with the barbarous prin- 
 ciples of the -ivild and unhospitable Irish. Such is the \<r- 
 norant and insolent denunciations of a nation, at the mo- 
 ment it Avas outraging every feehng of the heart, and vio- 
 lating every law human and divine, against a people 
 whom English historians record as the most generous, the 
 most hospitable, the most social and warm-hearted on 
 earth. So writes the venerable i:ede, Keating, Camden, 
 sir John Davis; and every authority of respectability and 
 veracity. We are not to wonder that tliose English vice- 
 roys who came over to Ireland, should have exercised their 
 authority with insolence or with scorn, over a people whose 
 characters and ])rinciples were represented in so odious 
 and so horrible a light, nor should it excite our astonish- 
 ment, that the national animosity should be extreme, after 
 the labbriou- effoits of the enemies of Ireland to root out 
 of its breast those sentiments of forgiveness or pardon 
 which are the offspring of generous hearts, and the grand 
 characteristic of the Irish disposition. 
 
 So fallen were the Irish of the pale, as well as its Eno;lish 
 inhabitants, and so completely at the mercy of their task- 
 masters, that we find the chancellor ]\Ierbury, hardy en- 
 ough to refuse affixing the seal to the petition framed by 
 the old English settlers against the monopolizing avarice 
 of their modern countrymen. Here we find a chancellor 
 resisting the wishes of the parliament of the colon v, com- 
 posed of those very persons whose forefathers stifl6d the 
 prayers of the native Irish. 
 
 There is a law of action, and re-action, pervading every 
 department of nature; there is a law of retributive jhstice, 
 in the moral system of intelligent beings, which the siet- 
 tlers experienced in an eminent and striking degree. All 
 appointed to station and office were of English birth. Every 
 
}34i 
 
 Eno-lish swarm of adventurers treated the settlers of Irish 
 birth with the most mortifying contempt and injustice. Sir 
 John Taibot who encouraged this insidious and absurd 
 policv, departed from the Irish administration with ge- 
 neral execrations. His extortions, exactions, and oppres- 
 sion, were balanced against his efforts to repel the com- 
 mon enemy of the pale, or to restore the latter to peace 
 and tranquillit3^ 1 le was succeeded by Ormond, who be- 
 ing well disposed to redress the grievances of the pale, was 
 popular among the Enghsh. A subsidy was granted, 
 amounting to one tliousand marks, accompanied as usual 
 with a representation of grievances. The petition ft) the 
 kinnr was sent forward, and the archbishop of Armagh, 
 and sir Christoi)her Preston were appointed agents to pre- 
 sent it. This petition is a distressing picture of the injus- 
 tice and extortion sufleretl by the inhabitants of the pale. 
 They say between the terror of the common enemy, the 
 native Irish, and the rapacious monopoly of the English 
 viceroys and ministers, they passed a life of perpetual mi- 
 sery and torture. They impeached Stanley and sir John 
 Talbot. They pray that the chancellor Merbury n}ay be 
 cited before the throne, to answer for his insolent refusal 
 to affix the seal to their petition. They complain in strong 
 and emphatic language, that such a scene of various iniqui- 
 ties would be thus discovered, as were utterly abhorrent to 
 the equity of the throne, and utterly intolerable to the sub- 
 ject. The effects of this petition were the removal of the 
 oijious chancellor, and the continuance of Ormond in the 
 government, which gave general satisfaction by the mild- 
 ness and kindness of his administration. 
 
 In this reign we find the odious passions of jealousy and 
 rivalship, infecting and influencing the conduct of the high- 
 er order of the clergy of the pale. We see them bringing 
 their disputes before the parhament, and charging each 
 other with the most detestable crimes. An English bishop 
 of Lismore accusing O'iledian of Cashel of the most scan- 
 
135 
 
 (lalous ofFenccs. These ecclesiastical contentions did not 
 meet any very great countenance from tlie parliament. 
 
 The common enemy, as the native Irish were called, 
 were always engaged in- their contests for precedence and 
 leadersliip among their respective septs. If a particular 
 sept were in danger of total annihilation, and, as other 
 annalists express it, "for the sake of the Irish language/* 
 the neighbouring septs assembled to rescue their country- 
 men, and thus avenge the insult offered to Irish indepen- 
 dence. The situation of Ireland, and her chieftains, at 
 this period may be fairly illustrated by the species of affec- 
 tion which we sometimes see between some men and their 
 wives. Though some husbands correct their wives rather 
 sevei*ely, they see^o reason why a stranger should presume 
 to indulge in the same liberty; and the Irish chieftains who 
 frequently waged most merciless wars with each other, were 
 indignant that the English colony should pi,-esume to fol- 
 low their example. 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Henry VL 
 
 A. D. 
 
 1420. 
 
 1 HE infancy of this monarch when he came to 
 the throne, httie contributed to the reformation of 
 Ireland. Tlie anarchy of Englisli factions, the 
 want of vigor in the Irish administration, left the colony 
 exposed to the furious and jealous passions of its inha- 
 bitants, as well as to the unresisted incursions of the native 
 Irish. Deputies were sent from England, who either in- 
 curred the contempt or hatred of the men they were to go- 
 vern. The mobt disijraceful and infamous charges were 
 brought against the viceroy, and solemn inquiries held be- 
 fore the parliament to prove their veracity. We see the 
 country invaded with impunity by the Scotch, where they 
 are retained and encouraged by the Irish chieftains, who 
 gladly assist them in ravaging the Englisli settlement. 
 The administration of the earl of Ormond rescued the co- 
 lony in a great degree from the imminent danger into 
 which it was thrown by the imbecile conduct of former 
 governors; he abolished in 1425, the yearly tribute of 
 black rent, paid by the colony to the Irish chieftains. 
 The same historian who relates the triumphs of Ormond 
 over the Irish, in the next page cites a petition of the Irish 
 
137 
 
 parliament, representing to the king that all the Irish ene- 
 mies and English rebels are sworn to pnt his loyal people 
 of the colony under tribute to them ; and that no part of 
 Ireland remained unconqiiered by the Irish, but the coun- 
 ty of Dublin. Mr. Leland observes, for the honour of the 
 colony, that the object of -•-o humiliating a representation 
 on the part of the Irish parliament, Avas for no other jiur- 
 pose than to gain su}>piies from England. The rapid de- 
 clension of the English interests, suggested the necessity 
 of enforcing the statutes against marrying, or fostering, or 
 trafficking with the Irish. 
 
 The leading families of the old English settlers complain 
 of the incapacity of the persons appointed to the vicere- 
 gency of Ireland. They pray to be considered and treat- 
 ed as Englishmen, agreeably to their rightful claims, and 
 the express stipulation of their ancestors. Hence the 
 jealousies and animosities between Ormond, (the only 
 nobleman of Irisli birth in whom the crown confided,) 
 and the earls of Kildare and Desmond. The power of 
 Desmond was so formidable, that he was able by his 
 influence to remove from the government of Ireland 
 the popular earl of Ormond, whose sentiments, Mr. 
 Leland says, were liberal, whose manners were polished, 
 and for the purity and mildness of whose administra- 
 tion the most honorable testimonies were ijiven. Ele was 
 obliged to yield to the confederated power of his enemies, 
 and Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury', was sent into Ireland to 
 take the reins of government. 
 
 Talbot canie attended with a troop of 700 chosen men, 
 and the Irish again rose in arms to oppose the neAv vicerov, 
 aided by the Butlers, and the Berminghams, and the Mac 
 Williams of Clanrickard. The Irish chieftains were re- 
 duced, and the most obnoxious among them, particularly 
 of the sept of Bermingham, seized, condemned, and exe- 
 cuted. A parliament was summoned by Talbot, in the 
 year l^^?, which again made it penal to conform to the 
 
 S 
 
138 
 
 Irish fashion of the hair and the beartl. It was forbidden 
 to use gold trappings, horse furniture or gilded harness, 
 except by knights and prelates. 
 
 The administration of Richard, duke of York, of 
 Avhich we are now about to give an account, demonstrates, 
 if examples were wanting, ho\Mweasy it is to govern Irish- 
 men by the simple and unsophisticated principles of jus- 
 tice, kindness, and humanity ; how productive that policy- 
 is which is guarded by a fair and impartial spirit, and how 
 prolific to the rulers is the gratitude of a people who en- 
 joy equal protection, equal law, and equal privileges. We 
 have here a proof how a conciliating and equitable dispo- 
 sition can tranquillize a distracted state, and how impotent 
 are the efforts of violence and of tyrann}^, compared with 
 the soothing voice of parental government, which extends 
 equal protection to all, and impartially shelters under its 
 wings the subjects who submit to it. 
 
 The scene we are now about to describe, cheers and 
 animates the historian. It gives him hope that the pros- 
 pect is brightening, and that the cloud which so long mil- 
 dewed the fairest blossoms of his country, will soon be 
 fljspelled ; that the native energies of Ireland are about to 
 enjoy the sunshine of a pure and equitable government, 
 which will enrich the hand that confers the benefit. The 
 duke of York, valiant, prudent, and temperate, was com- 
 pelled, by the jealousy of the rival faction of Lancaster, 
 to administer the affairs of Ireland. It would perhaps 
 be an act of injustice to the memory of that excellent 
 personage, to insinuate that the peculiar situation in which 
 he stood, as the presumptive heir of the British crown, 
 influenced his conduct as viceroy of Ireland ; or that the 
 kind and conciliating system on which he acted in the lat- 
 ter country, was prompted by the artifices of policy, and 
 not by the dictates of an honest and manly understanding. 
 Our experience of English government naturally inclines 
 us to doubt the sincerity of Richard ; but the mild and 
 
159 
 
 benevolent acts of his government obliterate the impret- 
 sion, and the historian who would write in candor should 
 confidently hold up the heir of the house of York, as the 
 model to future governors of Ireland, of wisdom, of mo'^ 
 deration, and of justice. 
 
 The partizans of Lancaster were glad to seize upon any 
 pretext by which they could be liberated from the watchful 
 jealousy of so formidable a rival as Richard, duke of York; 
 and therefore represented Ireland as peculiarly demanding, 
 from the turbulence and disorder which convulsed that 
 country, the presence of so efficient a ruler. The duke, 
 enjojang most extensive and powerful connections in Ire- 
 land, hoped that his absence from his own country would 
 not much diminish his pretensions to the Knglish crown ; 
 but in assuming the government of Ireland, he took care 
 that he should be vested with almost unlimited power, and 
 that the period of his administration should at least be 
 ten years ; that he should have a pension of two thousand 
 marks from England, independent of his Irish revenue, 
 and that he should have the power of appointing such of-- 
 fjcers as to him seemed most fit for their respective stations. 
 He arrived in Ireland in the year 1449, and his appear- 
 ance in this country was splendid and magnificent. In 
 his deportment to all parties he was conciliating and po- 
 lite; he united the ease and cordiality of the companion, 
 with the dignity of the prince, and even disarmed those 
 of his Irish subjects who were prepossessed against his 
 government. The opposing rival lords, Ormond and Des- 
 mond, he courted with equal success; and the followers of 
 the reigaing house of Lancaster seemed to forget the spirit 
 of party, in their respect for the amiable and insinuating 
 manners of the noble viceroy. In the various negotiations 
 he had with th^ native Irish, he studiously recommended 
 himself by his moderation and his equity. To his subjects 
 of tlie colony he manifested the greatest zeal for their 
 safety and tranquillity ; and, by no other power than that 
 
140 
 
 of a fimi and undaunted determination to act impartially 
 by all, did this excellent pei'sonaoe govern the colony 
 with universal satisfaction and advantage. He convened 
 a parliament at Dublin, in whicli various laws were passed 
 for the securit}? of the subject, and the prevention of op- 
 pression by the petty tyrant of the pale. Coin and 
 coshierings were abolished. It was ordained that no lord 
 should entertain more horse and footmen than he could 
 support without burden to his neighbours. The number 
 of the duke's adherents multiplied every hour, and the 
 popular voice of Ireland was universally resounding the 
 praises of his mild and honest government; but such 
 scenes of peace were not to last ver}-^ long. This happy 
 interval for Ireland was short and transient ; and the great 
 theatre of ambition in England demanded the immediate 
 presence of Richard. He was succeeded by sir Edward 
 Fitzeustace, under whose administration, though vigorous 
 and decided, we are to witness the resurrection of these 
 petty v/ars which convulsed the countr}^ The native Irish 
 chieftains of the west, the south, and the north, the 
 O'Connors and the O' Neils, again rose in arms. They 
 were checked by the strong and decided measures of Fitzr- 
 eustace. In the meantime "the prospect in England be- 
 came more and more gloomy. The general discontent in- 
 creased, and the total loss of the French dominions roused 
 and inflamed the public mind. The duke of York openly 
 declai-ed for the .throne, and the victory gained by that 
 prince at St. Alban's, put the British monarch in his pos- 
 session. 
 
 The spirit of Margaret of Anjou, wife of the weak and 
 impotent Henry VI. rose in proportion to the violence 
 with which she was opposed; and the battle of Bloreheath 
 drove Richard for shelter to Ireland.* Here the reader of 
 
 * A love of justice and obedience to ihe laws distinguished the Irish 
 people in a more eminent degree than any otliei- nation perhaps in the 
 world. To this fact we have the most irresistible testimony. Sir John 
 
141 
 
 Irish history should pause to consider and observe the ef- 
 fects of good and impartial government on the hearts of 
 the Irish nation. Let the enemies of Ireland here stop to 
 contemplate the reception which this country gave to that 
 
 Davis, who observed this country with the eye of a philosopher as well 
 as a lawyer, and who long resided in it as attorney-general, writes, " That 
 no nation io the world loved impartial justice more than the Irish, though it 
 should make against themselves." Lord Howth says, " i'he Irish obey 
 the laws fianied for them on their hills, better than the English do theirs, 
 framed by parliament in walled towns." Mr. TaafFe writes, (and this 
 gentleman, from his intimate knowledge of the Irish language, and his 
 industry in research, may be ri lied oa by the Irish readers, as no bad 
 authority on the following interesting facts,) " The ancient Irish naiion 
 not only supplied themselves with all sorts of nianufacrurcs of necessity, 
 but even of elegance, and exported besides.- They enjoyed a flourishing 
 agriculture, cloth, and linen manufacture; iron and timber works, curious 
 workmanship in gold and silver, a circumstance belonging to no other 
 country in Europe. Their great monasteries, that were colleges, had botanic 
 gardens. To their knowledge of astronomy some fragments of their books 
 on astronomy, which we yet see, bear testimony : their knowledge of this 
 science was much greater before than after Christianity." Of the Irish 
 language, Mr. TaafFe says, " It was more copious and elegant than any 
 cotemporary language, which the remains of their compositions in prose 
 and verse abundantly evince. The ancient Irish music was acknowledged 
 by their bitterest enemies, incomparably superior to that of the neigh- 
 bouring nations; and the remains thereof preserved in Ireland, Scotland, 
 and England, though plagiarised, leave no doubt on that head. If music 
 be sentiment guided by harmony, they possessed in the perfection of 
 sublime simplicity, the most sosl-moving melody ; never descending to 
 the caterwauling semidemiquavers of' some farraginous, incongruous, un- 
 meaning overtures. A passion for literature, especially history, poetry, 
 and music, was so firmly grafted in the Milesians, that it could not ba 
 extirpated without the extirpation of the nation. Every clan had heredi- 
 tary lawyers, hereditary historians, hereditary physicians, hereditary 
 bards, combining poetry and music. Thus family interest was engaged 
 in the improvement and preservation of every art and profession. Every 
 generation was sedulous to hand down the records, containing the rules 
 and improvements of each profession, to their posterity. Hence the 
 i3ani^ih wars of two hundred years, and the English and Irish wars of 
 f'jLir hundred years continuance, were unable to pluck up the strong and 
 deep foots of Irish learning, until the nation and it fell together; even 
 still there is no such general passion for learning to be found in the bulk 
 of the people in any other country, working against a current of obstacles 
 and oppressions." The fate of English literature was quite diiPerent, 
 because ic had not its roots in the constitution. The wars and policy of 
 the Danes extirpated the learning which Ireland had planted; so that 
 until the Norman conquest, few barons could write their names. " la 
 former tjmes many farms and manors were given by bare word, without 
 writing, only vvith the sword of the lord on his he<id-piece, with a lanca 
 or a standing goblet, and many tenements with a quill, with a horac- 
 conib, with a l>ow, with an arrov.'." So writes Hayward in his life of 
 William the conqueror. 
 
U2 
 
 prince, under whom she enjoyed the blessings of equal law. 
 Let the viceroys of Ireland learn from this example how to 
 govern, so as to secure the loyalty and affection of the peo- 
 ple. Here we will find the Irish nation throwing them- 
 selves between their benefactor and his enemies, and with 
 all the ardour of the most grateful affection, offering their 
 lives and fortunes in his defence. This was not the extor- 
 tion of monopoly; it was the kind offering of the heart over- 
 flowing with gratitude, and burning for the opportunity to 
 give expression to its sensibility. Writs were sent over to Ire- 
 land to bring Richard to justice, but the Irish parliament 
 answered those writs in the memorable lanjiuaffe "that it 
 had ever been customary in their land, to receive and en- 
 tertain strangers with due support and hospitality." The 
 same assembly soon after enacted laws for the preservation 
 of the duke's person. They declared that Ireland was only 
 to be governed by laws enacted by the king, lords, and 
 commons of Ireland ; that this realm hath also its consta- 
 ble and marshall, before whom all appeals are to be made. 
 Richard is again encouraged to embark for Enoland, 
 Backed by the men and treasure of Ireland, he arrived in 
 London, and was declared by the British parliament suc- 
 cessor to Henry. Margaret prepared to oppose him, and 
 the battle of Wakefield, in which Richard opposed the 
 royal army with a disproportioiied force, terminated hia 
 life and the hopes of the party. 
 
 The result of this celebrated action shook to its centre 
 the English interest in Ireland, and the colony was again 
 assailed on all sides by the incursions of the surromiding 
 chieftains. Tributes were again imposed and paid by the 
 colony, and thus a partial peace was purchased. O'Neil 
 ill the north, O'Brien and Mac Carty in the south, re- 
 ceived those annual tributes. Thus did the various fiuc- 
 tuation of the houses of York and Lancaster operate with 
 malignant and cruel effect on the peace and comforts of the 
 Irish people, as weU as the English colony. 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Edward III. 
 
 j^Y) 1 HE reign of Edward affords to the reflecting 
 1461. '^^"'^J few materials from which either instruction 
 or entertainment may be derived. It exliibits a 
 painful picture of vindictive triumph and party fury, of 
 narrow contracted policy with regard to Ireland, and ava- 
 ricious rapacity with regard to the colony. 
 
 George, duke of Clarence, was created viceroy on the 
 accession of Edward; and the adherents of the house of 
 York were honored with new distinctions, and increased 
 confidence. Sir Rowland Fitzeustace w^as created baron 
 of Portlester, and sir Robert Barnwall baron of Trimble- 
 ston. The earl of Ormond first fell a victim to the ven- 
 geance of the Yorkists, and an act of attainder was passed 
 by the Irish parliament against the family of Butler in 1 462, 
 for adhering to the king's enemies. Sir John Ormond, 
 brother of the late earl, fled into Munster, and took up 
 arms against the deputy. The house of Desmond oppose 
 him, and, after a furious engagement, Ormond received a 
 disastrous overthrow. The triumphant Desmond was 
 now appointed viceroy, and, elated with his exaltation, 
 the pride of his demeanour peculiarly mortified his enemies. 
 
144 
 
 The sept of Melacblin, the ruling Irish family of Meath, 
 were at this time invaded by one of the most ancient Eng- 
 lish settlers, called Petit, from whom the family of the 
 marquis of Lansdown flow. The sept rose in arms ; and 
 Desmond having supported the claims of Petit, the neigh- 
 bourins: clans flew to the relief of Melachlin, routed the 
 army of the deputy, and took the latter prisoner, with most 
 of his distinguished followers. The earl of Desmond fell 
 into the hands of an honourable enemy ; and, as if morti- 
 fied by the generous treatment he experienced, it was 
 durins: his administration we find the most cruel and 
 fiend-like enmity manifested towards the native Irish. 
 Desmond beino- restored to his government by the genero- 
 sity of an enemy who despised his power, did not provide 
 ajrainst the dann;ers which threatened- the Enslish interests 
 mi all sides of the pale. The sept of O'Brien issued from 
 the south, crossed the Shannon, and expelled the English 
 settlers of jMunster. They peaceably negociated with the 
 native Irish in Leinster, Argial, and BrefFny, (or Cavan) 
 and hung over the English pale with dreadful denuncia- 
 tions. The Irish chieftains were content with forcing the 
 common enemy to the disgraceful payment of tribute ; and, 
 as usual, retired within their respective territories, with- 
 out striking at the root of the sufferings of their country. 
 Such mortifying defeats and indignities exposed Desmond 
 to much obloquy, and afforded peculiar triumph to his 
 enemies. 
 
 The bisliop of Meath charges Desmond with oppression 
 and extortion, and both parties send forward their respec- 
 tive representations to the British monarch. The Irish 
 parliament address the king in favour of Desmond, and 
 implore his majesty to give no credence to any accvisers of 
 the earl. With such honorable testimonials, Desmond 
 presents himself before Edward, silences the accusation of 
 his opponents, and returns to Ireland to indulge a thought- 
 less triumph over his enemies. 
 
145 
 
 In 1465, we find this deputy, with his catholic parlia- 
 ment of the pale, enacting laws which at once excite our 
 indignation and our ridicule; sanguinary and absurd, im- 
 potent and furious — the offspring of folly and malignity. 
 The torments they give birth to, turn on the inventor ; 
 and the catholic English colony will hereafter be seen 
 suffering in property and in person from those very laws 
 that were directed by them against the devoted Irish. 
 They passed an act setting a price upon the heads of Mi- 
 lesians going from, or coming into, any part of the pale, if 
 he or they be not in company with an Englishman of 
 good repute, wearing English apparel. They also passed 
 an act that every Irishman living among the English set- 
 tlers, shall change their sirnames, speak English, and wear 
 English apparel. They enacted that no ship or other ves- 
 sel of any foreign country shall go for fish to Irish counties. 
 What spirit prompted this infernal confederacy against the 
 laws of God and humanity? Was it religion or supersti- 
 tion? No. Was it because the Irish were a barbarous 
 nation ? No ; this cannot be urged by such legislators. — 
 Why did this catholic pale thus endeavour to make the hu- 
 mane and tender, savage and ferocious — the hospitable 
 Irishman, the merciless barbarian ? The Irish reader will 
 immediately answer — because England so ordered it ; be- 
 cause the monopoly of the pale wliich she either wickedly or 
 foolishly cherished, was insatiable for Irish blood, and should 
 be gratified. Could a protestant parliament enact laws more 
 barbarous than these we have quoted by a catholic parlia- 
 ment ? Certainly not ; but a protestant parliament has fol- 
 lowed the footsteps of this catholic parliament, and has 
 obeyed the instructions of England with equal fidelitj\ 
 
 Irishmen should never confound the errors of their coun- 
 trymen with the crimes of England, nor contend v/ith each 
 other when the prolific source of all Ireland's wrongs 
 stands before them. Yet Mr. Leland writes of this parlia- 
 ment, that " the statutes it passed were particularly calcu- 
 lated not only for the defence of the pale, but for the re- 
 
 T 
 
146 
 
 fining the manners of its inhabitants, and forming them by 
 the Eno-hsh model." Mr. Leland's idea of refinement is 
 somewhat singular, if it can only be brought about by the 
 establishment of principles which tear from the human 
 breast the finest feelings of our nature, proclaim war a- 
 gainst our neighbour, and level humanity with the beast ctf 
 the field, or the fowl of the air. 
 
 The deputy, Desmond, who thus refined the manners of 
 the Irish, shortly after his honorable labors, was brought 
 to the block by his enemies. Kildare repaired to the Bri- 
 tish monarch, and made such representations as restored 
 the family of the Geraldines to their ancient power and au- 
 thority. The Irish parliament co-operate with Kildare in 
 visitins on the enemies of his house the most merciless ven- 
 geance. 1 he temporary revolution effected in England by 
 the earl of Warwick, restoring Henry VI. to the throne, 
 left Kildare undisturbed in the government of the English 
 colony. "The measures he adopted," says Mr. Taaffe, "for 
 the defence of the pale, demonstrate the nullity of its resour- 
 ces, and that it was not power, but will, theancient proprietors 
 wanted, to pluck that deleterious thorn out of their side." 
 
 The reader will find but httle entertainment in perusing 
 the detail of the family quarrels of the Butlers and Fitzge- 
 ralds. A native of England is appointed dcjiuty by Ed- 
 ward IV. without consulting the colonists. He was op- 
 posed and disowned; Kikl are kept the lieutenancy ; Kdat- 
 ino", governor of the castle, refused hiin entrance ; Kil- 
 dare formed an alliance with Con O'Nial oi the north, 
 which fixed and established his influence, and made it al- 
 most imperative on the British monarch to retain him as 
 deouty. Ho continued viceroy dui'ing the reigns of Ed- 
 ward V. and Richard III. a period v.hich afibrds no sub- 
 ject to the historian worthy of record. We read the 
 same round of internal feuds and animosities, terminating 
 in civil war and blood, and the same scenes of violence to 
 perpetuate and extend the English interests, without re- 
 gard to the obligations of justice, of humanity, or religion. 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Henry VII. 
 
 A.D. 
 
 The triumphs of Henry VII. ever the house 
 , /gQ* of York, were heard in Ireland with feelings of 
 
 deep and sincere regret. The vices of Richard 
 III. were unknown and unexperienced, and the virtues 
 of his ancestor lived in the grateful recollection of the Irish 
 nation. It would be reasonably expected, that the pohcy 
 of the conqueror vvouid have suggested the expediency of 
 placing iu the administration of his Irish governmei t the 
 partizans of the house of Lancaster ; but, whether from 
 i'car, or from a more profound policy, he continued 
 the friends of the house of York in the enjoyment of 
 all the honors and emoluments of the viceregal admi- 
 nistration. He reposed confidence in the earl of Kil- 
 dare as lord lieutenant, and the brother of the earl as his 
 Irihh chancellor. Rowland, lord Portlester, another zeal- 
 ous Yorkist, continued treasurer, with all the old officers 
 of state, and former privy council. Were we to form an 
 opinion of the motive Avhich actuated Henry to preserve 
 the ministers of York in the adininistration of Ireland, we 
 ehould be inclined to conclude that the formidable power 
 of the English lords of the pale, who were devoted to the 
 
148 
 
 .interests of the house of York, could more easily be gained 
 over by the affected confidence of- the monarch, than re- 
 strained or put down by the violence of his jealousy or the 
 terror of his arms. 
 
 Tlie desperate resistance of Keating, the prior of Kil- 
 rnainham, to the appointment of Lumley, who was selec- 
 ted by Henry to succeed him in his ecclesiastical dignities, 
 fidly demonstrates the strength of the York party in Ire- 
 land. Keating ordered Lumley to be seized and thrown 
 into prison, in opposition to the threats of Henry. The 
 carl of K^ildare governed in Ireland without any restraint, 
 even from the rivalship or jealousy of the great barons of 
 the colon3\ Desmond slumbered in the lazy pride of rude 
 magnificence : he boasted of his exemption from the la- 
 bors of legislation, and left the administration of the colo- 
 ny to the sole direction of Kildare. In England, the 
 British monarch manifested the most relentless and un- 
 forgiving spirit against the house of York. The young 
 earl of Warwick, son of the unhappy duke of Clarence, 
 was committed to close custody ; the daughter of Edward 
 was treated with coldness and neglect by her husband, 
 Henry ; and the friends of the Yorkists were pursued on 
 all sides by attainders, forfeitures, and confiscations. 
 
 The widow of Edward IV. could no longer repress her _ 
 indignation at die treatment of her daughter, the relent- 
 less persecutions of her friends, and the unwearied spirit 
 with which Henry insulted the feelings of the family. 
 She secretly consulted with his enemies, and industriously 
 encouraged the disposition to disaffection throughout the 
 • kingdom. 
 
 Henry iiaving received information from Ireland, whicfe 
 excited his apprehensions of the fidelity of Kildare, he 
 summoned the latter to repair to his court ; who artfuUy 
 evaded the royal mandate, by a parliamentary representa- 
 tion of the dangers to be incurred by his absence from the 
 administration of Irish affairs. At length the suspicious 
 
149 
 
 of Henry were confirmed by tlie dcvelopemcnt of a 
 scheme conceived by an ecclesiastic of Oxford, to make 
 an experiment on the disaffection of Henry's subjects. 
 Richard Lemon, a monk of Oxford, prevailed on a youth 
 called Lambert Simnel, to represent the earl of War- 
 wick, who, as report stated, had escaped from confinement. 
 8imnel, being possessed of considerable address, person- 
 ated the young earl with so much success, that he was 
 adopted by persons of the highest consequence and distinc- 
 tion, as a fit instrument by which an effort could be made 
 to effect a revolution of the government. Though Sim- 
 nel sustained his part with ease and dignity, Ireland, (a 
 country where the young Warwick was least known, and 
 where a discovery of the imposition was least probable,) 
 was considered by the conspirators as the fittest theatre 
 on which this curious and interesting drama ought to be 
 acted. The national zeal of L^eland tor the house of 
 York, pointed out that country as the ceitain asylum of 
 Warwick, and the grand support on which he might 
 rely to advance his pretensions to the throne. 
 
 Simnel, and his attendant the monk, arrived in Dublin, 
 where he was received with all the warmth of a people 
 grateful for the services rendered to them by his ancestor. 
 Tiie whole colony, with some few exceptions, embraced his 
 cause. Kildai'e summoned the council. Simnel was con- 
 veyed in pomp to the castle of Dublin; received the ho- 
 mage and acclamations of his numerous adherents v/ith the 
 most gracious dignity ; was entertained and treated as a 
 sovereign, and in a few days publicly proclaimed king, 
 by the name of Edward VI. 
 
 Henry who was considerably alarmed at the extraordi- 
 nary scene then acting in his Irish dominions, proceeded 
 to take such steps as were calculated to check the growing 
 dangler. He seized the queen dowager, who was supposed 
 to be the principal agent in the conspiracy, and committed 
 her to a nunnery. To demonstrate the imposition prac- 
 
150 
 
 lised OR his subjects by the artifices of his enemies, he or- 
 dered the real earl of Warwick to be taken from the tower 
 and conducted thi'ough the streets of London, where he 
 conversed with some of the principal nobility. The zeal of 
 the Irish colony for the iiouse of York retorted upon the 
 king the charge of imposition, and upbraided in their turn 
 the credulity of the English nation, who refused to ac- 
 knowledge Simnel as the real earl of Warwick. Emissa- 
 ries repaired to England to sound the disposition and as- 
 certain the numbers of those who w-ere ready to vindicate 
 and support the claims of the house of York. Ambassadors 
 were sent to the duchess of Burgundy, the sister of Ed- 
 ward IV. who saw with mortiiication tlie prosperity and 
 triumphs of the Lan caster ians. Francis, lord Lovel, cham- 
 berlain of Richard, and John, earl of Lincoln, whom 
 Richard IIL designed to leave as his successors to the 
 throne, were at tliat time resident at the court of the duch- 
 ess of Burgundy. 1 hey immediately embraced the cause 
 of Simnel, and landed in Ireland in the year 1487, with 
 a, force of 2000 Flemish troops, under the command of 
 Swaart, a valiant and experienced officer. Anin^.ated by 
 such support, the colonists proceeded to the coronation of 
 Simnel. He was conducted in due state to Christ-church, 
 attended by the lord deputy and hi& officers of state ; tine 
 bishop of Meath explainetl and enforced his right to the 
 crown, even from the pulpit. Froia the church he was con- 
 veyed in pomp to the castle of Dubtui, elevated on the 
 sliouiders of D'Arcy, chief of a considerable Enghsh family 
 of Meath ; a ceremony, Mr. Leland says, adopted from 
 the native Irish. 
 
 The young king convened a parliament ; subsidies 
 were granted; the whole administration of government, 
 the procedure of law, and execution of justice, passetl some 
 time regularly in the name of Edward VI. 
 
 The state of the colony at this period was (even accord- 
 ing to colonial writers) very circumscribed ; it seemed to 
 
151 
 
 exist rather from the sufFernnce of the native Irish chief- 
 tains, than by its own strength. The names of Kildare, 
 Desinond, and Ormond, commanded respect more as 
 Irish princes, than Enghsli lords; more from their con- 
 nections with tlie native Irish, to Vf'hom they were now 
 a good deal assimilated in manners, than as the des- 
 cendants of those English barons v^■ho invaded IreLuid : the; 
 resources of the deputy's treasury were inadequate to the 
 expense of a large military establishment ; and it ceased, 
 therefore, to be a matter of choice whether he should de- 
 termine on the invasion of England, aided by Flemish 
 allies. The invasion of England was determined upon, 
 and Simnel, with his alhcs, landed in I^ancashlre, at 
 a place called Foudery. 
 
 Henry lost no time in endeavouring to repel the inva- 
 ders. He met the Irish at a village called Stoke, in Not- 
 tingham. The desperate valour of the Irish, aided by the 
 disciphne of the German veterans, kept the battle a long 
 time doubtful. At length victory declared for Heniy. The 
 gallant Swaart, lord Lovel, sir Thomas Broughton, and 
 a number of distinguished Irishmen, fell on the field of 
 battle. Among the prisoners were Simnel, and his tutor 
 the priest, who thus closed their short career of imposture 
 and fraud. Henry spared Simnel's life, but consigned him 
 to the menial offices of his kitchen, where he might be the 
 subject of public derision and contempt. Lemon, tlie cler- 
 gyman, was thrown into prison, and it is supposed, sacrificed 
 to the vengeance of Henry. Thus terminated one of ihe 
 most singular impositions ever practised on a whole nation 
 in the annak of history, lljis dream of the English colo- 
 ny closed in the most mortifying disappointment and di>>> 
 aster. The vengeance of Henry was averted by the timely 
 acknowledgments of error on the p'art of Kildare and the 
 principal barons ; and tlie king, pressed by more important 
 considerations in his ow!i country, seized the opportunity 
 the repentance of his subjects offered, and granted amnesty 
 
152 
 
 for past offences. The dependence of Henry on the barons 
 of the colony to repel the more formidable efforts of the 
 Irish, who were anxious to extinguish the English interests 
 in Ireland, obliged him to dissemble his indignation at the 
 late effort of his Irish subjects to drive him from his throne. 
 
 Soon after, Henry commissioned sir Richard Edgecombe 
 to ffo to Ireland, in order that he mioht there tender the 
 royal pardon to such as would renew their oaths of alle- 
 giance. After some remonstrance from Kildare, and a 
 few of the principal barons of the pale, the latter agreed 
 to perform homage and fealty to Henry in the most public 
 manner. Accordingly the lords Portlester, Gormanston, 
 Slane, Howth, Trimbleston, and Dunsany took the oaths 
 of allegiance. The prelates and abbots of Dublin submit- 
 ted in like manner. Tlie only persons to whom the royal 
 favor was denied were Plunket, chief Justice, and Keating, 
 the prior of Kilmainham, who were particularly obnoxious 
 from their distinguished zeal in the cause of the impostor 
 Simncl. 
 
 In consequence of the jealousies which arose between 
 Kildare, who took up arms against his monarch, and those 
 barons who had continued faithful in their allegiance, 
 Henry summoned the contending lords to his court, where 
 he exhibited the mock prince, Simnel, in the capacity of 
 butler;' thus mortifying the Irish lords by representing the 
 idol before whom they bent the knee, reduced to the hum- 
 ble and degrading situation of servant to the monarch 
 whom they threatened to depose. 
 
 The result of tlie interviev/ with the English monarch 
 was the reconciliation of all parties* The Irish were dis- 
 missed with confidence and assurances of the royal favor. 
 The south and the north of Ireland were disturbed by the 
 stru^ales of the earl of Desmond with the O'Carrols of 
 Thomond, and the Mac Cartys of Desmond, over whom 
 he gained two o-reat victories, which thoush not imme- 
 diately contributing to extend the territories of the colony. 
 
15S 
 
 had the effect of weakening and dividing the Irish force, 
 and exposing the country hereafter to the more subtle 
 practices of its enemies. In the north, the O'Nials and 
 Tyrconnells waged a sanguinary arid destructive war, 
 which the interposition oF the deputy could not prevent* 
 About this time a second impostor rose up, called Perkin 
 Warbeck, whose pretensions were encouraged by the in- 
 triguing duchess of Burgundy. Henry seeing the storm 
 approach, took all necessary precautions to guard against 
 its effects. He removed Kildare from the Irish adminis- 
 tration, and with him all those officers whom he had 
 reason to suspect favourable to the new conspiracy. Such 
 a change in the government of Ireland generated all the 
 malignant passions of jealousy and envy among the princi- 
 pal barons of the pale ; and Ormond and Kildare sacrificed 
 to their mutual hatred the solid interests of their sovereign, 
 and the tranquillity and happiness of the colony. Ire- 
 land was thus torn by contending factions, when Perkin 
 Warbeck made his appearance in the character of Richard 
 Plantagenet, who was supposed to have escaped from the 
 towei*. He was received with all the honors due to that 
 young prince. The result, however, of the efforts of 
 this impostor in Ireland, were little more than the multi- 
 plication of those fruitless straggles between the great 
 barons, which desolated the colony. In addition to those 
 calamities, Ireland was visited with the sweating sickness, 
 a species of malady that raged with horrible fury in Lon- 
 don at this period ; and which, Mr. Hume says, was not 
 propagated by any contagious infection, but arose from 
 the general disposition of the air, and of the human body — 
 thousands fell victims to it. ^ 
 
 The complaints made to Henry of Irish distress and 
 suffering were so great, that he summoned Waiter, the 
 archbishop of Dublin, to appear before him with a clear 
 and satisfactory detail of the causes of the calamities under 
 which Ireland then labored. The arclibishop appeared be- 
 
 U 
 
154 
 
 fore hie monarch, who demanded the reason wliy " so 
 little advantage had been hitherto derived from the acqui- 
 sitions of his predecessors in Ireland, notwithstanding the 
 natural wealth and fruitfulness of that countrj^ ?" It is writ- 
 ten, that the answer of the bishop discovered neither integrity 
 nor penetration. Like many Anglo- Irishmen who have suc- 
 ceeded him, he fled for refuge from the honest inquiries of 
 his sovereign, to tiie senseless calumny of the country 
 which he presumed to represent : he told the king the 
 people of Ireland were an idte, wandering, and turbulent 
 people ; and that even the English colony in that country 
 were diseased with the destructive habits of the Irish. 
 
 The representations of the bishop had the effect of gra- 
 tifying the vengeance, if not of healing the wounds of 
 Ireland ; and Kildare, the powerful, was obliged to yield 
 to the stern rebuke of the monarch, who was now better 
 enabled, by his circumstances in England, to act a decided 
 part in the government of his Irish dominions. He there- 
 fore selected sir Edward Poynings, as the person best qua- 
 lified ; to extinguish the insolent tj^anny of the factious 
 lords. He invested this knight with unlimited powers to 
 liear all complaints, to punish the guilty, and reward the 
 meritorious, as his judgment pointed out. No confidence 
 v^as reposed bj Henry in any of his Irish officers of the 
 colony. He substituted in their places Engliihmcn of the 
 highest character, and thus determined to strike at the 
 root of that tcrturijag monopoly, which ein-iclies itself 
 with the tears and the miseries of the people it rules over. 
 
 Hem'y sent over an English lord chancellor, an English 
 lord treasurer, English judges and law officers; all em- 
 barked \\'ith sir Edward Povnings, and on his arrival 
 were sworn of the privy council. It is instructive to ob- 
 serve the effort made by Henry at this period, to establish 
 such an administration in bis colony in Ireland, as would 
 render that country in some degree less formidable, and 
 more productive to the^royal treasury, than it had heretofore 
 
155 
 
 been. It is curious to observe the little shiftings of a 
 narrow and envious policy, and to remark how slow is the 
 progress of that enlightened spirit of legislation, which 
 sees sincere loyalty in the communication of benefit, and 
 estimates the returns of the heart by the magnitude of the 
 privilege conferred. We have hitherto seen England 
 balancing Ormond against Desmond, the north against 
 the south ; we are now to see her distrusting all parties 
 and endeavouring to govern the colony on their ruins. 
 
 The reflections of Mr. Leland are too valuable not to 
 he introduced, even in this compendium of Irish history. 
 *' The late transactions in Ireland, the bold attempt in fa- 
 vor of Simnel, and the desperate valor displayed by the 
 troops led into England by the Geraldines, had made this 
 country the subject of general discourse and speculation ; 
 and the rising spirit of project and inquiry, had engaged 
 individuals to search deeply into the revolutions experi- 
 enced in Ireland since the reign of Henry II. The de- 
 clension of the English interests, the dispositions, temper, 
 and power of the old natives, the designs and competitions 
 of great lords, the conduct of the king's officers, and the 
 means of rendering an appendage to the crown of Eng- 
 land, in itself so valuable, of real weight and consequence 
 to the general weal. There is a discourse still extant in 
 some repositories of curious papers, said to have been pre- 
 sented to the king and council, not later than the present 
 period, in which the affairs of Ireland are copiously ex- 
 amined. The author labors to en^ap-e the king; in the 
 complete reduction and settlement of this country; hi* 
 researches are accurate, and his policy judicious. He re- 
 counts no less than sixty regions, of different dimension, q\\ 
 governed by Irish chieftains, after their laws and manners; 
 together with a long catalogue of degenerate English, who 
 had renounced all obedience to government in the several 
 provinces. The pale of English law he confines within 
 the narrow bounds of half ^the counties of Uriel, Meatlij 
 
156 
 
 Kildare, Diijalin, and Wexford; an(J the common people 
 of those districts he represents as entirely conforming to 
 the Irish habit and language, although they professed o- 
 bedience to the laws ; so general had been the intercourse 
 of fostering, marriage, and alHance with the enemy. The 
 grievances of those counties, from oppressive exactions, 
 imnatural feuds, expeditions undertaken by deputies from 
 personal animosity or private interest, to the utter ruin of 
 the subject, and without the least advantage to the state; 
 laws forgotten, neglected, and defied; an increasmg de- 
 generacy, a general ignorance, and scandalous inattention 
 '^to mstruct and reform the people, are all detailed fully. 
 
 The remedies proposed are — a competent force sent out 
 of England, to support the authority of a chief governor 
 of integrity and equit}' ; a strict attention to the training 
 the people to the EngUsh art of war ; garrisons station- 
 ed so as to awe the Irish enemies and rebels, to put an end 
 to local quarrels, and gradually to reduce the whole bo- 
 dy of the inhabitants to obedience; equitable and moderate 
 taxation, substituted in the place of arbitrary impositions : 
 with other particular regulations, many of which were af- 
 terwards adopted. — ( Pandari's sive latus populi. M. S. 
 Trill. Col. Diih.) Such remains of antiquity are not un- 
 worthy of notice, as the sentiments and opinions of co- 
 temporaries serve to illustrate and confirm the represent- 
 ations collected from history or records. 
 
 In this instrument, we do not find any recommendation 
 to extend the. protection of the constitution — to impart 
 *its advantages — to cultivate confidence — to promote social 
 and friendly intercourse with the natives — to exhibit a dis- 
 position kind and affectionate, to a people most sensible to 
 such endearing sentiments. No ; we see more new friends 
 from England recommendtd : more strong measures, more 
 national distrust. Still it must be acknowledged that 
 throughout this document a milder spirit of equity is dis- 
 eernible than we have before witnessed ; and that from thia 
 
157 
 
 period we may date the dawn of that day which discovered 
 to Englishmen the great and paramount importance of 
 Ireland as a member of the British empire. 
 
 The arrival of sir Edward Poynings in Ireland, pro- 
 mised no extraordinary extension of the colonial territory : 
 his mission seemed to be more directed to a reformation 
 of the colony itself, tiian tlic subjugation of the native 
 Irish ; and the merit of extinguisliing the wretched fac- 
 tions of the pale, which were eating up the resources of the 
 Irish nation, was reserved for sir Edward Poynings, whose 
 character and whose talent were particularly calculated to 
 accomplish so desirable on object. 
 
 The policy of this chief governor was nothing less than 
 that of the general and extensive reformation of the state ; 
 to put an end to the iniquity of ministers, and the opposi- 
 tions of the people, as well as to extinguish every remain- 
 ing spark of disaffection and rebellion. Sir Edward Poy- 
 nings was opposed by an Irish chieftain named O'Hanlon, 
 in such and so effectual a manner as calls up the anger and 
 contemptible resentment of some colonial writers, at what 
 they call the cowardly warfare of the Irish. 
 
 Mr. Leland says, that sir Edward Poynings found the 
 Irish an embarrassing, though not a very honorable ene- 
 my. In what did the want of Irish honor consist ? In 
 taking advantage of the various retreats their country af- 
 forded, they kept their enemy in perpetual terror and 
 anxiety, without striking a decisive blow ; and ' thus 
 the Irish defeated the hopes of this aspiring deputy, who 
 was to have conquered the barbarous Irish with so much. 
 facility. Sir Edward Poynings was determined that his 
 legislative war against the vices of his subjects of the pale, 
 should obliterate the remembrance of his unsaccessful 
 struggles against the native Irish ; and accordingly, in, 
 1495 he convened a parliament, which commenced the 
 enactment of those laws that were v.ell calculated to curb 
 the licentiousness of the colonial bwons, and to libei-ate 
 
158 
 
 the people from those oppressive exactions which the Tonii^i 
 imposed to such intolerable excess. The taxes paid by 
 the people of the pale were defined, and the power of the 
 nobles t.'us bounded and circumscribed by the law. This 
 parliament of Sir Edward Poynings' assimilated the laws 
 of the pale with those of England ; for instance, in the 
 important and paramount case of murder, they were for- 
 bidden to prosecute the offender in the old Irish method 
 of compelling his sept to pay a fine, but to proceed regu- 
 larly accordino;to the Eni^lish law ; and this crime of mur- 
 der, by a severity most expedient and necessary, in times of 
 turbulence, was declared to be liigh treason. Besides 
 some statutes against individuals, we find, in the proceed- 
 ings of tliis famous parliament, an act of attainder passed 
 against Gerald Fitzthomas, earl of Kildare, for treason 
 and rebellion, corresponding with O'Hanlon, practising 
 the extortion of coyne and livery, and mtriguing with the 
 king of the Scots. The vengeance of sir Edward's par- 
 liament was extended to all his adherents, and kinsmen, 
 of whom we find a long catalogue attainted of high trea- 
 son ; so as to reduce this noble family, which had so long 
 maintained the first rank in Ireland, to the lowest state of 
 depression and disgrace. 
 
 So suspected were the inhabitants of the colony by this 
 jealous chief governor, that it was determined none but 
 English shovdd be entrusted with the care of the principal 
 places of strength, throughout the whole English settle- 
 ments ; and the turbulent and seditious conduct of the pri- 
 or of Kilmainham, Keating, sriggested another statute, 
 by which an Englishman alone was to be invested with the 
 priory of St. John of Jerusalem. . 
 
 The most memorable law enacted by the parliament of 
 sir Edv/ard Poynings, and of which English historians have 
 deigned to take some notice, is the law called Poyn- 
 ings' law. The principal provision of which is as follows : 
 *' Whereas many statutes lately made within the realm of 
 
159 
 
 England, would contribute to the wealth and prosperity 
 of Ireland, it" used and executed in the same, it is ordain- 
 ed and established by the authority of parliament, and by 
 the assent of the lords and commons, that all statutes late- 
 ly made within the realm of England, belonging to the 
 public weal of the same, be deemed good and effectual in 
 law, accepted, used, and executed within this land of Ire- 
 land ; authorized, approved and confirmed." Lord Ba- 
 con calls this a memorable law, and tlie first provi>iion for 
 making the statutes of England in force in Ireland ; but 
 as Mr. Leland observes, the same pfo\asion is made by a 
 statute of the 7th of Edward IV. and the terms of the 
 statute of Poynings contradicts and refutes the idea that 
 the Irish colony resigned their rights to England of mak- 
 ing laws for the regulation of its own people. But there 
 was another law, called Poynings' law also, ^^•hich roused 
 the indignation and fired the pride of Ireland, at a great 
 and memorable period of its history. It is called an act 
 " that no parliament be holden in Ireland, until the acts 
 be certified into England."'* 
 
 The parliament of sir Edward Poynings yielded to the 
 
 • Sir John Davi?, in his celebrated speech to the Irish liouse of lords, 
 in the reign of James I. on liis appointment to the situation < f speaker 
 or chairman of the commons, makes the following- observation ou this 
 celebrated law of Povuings : " hi the tenth year of Henry Vll. sir Edward 
 Poynings summoned and held tliat famous parliament, in which, doubt- 
 less, he showed a large heart, and a great desire of a general reforma- 
 tion ; and to that end procured many general laws to pass, which >ve find 
 most profitabie and necessary for the commonwealth at this day. 
 
 " Among the rest he caused two Jaws to i>e made, which may riglitly 
 be called leges le^tim, being excellent laws, concerning the laws themselves, 
 whereof one did look backwards to tlie time past, and gave a great sup- 
 ply to the defects of former parliaments bv confirming and csubiishing 
 at once in this realm, all the statutes formerly made in England. 
 
 '* I'he other looked forward to the time to come, by providing that 
 from thenceforth th.ere sliould be no parliament holden here, until the 
 acts which should be propounded were first certified into England and ap- 
 proved by the king and his council, there and then rc:urued hither, un- 
 der the great seal r.f that realm. 
 
 " This latter act," says sir John Davis," is that we call Foyn'ngs' a"t, and 
 is indeed that act of parliament which is a rule for our parhanitnts until 
 this day. 
 
 " But these acts," continues sir John Davis, " by sir Edward Poynings, 
 though they were made and meant for the general Jioad- riiir-^v ' -^^t \ 
 
160 
 
 malignant jealousies of the rivals of Kildare, and pursued 
 that prince with an implacable hostility. Sir Edward 
 dechned to take cognizance of the various accusations that 
 were so industriously made against Kildare, and sent him 
 prisoner to the British monarch, before whom he should 
 meet the charges of his enemies. Thus the great and 
 leading enemy of the English was put into the possession 
 of Henry; and sir Edward Poynings, after the trium- 
 phant establishment of his celebrated civil institutions, re- 
 turned to England, where he was rewarded by his sover- 
 eign for his services in Ireland, with the honor of the 
 garter. 
 
 The bishop of Bangor succeeded sir Edward Poyning^ 
 in the administration of Ireland. During his government, 
 the native Irish, and the degenerate English, were con- 
 suming and destroying each other by perpetual contests. 
 In the meantime his secret and public enemies were busy 
 in their endeavours to poison the mind of Henry against 
 Kildare, who was at length sunmioned before the British 
 monarch, to answer the host of accusers who were pledged 
 to confront him. The honest, open, and candid demeanor 
 of Kildare won the esteem of Henry, and constituted his 
 best defence aoainst his accusers. An anecdote is told of 
 this Irisli nobleman, which illustrates his character in a 
 very striking and remarkable manner. The king desired 
 Kildare to be prepared for his defence, and to provide 
 himself with able counsel, as he feared his cause would re- 
 quire it. — " Yes, the ablest in the realm," replied the earl, 
 seizing Henry by the hand, with an uncourtly familiarity, 
 " your highness I take for my counsel against these false 
 knaves." The king smiled at the novelty of tliis address, 
 and the uncouth compliment to his equity and discern- 
 ment : his accusers were heard, and among the numerous 
 
 the first overture for the general reformation that hath followed since 
 that time, yet could they not produce so good and so great an effect as 
 was intended by those laws ; because that more than three pai-ts in four of 
 this kingdom at least, were then and long after possessed by the Irish, and 
 tinreformed Engliah, which were not answerable to the law." 
 
161 
 
 accusations which were made against him, there was one 
 which called forth a I'eply, the simplicity and candor and 
 manliness of which, at once excited the admiraticm and 
 astonishment of Henry. Kildare was charged with sacri- 
 legiously burning the church of Casliel to the ground. — 
 *' Spare your evidence," said Kildare, " I did set fire to 
 the church, for I thought the bishop had been in it." His 
 accusers closed theircharge witha warm and passionate decla- 
 ration, that "all Ireland could not govern this earl." " Well 
 then," replied Henry, " this earl shall govern all Ireland." 
 
 Thus the triumph of Kildare was complete; he was 
 restored to his estates and honors, and soon after created 
 viceroy of Ireland. In this situation he displayed that 
 vigilance and activity, which, aided by the late regulations 
 of sir Edward Poynings, were well calculated to give per- 
 manency to the English interests in Ireland. Connected 
 by family ties with the O'Nials of the north, he quelled 
 his opponents in that quarter, and forced them to a sub- 
 mission. He subdued the south, and conciliated the heads 
 of the principal families, the archbishop of Armagh, and 
 the prince of Ormond. He formed alliances with the most 
 powerful chieftains, and gave his daughter to Uliac of 
 Claiu'ickard, a powerful lord of Connaught. This Irish 
 chieftain did not treat the daughter of Kildare in a man- 
 ner suited to her birth and character ; and the earl resent- 
 ed the indignity by declaring war against Clanrickard, 
 which terminated in one of the most sanguinary battles 
 recorded in Irish annals. (-lanrickard was joined by 
 O'Brien, and some Irish associates of Munster. Those of 
 the pale, united with the deputy, were reinforced by O'Nial, 
 his kinsman, and other northern dynasties. 
 
 Though the cause of difference betweta the earl of Kil- 
 dare and the earl of Clanrickard was completely a private 
 one, yet on this occasion the entire forces of the colony and 
 of the Irish chieftains 'were drawn forth, as if the question 
 to be decided was the liberty or the slavery of Ireland. The 
 
 W 
 
162 
 
 two anuies met at Knoctorc, within five miles of Galway, 
 (1492,) and the Irish sustained a dreadful defeat from the su- 
 perior generalship and skill of Kildare. So pleasing was the 
 information of this great victory to Henry, that he immedi- 
 ately conferred the garter on the earl of Kildare. The re- 
 sult of this battle was the surrender of Galway and Athunree. 
 JVIr. Leknd says, that from this reign we may date the 
 first revival of the English power in Ireland, which from 
 the Scottish war, in the reign of Edward II. had gradually 
 declined into a miserable and precarious state of weakness, 
 llie connections which were formed by the earl of Kildare 
 with the principal Irish chieftains, the activity and gene- 
 rosity of his disposition, the vigor of his arms, and the 
 fidelity of his zeal, established the power of the English 
 crown more firmly than we have hitherto seen it. Though 
 the pale was not extended, it was secured more effectually 
 than in former reigns, and though the ignominious tribute 
 paid by the English colony was not withdrawn, yet, from 
 the family connection of the deputy with the princijial Irisli 
 chieftains, the influence of the Enghsli became more exten- 
 sive than it hitherto liad been. Those of the English 
 whose manners and habits became completely Irish, or 
 who, in the language of Mr. Leland, had degenerated into 
 the barbarous cliaracter of the Irish, v>'ere more hostile to 
 the increase of Enolish influenre than even the natives 
 themselves. Mr. Leland attributes this degeneracv to a 
 lawless spirit of riot and disorder; but at the same time 
 admits that it may be reasonably imputed to the weakness 
 of English goverrunent, and to that good natured sociabi- 
 lity and hospitality by which the Irish were distinguished. 
 The laws forbade all intermarrying with the Irish, but 
 1hw3 were insigniiicaut barriers against the propensities of 
 humanity, and the power of mutual intercourse and affec- 
 tion. Even within the pale, at this period, the Irish man- 
 ners and language were predominant ; so little progress did 
 England make, by the fury of her policy or the terror of her 
 arms, among the Irish people. 
 
THE 
 
 HISTOKY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Henry VIIL 
 
 A T) JT HE accession of Henry VIII. was productive of 
 1509. ^^^^^ advantage to Ireland. The gaiety of youth, 
 and the influence of adulation, the pride and 
 pomp of royal dignity, the vain pursuit of empty glory in 
 foreign wars and negotiations, the intrigues of foreign 
 courts, their poverty and their venality, the flatteries of the 
 emperor Maximilian, and of Ferdinand of Spain, called off 
 the attention of Henry from the more useful occupation of 
 looking to the settlement of his Irish dominions, and the 
 firm establishment of his power in that valuable member of 
 his empire. 
 
 The earl of Kildare was continued the viceroy of Ireland, 
 and was perpetually engaged in restraining the turbulent 
 and factious spirit of the native Irish, who were no sooner 
 suppressed in one corner of the island than they rose up in 
 another. At length the death of this celebrated nobleman, 
 in the year 1513, produced a general sentiment of terror 
 among the fi'iends of English government. In this critical 
 emergenc}', the council and nobles elected Gerald, the son 
 of the late earl, lord deputy, who manifested the same spi- 
 
164 
 
 rit and energy in the suppression of rebellion, which dis- 
 tinsjuished his father. 
 
 After Gerald had completely restored tranquillity and 
 security to tlie English colony, he sailed for England to 
 receive further orders from his sovereign. He soon return- 
 ed, and convened a parliament. In this parliament a sub- 
 sidy of thirteen shillings on every plowland was granted for 
 ten years to the king. Absentees were heavily taxed, and 
 the use of archery by the colony particularly entbrced. 
 Notwithstanding the vigorous and decisive policy with which 
 Gerald had administered the affairs of this colony, the en- 
 vy and jealousy of a rival family were destined to counter- 
 act all his efforts, and again plunge the people into new 
 convulsions. 
 
 Thomas earl of Ormond died at this period, and Peter 
 or Piers Butler succeeded to his immense estates. He saw 
 with impatience the rising power of the family of the Geral- 
 dines, and adopted eveiy stratagem which the most inge- 
 nious policy could devise, to undermine the house of Kil- 
 dare in the estimation and confidence of the British mon- 
 arch. The result was, that Kildare was summoned to an- 
 swer to the charges that were brought by his enemies. 
 
 At this period Henry VIII. was at leisure to devote his 
 mind to the consideration of his Irish affairs ; and cardinal 
 Wolsey pointed out the necessity of no longer confiding 
 in the administration of an Irish viceroy, if his majesty 
 wished to put an end to the feuds and factions with which 
 Ireland had been perpetually distracted ; — that a neutral 
 person, a nobleman in no m-anner connected with the par- 
 ties and competitions which so long lacerated the country, 
 was the moi:t likely to restore traniquillity, and spee- 
 dily effect the complete reduction of the common enemy. 
 The present circumstances of Henry with relation to 
 foreign powers, were particularly favourable to the expe-^ 
 riment which his minister suggested. He had concluded 
 his treaty with France. Louis had been succeeded by 
 
165 
 
 Francis I. Charles V. had not only succeeded to the 
 crown of Spain, but was advanced to the imperial dignity. 
 Henry was courted by tliose great rivals, he liad the ho- 
 nor ot being considered the arbitrator of Europe, and his 
 kingdom of England was in profound tranquillity. Such 
 were the circumstances of Henry, when \V olsey called his 
 attention to his Irish dominions. — Thomas, carl of Surry, 
 was appointed viceroy of Ireland. Kildare was thus remo- 
 ved from the Irish administration, and his enemies gra- 
 tified. 
 
 The earl of Surry had no sooner assumed the reins of 
 power, than he was compelled to take the field against 
 ^Con O'Nial, distinguished among his countrymen by the 
 ■ title of boccagh, or the limper. The latter, finding that 
 Surry was better pi'epared for resistance than he had at 
 first supposed, sent an embassy to the deputy, and di«>a- 
 vowed ail intention of hostility. Mr. Leland says that 
 this submission of so powerful a chieftain was considered 
 as a favourable presage of the general reformation of the 
 entire island ', and it is recorded that the king had the dis- 
 cernment and the candor to declare his opinion, that 
 until all the inhabitants were admitted to the benefit of 
 English law, permanent tranquillity could never be effected 
 in Ireland. Surry was ordered by Henry to confer the 
 honor of knighthood on the well affected chieftains of the 
 north. A collar of gold was presented to O'Nial, and a 
 royal invitation was given to that chieftain to visit the 
 court of the British monarch. Had earl Surry been per- 
 mitted to examine into the administration of Ireland, the 
 equity and moderation of his government and thfe firmness 
 of his determinations, might have prevented the recur- 
 rence of those factions and divisions which disgraced and 
 impoverished the country; but, as Mr. Leland truly re- 
 marks, it was the unhappiness of Ireland, that an Eng- 
 lish governor who had abilities to pursue any delibcrute 
 scheme of reformation, was generally so necessary to the 
 
166 
 
 more urgent interests of the crown, that he could not long 
 be spared to this service; or so ill supported and supplied 
 from Enorland, that he could not continue it with lionor 
 and with advantage. 
 
 Surry, after two years of a wise and equitable adminis- 
 ti'ation of Ireland, was summoned by his sovereign to the 
 command of the British army against France. He was 
 succeeded by Owen, earl of Richmond, the inveterate ene- 
 my of Kildare. The w^eakness of this governor gave en- 
 courascement to the turbulent and rebellious chieftains 
 of Ireland to renew their contests ; and perhaps the di- 
 visions among the Irish protected the colony against the 
 imbecility of its governor. Mr. Leland relates an anec- 
 dote which illustrates the fancied or real importance of 
 those dynasties into which Ireland was then partitioned, 
 and also ilcmonstrates the miserable weakness of the Eng- 
 lish colony at this period. Mac Gilpatrick, the Irish chief- 
 tain of Ossory, had been insulted by the viceroy, earl ofOr- 
 mond. In all the dignity of offended majesty, he deter- 
 mined to ap})ly to the king of England for redress. He 
 sent forward his ambassador, who appeared at the chapel- 
 door where Henry was going to his devotions ; and advan- 
 cing with a composed and uncHsmayed gravity of deport- 
 ment, deliv-ered his commission in these words : " Sta pe- 
 dibus, domine rex; — dominus meus Gillapatricius, me mi- 
 sit ad te, et jussit ulcere, quod si non vis castigare Pe- 
 trum Ilufum, ipse faciet bellum contra te." What satis- 
 faction Henry gave to the Irish chieftain, Mac Gilpatrick, 
 or whether any, is not known ; but the anecdote is illus- 
 trative of the manners of the times, as well as the high opi- 
 nion the Irish prince entertained of his royal dignity. 
 
 The history of Ireland, at this period, is little more than 
 a history of the struggles of the principal chieftains for 
 ascendancy over each other — the unfortunate inhabitants 
 being the perpetual victims of ambition, of cruelty, or of 
 caprice. In 1528, sir William Skeffington was created 
 
167 
 
 viceroy ; and in a sliort time, we find this English kniglit 
 undermined in the royal favor by the representations of 
 Kildare, and the latter appointed deputy. The death of 
 cardinal Wolsey confirmed the power of Kildare ; lie ceas- 
 ed to be content with the humble and secondary honors 
 of viceroy ; he affected the rude grandeur of a king, and 
 was surrounded by those lords of the old Irish race, who 
 had ever been most hostile to the English power ; he mar- 
 ried two of his daughters to O'Connor of Offiily, and 
 O'Carroll, two powerful chieftains. Kildare treated those 
 laws of the pale with scorn which forbade such connections. 
 The extension of his own power was his chief object, and 
 this violent and zealous partizan monopolized all the ho- 
 nors and emoluments of the state. 
 
 Those Englishmen of rank and information, who had ex- 
 tensive settlements in Ireland, began to apprehend that the 
 result of the violent dictatorial measures of Kildare would be, 
 perhaps, the destruction of their properties, because they 
 mighi lead to a complete overthrow of the English pow- 
 er in Ireland. They trernbled for the precarious state of the 
 coimection; and they communicated their apprehensions, 
 and called upon Henry to interpose v^ith all his power, to 
 prevent the ruin which the councils of Kildare must bring 
 on his Irish dominions. They represented to the English 
 sovereign the confined extent of the English laws and man- 
 ners, language and habits ; they stated, that they were li- 
 mited to the narrow circle of twenty miles ; they described 
 in strong and glowing terms the exactions and oj^prcssions 
 which they suffered, the enormous jurisdiction of the Eng- 
 lish lords, the destructive mutability of their government ; 
 and lastly, they supplicated their monarch, that he would 
 be graciously pleased to entrust the charge of his Irish go- 
 vernment to some loyal subject sent from his realm of Eng- 
 land, whose sole object should be the honor and interest 
 of the crown, unconnected with the Irish factions, and 
 uninfluenced by partial favour or affection. 
 
168 
 
 Kilclare was snmrtioned to appear before his sovereign? 
 in consequence of these representations; and notwith- 
 standinoj the various artifices adopted by Kildare to excuse 
 his obedience to the royal will, he was obliged to resign his 
 government into the hands of his son Thomas, a youth 
 of 22 years, and repair to England. The difficulties of in- 
 tercourse between London and Dublin, at this period, (1 534) 
 were so great, that no accurate intelligence was for a length 
 of time obtained, relative to the fate of the earl of Kildare, 
 after his interview with Henry. Reports were circulated 
 that he had been thrown into prison and poisoned. So 
 dexterous were the enemies of the house of Kildare, that 
 young lord Thomas, the viceroy, was confirmed, -in the 
 persuasion that his father was put to death. He consulted 
 with his Irish associates, and thoughtlessly plunged into a 
 desperate rcbelhon. Attended by a body of one hundred 
 and sixt}-^ followers, he entered the city of Dublin; rushed 
 into the council, then assembled in Mary's Abbey, and re- 
 signing the sword of state, declared he was delermined to 
 rely upon his own arms, and the assistance of his brave 
 companions. Cromer, the prirnate and chancellor, re- 
 monstrated with this rash and violent youth, but he re- 
 monstrated in vain. The silken lord, as the Irish bards 
 styled hun, rushed forth at the head of his Irish train. 
 The Irish septs joined him, and traversed the pale, exact- 
 ing an oath of fidelity from the inhabitants. Emissaries 
 were dispatched by lord Thomas to the pope, and to 
 tlie emperor Charles, soliciting succours in support of 
 his rebellion. Lord Thomas laid waste the fertile 
 fields of Fingal, and threatened Diiblin with fire and 
 sword. Lie proposed to his rivals the Butlers, that all 
 past animosities and complaints should be buried in ob- 
 livion ; that the independence of their commerce should 
 be preferred, and, if possible, asserted ; and that Ireland 
 shoidd be divided between the Geraldines and the Butlers. 
 Tne proposal was insolently rejected; and the devastation 
 
169 
 
 of Ossory, tlie territory of the Butlers, immediately fol- 
 lowed. Dublin was besieged by the rebel chieftain; and 
 had it not been for the seasonable supplies of soldiers and 
 money from England, must have fallen into the hands 
 of lord Thomas. Lord Thomas retreated into Connaugbt, 
 to practise with the Irish chieftains; and, if possible, to 
 procure a force which might enable him to meet the gov- 
 ernor with his new and increased force. After raany des- 
 perate contests with the king's troops, the young and im- 
 prudent lord Thomas was abandoned by his followers, and 
 left to repent the wild and precipitate scheme in which he 
 involved so many of his innoceut and brave countr3'men. 
 He was sent into England a prisoner, and was there sa- 
 crificed to the vengeance of the enraged Henry. Before 
 he fell a victim to his folly, he learned that his father, for 
 whose supposed death he first engaged in rebellion, was 
 "still living. Henry was not satisfied with the 'single life 
 of lord Thomas. In the insatiable fury of his rage, this 
 sanguinary and infamous monster smuggled over to Eng- 
 land the five uncles of lord Thomas, who, though inno- 
 coirt of the crime with which they were charged, were 
 sacrificed to the vengeance of a relentless despot. Such 
 was the disastrous flite of a young nobleman, who is 
 <lcscribed by the historian as possessing a captivating per- 
 son, manners the most popular and interesting, and a 
 courage which no danger nor no difficulty could appal. 
 The noblest feelings of our nature first impelled this young 
 lord to draw his sword against the laws of his country; 
 and the martial ambition with which he was fired by the 
 praises and sycophancy of his followers, robbed him of 
 that prudence and sound discretion which would have 
 rendered him an ornament to his countrj-. 
 
 We have now arrived at that period of Irish histoiy 
 which gave birth to new sources of calamity, and new 
 causes of national distraction and suffering. A new era 
 now opens upon us; and the accumulated opinions of age^, 
 
 X 
 
170 
 
 fenced round by the terrors of power, and the fears of 
 prejudice, are assailed by the bold and intrepid hand of 
 innovation. We shall behold that king of England, who 
 obtained from the pope the high and flattering title of 
 defender of the 'faith, severing his kingdom from the 
 church of Rome ; sacrificing his religion to his passions ; 
 opening the flood-gates of error, and letting in an inunda- 
 tion of opinions as mutable as they were wild, and 
 fleeting as they were uncertain. We behold the human 
 mind broke loose, and sent adrift upon the wide and tem- 
 pestuous ocean of speculation ; the abuses which disfigured 
 the religion of Rome (and what system of fifteen hundred 
 jwears standing would not be corrupted by human passions ?) 
 magnified into abommations; the power of the pope, 
 which the civilized world had been accustomed to revere, 
 denominated despotism ; and to rebel against that religion 
 which had so often sheathed the sword of revolution, and 
 illuminated the darkness of barbarism, w^as now consider- 
 ed the best evidence of liberal and enlightened minds, and 
 the best service which the learned could render their coun- 
 try. Mr. Taaffe, speaking of the reformation, has the 
 following just observations : " English historians, as well 
 as their Irish partizans, give such accounts of this reforma- 
 tion begun by Henry VIII. as favor their own party, and 
 for want of knowing the real, attributed to imaginary 
 causes, its tardy and small progress in Ireland. That ar- 
 bitrary and cruel tyrant never meant any alteration in thd 
 cyeed or ritual he had learned, but solely thirsted for mo- 
 ney and pleasure. To indulge his capricious lusts he cre- 
 ated the schism ; to acquire money, and also to deprive the 
 pope of partizans, he suppressed monasteries, and seized 
 their estates and moveables. He had too much need of 
 partizans to lock up his vast plunder of ecclesiastical pro- 
 perty in his own cofters. He prudently distributed a great 
 portion of it among men of rank and talent, whom he 
 thus interested to ei^poiise his innovations ; adding withal, 
 
171 
 
 such titles of honor and distinction as generally captivate 
 human vanity. With these means, and the exercise of 
 unlimited power, the authority of an obsequious parlia- 
 ment, the concurrence of a corruj)t prelacy, and the gene- 
 ral timidity and procrastinating policy of English catho- 
 lics, the schism was completed in England — in Ireland it 
 met greater opposition." Why in Ireland the reforma- 
 tion should meet with greater opposition than in Eng- 
 land, may be accounted for, without having recourse to 
 the odious and humiliating causes stated by Mr. Lelandy 
 and other advocates of the reformed religion. 
 
 The people of Ireland were more interested in the pre- 
 servation of their religion and the protection of their priest- 
 hood, than the people of England, because there were a 
 fewer number of abuses to be complained of; fewer exam- 
 ples of hji^ocrisy and fraud to be found in Ireland than in 
 England. In the former, the minister of religion was nc-. 
 ver detected making the sacred functions of his office the 
 instruments of his ambition or his asjo-randizement. Here 
 he did not feed on public credulity, nor amass treasure at 
 the expence of the public reason. Here the altar was ftot 
 bartered for the favor of the court, or the smiles of corrup- 
 tion. The Irish clergy exercised hospitality, the native 
 virtue of their country ; their abbeys were seats of litera- 
 ture and humanit}'. To clothe the naked, to feed the 
 hungry, to relieve the sick, were their characteristic 
 duties. The superior chastity of the Irish clergy (at- 
 tested by foreign writers) above those of surrounding na- 
 tions, was an insuperable barrier to the principles of the 
 rapacious and lascivious reformer. The Irish abhorred the 
 plundering and schismatic schemes of the rapacious Henry 
 VIII. because they foresaw the decline of Christianit}-, 
 in the abolition of tliat unity and universality which is the 
 grand principle of the catholic church, and the certain pre- 
 servative of the Christian doctrine. They foresaw that the 
 church of England, torn from the main body of the faith- 
 
172 
 
 ful, would, li^e a brancli torn from a tree, wither and 
 produce insects; and that a schismatical hmb of the catho- 
 hc church, severed from the communion of the faithfol, 
 would decay, and be overrun with innumerable heresies. 
 They foresaw that reform, effected by the vilest and most 
 infamous instruments, by substituting reason for authority, 
 sapped the foundation of revealed religion, and let loose 
 the most destructive and desolating passions of the human 
 heart. The Irish, therefore, holding firmly by the anchor 
 of their old and venerated faith, buffetted the storms of 
 reformation, and to thk hour exhibit a nation professing 
 sober and rational religion ; while the neighbouring coun-« 
 try (England) is distracted with conflicting sectaries, like 
 the waves of the ocean, each burying the other in eternal 
 oblivion. 
 
 Three hundred years liave now elapsed, since this great 
 and extraordinaiy revolution of the human mind took 
 place ; and those who have the volume of history before 
 them, can best discover the advantages or the evils which 
 have flowed to mankind from the destruction of that unity 
 and universality of religious doctrine which preserved the 
 peace of nations for so mahy centuries. In 1536, Henry 
 VIII. summoned a convocation in England, to deliberate 
 on the necessity of making a new translation of the scrip- 
 tures. Tindal had formerly given to the world a transla- 
 tion, which the clergy complained of as very inaccurate and 
 unfaithful. It was therefore proposed, in the convocation 
 summoned by Henry, that a new translation be .made, 
 which could not be liable to any objection. Ihe argu- 
 ments made use of, at this period, in defence of the prin- 
 ciples and views of the reformers, and of the consequences 
 of the reformation of the human mind, as well as the ar- 
 guments made use of by the advocates of the old religion, 
 in opposition to the innovation recommended by the re- 
 formers, are worthy of the serious and deliberate consi- 
 deration cf every man, who, seduced by the specious sen- 
 timent of liberal and ■enlightened toleration, encourages. 
 
1 /o 
 
 the principle of leaving to each individual the formation of 
 his oWn religious tenets, or the profession of liis ov/n re- 
 lio;ious doctrines. 
 
 The arguments of the reformers of 1 536 have been the 
 prolific source of the innumerable sects which now cover 
 the face of England : which have divided, and subdivided, 
 and distracted the protestant congregations, and have at 
 length exposed the divine religion of Christ to the scoffy, 
 and sneers, and sarcasms of the deist and the atheist. Mr. 
 Hume has preserved those arguments for and against the 
 reformers ; he has weighed them in the philosophic bal- 
 ance ; and we will now leave it to our reader to determine 
 on wliich side truth, justice, and common sense lie, and 
 whether the principles of Leo X. or of Plenry VIII. are 
 at this day most deserving the respect and the deference of 
 mankind. We will give the arguments in Mr. Hume's 
 words ; they are prophetic of the consequences wliich man- 
 kind has experienced, and conclusive against those latitu- 
 dinarian doctrines which blockheads affect, because some 
 philosophers are found among their supporters. In 1556, 
 the friends of the reformation asserted that " nothing could 
 be more al^surd than to conceal in an unknown tcno;ue the 
 word itself of God, and thus to counteract the will of hea- 
 ven, which, for the purpose of universal salvation, had 
 published that salutary doctrine to all nations : that if this 
 practice was not very absurd, the artifice was at least bare- 
 faced, and showed a consciousness, that the glosses and tra- 
 ditions of the clergy stood in direct opposition to the ori- 
 ginal text, dictated by supreme intelligence : that it was 
 now necessary for the people, so long abused by interested 
 pretensions, to see with their own eyes, antl to examine 
 whether the claims <j|" ecclesiastics nere founded on that 
 charter, which was on all hands acknowledged to be de- 
 rived from heaven : and that as a spirit of research and 
 curiosity was happily revived, and men were now obliged 
 to make a choice among the pretensions of different sects, 
 the proper materials for decision, and, above all, the ho- 
 
174 
 
 ly scriptures, should be set before them ; and the revealed 
 will of God, which the change of language had somewhat 
 obscured, be again, by their means, revealed to mankind." 
 Such was the language of the first English reformers, flat- 
 tering to the pride, and grateful to the vanity of the human 
 mind. 
 
 Let us now turn to the reasons which were given by the 
 advocates of the old religion, and the enemies of inno- 
 vation. The favourers of the ancient religion maintain- 
 ed that " the pretence of making tlie people see with 
 their own eyes, was a mere cheat, and was itself a very 
 barefaced artifice, by which the new preachers hoped to 
 obtain the guidance of them, and to seduce them from 
 those pastors, whom the laws, whom ancient establishments, 
 whom heaven itself had appointed for their spiritual direc- 
 tion : that tlie people were, by their ignorance, their stupi- 
 dity, their necessary avocations, totally unqualified to choose 
 their own principles ; and that it was a mockery to set 
 materials before them, of which they could not possibly 
 make any proper use : that even in the affairs of common 
 life, and the temporal concerns which lay more within 
 the compass of himian reason, the laws had in a great 
 measure deprived them of the right of private judgment, and" 
 had, happily for their own and the pubhc interest, regulated 
 their conduct aiid behaviour : .that theological questions 
 were placed far beyond the sphere of vulgar comprehension ; 
 and that ecclesiastics themselves, though assisted' by all 
 the advantages of education, erudition, and an assiduous 
 study of the science, could not be fully assureil of a just de- 
 cision, except by the promise made them in scripture, that 
 God would be ever present with his church, and that the 
 gates of hell should not prevail agaijj^ her : that the gross 
 errors adopted by the wisest heathens, proved how unfit 
 men were to grope their own way, through their profound 
 I'.niorance; nor would the scriptures, if trusted to their 
 own judgment, be able to remedy — on the contrary, they 
 would au«rment those fatal iliusiuns : that sacred writ it- 
 
175 
 
 setf was involved in so much obscurity, was exposed to so 
 many apparent contradictions, that it was the most danger- 
 ous weapon which could be intrusted into the hands of the 
 ignorant and giddy multitude : that the poetical style in 
 which a great part of it was composed, at the same time 
 that it occasioned uiicertainty in the sense, by its multi- 
 plied tropes and figiu'es, was sufficient to kindle the zeal 
 of iiinaticism, and thereby throw civil society into the 
 most furious combustion : that a thousand sects must arise, 
 which would pretend, each of them, to derive its tenets 
 from the scripture ; and would be able, by specious argu- 
 ments, or even without specious arguments, to deceive silly 
 women and ignorant mechanics into a belief of the most 
 monstrous principles : that, if ever this disorder, dan- 
 gerous to the magistrate himself, received a remedy, it 
 must be from the tacit acquiescence of the people in some 
 new authority ; and that it was evidently better, Avithout 
 further contest or inquiry, to adhere peaceably to ancient, 
 and therefore the more secure establishments/' 
 
 Has not the history of the last three hundred years most 
 unanswerably verified and established the truth and the 
 wisdom of those arguments? Have not the fantastic and 
 whimsical wanderings of the human mind, on the subject 
 of religion, completely demonstrated the good sense of 
 that argument, which says, "how unfit men were to grope 
 their own way through their profound ignorance, and that 
 the scriptures, if construed by the fallible judgment of 
 each individual, would only entangle him in new embar- 
 rassment, and involve him in new ignorance." The ex- 
 periment of seeing with our own eyes has been tried ; and 
 what has been tlie consequence? A thousand sects have 
 arisen, each more absurd than the other ; and the protes- 
 tant reformed rehgic^i^^ie most rational of all, is broken 
 up into a thousand different forms, which distract the rea- 
 son and corrupt tlie hearts of its followers. 
 
 The great abuses crept into the old establishment of the 
 catholic church, that great and insulting frauds, were 
 
176 
 
 practised, that the terrors of the priest were made tributa- 
 ry to his ambition, and that the thunders of the church 
 were often wielded by the hand of eaithly corruption and 
 despotism, will be admitted by every candid reader of the 
 papal history ; but that the evils flowing from the abuses of 
 the ancient church, were much less destructive to the in- 
 terests, and the peace, and the harmony of mankind, than 
 the chaos and confusion which flowed from the wild and 
 desolating principles of the reformers, the cool observer 
 of their progress, for the last three centuries, cannot hesi- 
 tate to acknowledo-e. The admirers of the reformation 
 have attributed to its influence, those consequences, which 
 perhaps are most justly attributable to that most powerful 
 instrument of human information and happiness — the dis- 
 covery of printing. Had the reformation never taken 
 place — had Henry VIII. never existed — had mankind the 
 good fortune to have kejjt within those bounds, beyond 
 which the ungovernable passions of this fanatical monarch 
 swept himself and his people, tlie press would have gra- 
 dually reformed the abuses of fifteen hundred years growth ; 
 the public mind would have been enliglitened, and public 
 opinion would have peaceably driven into the shade those 
 shameless superstitions, which disgraced the religion of 
 Christ, usurped the liberty of the human mind, and de- 
 pressed the honest industry of man. But the rage of re- 
 formation rushed into the extremity of a pestilential fanati- 
 cism, and the enlightened opponents of papal bigotry were 
 burning the faithful adherents of the old religion at the 
 stake, and perpetrating all the excesses of the most igno- 
 rant supporters of cathoiic doctrine. 
 
 The reformation produce<l those scenes of blood with 
 which every page of English history, for almost two cen- 
 turies, is full. The fanaticism SP'^Iary and EHzabeth, 
 the fiu'icus persecuting spirit of the Stuarts, the more de- 
 solating hypocrisy of Cromwell, and the sanguinary statute 
 book of Ann«j were the fruit of this, the reforming prin- 
 
177 
 
 ciple, brought into life by the most brutal tyrant that ever 
 disgraced a throne. On the other hand, the reformatio^ 
 alarmed the minds, roused the apprehensions, and whettecj 
 the swords of the followers of the azicient religion. A war 
 was commenced of the new against the old church ; and 
 the world was deluged with blood, distracted with horror, 
 and torn up by all the furies of a desperate fanaticism. 
 Such have been the consequences of the reformation, ac- 
 cording to the evidence of history; jet the great and 
 powerful mind of Mr. Hume can see much good flowing 
 to mankind from the triumph of the reformers ; and the 
 same pen which is in one page recording the miseries 
 that his country suffered from this tremendous visitations 
 in another coolly felicitates mankind on the vast advantages 
 which flowed to the human race, from the nmrders, an4 
 lusts, and rapacity of Henry VIII. 
 
 Mr Hume, speaking of the catholic religion, previous tv 
 Henry's first efforts at reformation, observes, " The great 
 increase of monasteries, if matters be considered merely in 
 a political light, will appear the radical inconvenience of 
 the catholic religion, -and every other disadvantage attend- 
 ing that communion, seems to have an inseparable con- 
 nection with those religious institutions. Papal usurpa- 
 tions, the tyranny of the inquisition, the multiplication of 
 liolida^'s, all those fetters on liberty and industry, w^re 
 ultimately derived from the authority and insinuation of 
 monks, whose habitations being established eveiy where, 
 proved so many colonies of superstition and folly." AgiVtii 
 he says, " The authority of the popes, hke all exorbitant 
 power, was ruined by the excess of its acquisitions, and 
 by stretching beyond what it was possible for any human 
 principles or prepossessions to sustain. The right of 
 granting indulgences*'Tiad, in former ages, contributed ex- 
 tremely to enrich the holy see, but being openly abused, 
 they served to excite the first commotions and oppositions 
 in Germany. A way was proposed for checking the ex* 
 
 Y 
 
178 
 
 orbitancy of superstition,* and breaking those shackles 
 by which all human reason, polic\}', and industry, had 
 been so long uicumbered. The prince, it may be sup- 
 posed, being head of the religion, as well as of the tem- 
 poral jurisdiction of the kingdom, though he might some- 
 times employ the former as an engine of government, had 
 no interest, like the Roman pontiff, in nourishing its ex- 
 cessive growth; and, except when blinded by ignorance 
 or by bigotry, would be sure to retain it within tolerable 
 limits, and prevent its aTsuses. And, on the whole, there 
 followed from those revolutions very beneficial consequen- 
 ces; though, perhaps, neither foreseen nor intended by 
 
 * Mr. Hume might have seen the powerful republic of Venice^ rising 
 up in the neighbourhood of the papal tyranny, and diijplayiug a strength 
 and extent of resources, which excited the apprehensions of the most 
 powerful monarchs of Europe. It does not apjiear that the catholic re- 
 ligion cramped the industry, or that the papal power palsied the arms of 
 the Venetians. Mr. Robertson, in his admirable view of the state of 
 Europe in the middle centuries, thus speaks of the power and greatness 
 cf the commonwealth of Venice : " It is not, however, hy its military, 
 but by its naval ar.d commercial power, that the importance of the Ve- 
 netian commonwealth must be estnnated. The latter constituted the real 
 force and nerves of the state, 'ihe senate encouraged the nobles to 
 trade, and to serve on board the fleet : they became merchants and ad- 
 mirals; they increased the wealth of their coun'.ry by their industry; 
 thev added to its duminions by the valor vviih which they conducted its 
 naval armaments. Commerce was an inexhaustible source of opulence to 
 the Venetians. All the nations in Europe depended upon them, not only 
 for the commodities of the east, but for various manufactures, fabricated 
 by them alone, or finished with a dexterity and elegance unknown in 
 these countries. From this extensive commerce the state derived such 
 immense supplies, as concealed those views in its constitution, which I 
 have mentioned ; and enabled it to keep on foot such armies as were 
 J • : only an overmatch for the force which any of its neighbours could 
 bring into the field, but were suthcient to contend for some time with 
 the powerful monarchs beyond the Alps. During its struggles with the 
 princes united against it by tlie league of Cambray, the republic levied 
 sums which, even in the present age, would be deemed considerable ; 
 and while the king of France paid exorbitant interest for the money ad- 
 vanced to hini, and the emperor, eager to borrow, but destitute of cre- 
 dit, was known by the name of Maximilian Uie moneyless, the Venetians 
 raised whatever sums they pleased, at the moderate premium of five 
 per cent." 
 
 Such is the history of a great republic, in the neighbourhood of that 
 influence which Mr. Hume and Mr. Robertson charge with withering^ 
 the energies of mankind, degrading its spirit, and rising on the ruins of 
 human liberty. 
 
179 
 
 the persons who had the chief hand in conducting them." 
 That mankind have derived any solid or substantial 
 advanta;^es from the wars and massacres, the persecutions 
 and sufferings, which the same able liistorian gives us a 
 faithful history of, and to which humanity was the victim, 
 from the period of the reformation, in a much greater 
 degree than history can furnish at any former period, of 
 the same duration, will be much doubted by the philan- 
 thropist, who estimates human advantages by human hap- 
 piness, and whose heart sickens' at the relations of the 
 mutual and recriminatino- cruelties of the catholic and the 
 protestant, the presbj'terian and the churchman, for the 
 last three hundred years. If the human mind has arrived 
 at its present expanded and enlightened epoch, by the in- 
 strumentality of the reforming spirit, and by the bold re- 
 bellion against the accumulated wisdom and experience of 
 centuries, let it not be forgotten that the human heart 
 has waded through an ocean of affliction ; and that the 
 miserable exhibitions of the struggles of intolerance have 
 more than counterbalanced the advantages which the phi- 
 losopher will deduce from the dignity of mental indepen- 
 dence, or emancipation from the chains of credulity. 
 Still does mankind smart under the consequences of the 
 glorious reformation, and still is the human heart visited 
 with all the merciless persecutions of intolerance from that 
 power, which boasts of professing a liberal and enlighten- 
 ed religion. 
 
 Ireland stood firm amidst the storm of contending 
 sects, wrapped up in the sanctity of her priesthood, and 
 protected by the ignorance of the preachers of the refor- 
 mation.* Connected with the most furious and vindictive 
 
 • Mr. Leland says, in his history of this period, that " even within 
 the English pale, (viz. the counties of Dublin, Louth, Meath, and Kildare,) 
 the Irish language was become so preJominaiic, tha^ laws were repeatedly 
 enacted to restrain it, but in vain. In those tracts of Irish territory 
 which intersected the English settlements, no other language was at ait 
 
ISO 
 
 power, exposed to all the arts of intrigue, antl all the 
 measures of violence, she exhibited the rare and singular 
 spectacle of a nation determined to prefer extermination 
 to a surrender of that faith on which she conceived her 
 everlasting salvation depended. The unwearied tyranny 
 of England for 400 years preceding the reformation, se- 
 cured the ailegiance of Ireland to that principle, which 
 even in a temporal point of view, had often flung its shield 
 over her people. The power of the pope had often stop- 
 ped the rigour of English domination, and more than 
 once have we seen Rome appealed to, as moderator be- 
 tween the English throne and the Irish peasant. Ireland, 
 therefore, clung to that path which had been her security 
 on earth, and her hope in heaven. Eighteen hundred years 
 have rolled by, and the catholic and Christian doctrine 
 has maintained its piu'Ity in Ireland, though assailed by 
 corruption, by ferocious fanaticism, and unwearied bigotry. 
 During that period she has been loyal, though persecuted, 
 and always ready to pour out her blood for that very pow- 
 er which endeavoured to cxtinouish her : a great and in- 
 structive lesson to England, to make no farther experiment 
 on catholic Ireland, but rather to consider whether the 
 truest allegiance is not consistent with her religious doc- 
 trines, and the best subjects with her religious principles. 
 It is not the province of a history like the present to enter 
 into any theological discussions ; to make a comparison 
 between the doctrines of this and of that sect; to prefer 
 the protestant to the catholic religion, or the catholic re- 
 ligion to the protestant, or the presbyterian religion to ei- 
 ther ; but it is the duty of the historian, however hmited 
 his plan, to point out the tempotal advantages or disadvan- 
 tages which have flowed to mankind from the greatest re- 
 volution the human mind ever experienced : to ascertain, by 
 
 known ; so tliat here tl'C wretched flock was totally inaccesjible to those 
 straDgtri who were become their pastors." 
 
161 
 
 a cornparison of historical facts, whether the happiness of 
 man has been promoted, or his mind advanced, by the 
 overthrow of those rehgious principles whicli held the 
 Christian worhl together for fifteen hundred years : whe- 
 ther charity to each other, benevolence, and philanthropy, 
 have flowed from the same source which deluged Europe 
 with blood — created divisions among men, that time 
 has not been able to heal, and armed the civil authority 
 of all Christian countries with the remorseless weapons 
 of fanaticism and intolerance. 
 
 The illustrious and eloquent Robertson has devoted 
 many pages of his history of Charles V. to demonstrate 
 the glorious and triumphant result to mankind, from the 
 rise and progress of the reformation. This able and en- 
 lightened historian, as well as Mr. Hume, can see no ca- 
 lamities, no misfortunes, no fatal and disastrous events in 
 the history of the reformation ; all is one uninterrupted 
 course of illumination. The fancy of the historian is at 
 a loss to describe the glories which mankind have reaped 
 from the extinction of papal supremacy. The human 
 mind is raised from degradation to a dignified assertion of 
 its right ;* and the contentions of Luther, and Zuinglius, 
 
 • Doctor Robertson, in that part of the history of Charles V. where 
 he takes a review of the political constitutions and civil governments of 
 Europe, during the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, bears no weak testi- 
 mony to the illustrious example of political spirit and national indepen- 
 dence manifested by the catholic states of Europe, though acknowledging 
 the spiritual supremacy of the pope. Though numberless examples can 
 be found in the volumes of English history to establish the fact, that a 
 faithful adherence to the doctrines of the catholic religion were never in. 
 compatible with the most rigid assertion of human right ; though it may 
 be recollected, that catholics are the founders of English freedom, and 
 the framers of Magna Charts, — yet, as Mr. Robertson maintains the opi- 
 nion, that the relormation was the great cause ©f the political, as well as 
 religious liberties cf mankindj it would be well to observe his description 
 of the political sentiments, and poUtical institutions of the Spanish natioa 
 in tha 14th and l.jth centuries — a people most zealous in their attachment 
 to the spiritual supremacy of the papal power. Protestant England ex- 
 hibits no stronger example of public spirit, nor no greater anxiety for 
 circumscribing the power of its sovereigns, or asserting the rights and 
 privileges of the people. 
 
 " lu Arragon," writes Mr. Robertson^ " the form of government was 
 
182 
 
 and Calvin, with the established opinions of mankind, are 
 considered by Mr. Hobertson as the inspirations of Hea- 
 ven, and the gigantic efforts of transcendent minds. The 
 miseries which such schisms entailed on mankind are flung 
 into the shade; and the blood flows from the scaffold, or 
 on the field, without a single expression of regret from 
 the philosophic historian, or a single observation on the 
 fatal and calamitous cause which produced such events. 
 It is curious to observe the tone and the expression in 
 which this celebrated historian speaks of Luther, the chief- 
 tain of the reformers. The mild and gentle spirit of sir 
 Thomas More, v.ho adhered to the religion of his an" 
 cestors, is forgotten. The great men who, illustrious for 
 learning, wisdom, and virtue, resisted the rebellious and 
 distracting principles of the reformers, are passed by un- 
 noticed ; and Luther, as if he had monopolized the virtues 
 and the knowledge of the civilized world, is held up by 
 Mr. Robertson, as the immediate agent of Heaven, com- 
 missioned to burst the fetters imposed by pa^jal superstition 
 
 monarchical, but. the g<?nius and maxims of it were purely republican. 
 Tlje kings, who were loi;g elective, retained only the shadow of'powcr; 
 the real exercise of it wps in the cortes, or parliament of the kingdom;'^ 
 and again, " It is evident from a bare enumeration of the privileges of 
 the Arragonese cortes, as well as of tl;e rights belonging to the justiza, that 
 a very small portion of power remained in the hands of the king. The 
 Arragonese seem to hr.ve been solicitous thr.t their monarchs should know 
 and feel this state of impotence to which they were reduced. Even in 
 swearing allegia.ice to their sovereign, an act which ought naturally to 
 be accompanied with professions of subn ission and respect, they decreed 
 an oath in such a form as to remind him of his dependence on ins subjects. 
 * We.' said the justiza, in the name of his high spirited bar(;ns, ' who afe 
 each of us as good, and who are altogether more powerful than you, 
 promise obedience to your government, if you maintain our rights and 
 liberties; — if not — not.' " Can the reader suppose, that the followers of 
 Luther could have a'sserted in language more strong, or in sentiment more 
 lofty, the dignity and independence of the human mind ? But it would 
 appear from Mr. Robertson, that Martin Luther was not only the apostle 
 of salvation to m,an, but also the first man who had the courage to stand 
 up for the rights of human nature. The catholic religion, no more than 
 the protestant, makes man a slave. In both, great and brilliant exam- 
 ples of the most exalted and dignified nature are to be found — an Alfred 
 and an Henry VIII. a Mary and a William, have been produced by the 
 iarae country. 
 
183 
 
 on the human mind. Mr. Robertson, in his History of 
 the Reign of Charles V. thus speaks of the apostle of the 
 reformation. — The reader will observe, that the historian 
 becomes the theologian, and that Mr. Robertson discovers 
 all the acrimony of the polemic, though always covered 
 with the mantle of a fascinating eloquence. " Though 
 Luther," says Mr. Robertson, " was a perfect stranger to 
 the maxims of worldly wisdom, and incapable, from the 
 impetuosity of his temper, of observing them, he was led 
 naturally by the method in which he m&de his discoveries, 
 to carry on his operations in a manner which contributed 
 more to their success, than if any step he took had been 
 prescribed by the most artful policy : at the time when he 
 set himself to oppose Tetzei, he Avas far from intending 
 that reformation which he afterwards ej9Pected, and would 
 have trembled with horror at the thoughts of what at last 
 he gloried in accomplishing. The knowledge of truth 
 was not poured into his mind all at once by any special 
 revelation;* he acquired it by industry and meditation, 
 
 * This observation of a philosophic historian is peculiarly worthy of 
 the attention of those who have read the life and writings of Martin Lu- 
 ther. That profound knowledge of mankind, and philosophy of conduct, 
 which Mr. Robertson attributes to this celebrated polemie, in his contests 
 with the church of Rome, are invisible to all other eyes but tho.?5 of the 
 historian of Charles V. Mr. Leiaud speaks of the mad licentiousness of Lu- 
 ther, as one of the causes of the resistance of the Irish church to the recep- 
 tion of his doctrine ; and Dr. Curry, to whose labours the Irish people 
 are so much indebted, makes the following observations, in his valuable 
 review of the civil wars of Ireland. "The prejudices of which Mr. Le- 
 land speaks, and which the Irish nation entertained a;:;ainst the reform- 
 ing principles recommended by the servants of Henry VIII. were origin- 
 ally occasioned by the mad licentiousness whicli appeared in the conduct 
 and writings of the hrst reformers, particularly those of Martin 1 uther; 
 for, (lo say nothing of his libidinous practice and doctrine, in marry;ng 
 a nun, and preaching to his married followers "si iion vult uxor, veneat 
 ancilia,") the manner in which he drew up his last will and testament, 
 on which occasion men are apt to exert their best and most serious 
 thoughts, seem totally void of humility and common sense; though, his 
 panegjTist, Dr. Robertson, says, " there is a certain elevation of senti- 
 ment in it." " I am known," says Luther, " in heaven, and on earth, 
 and in hell; and have authority enough to expect, tliac credit should be 
 given to my single testimony, (without the usual legal forms in such cases,) 
 since God has entrusted the gospel of his Son to m», though a damnable 
 sinaer, and truth has owned me for its teacher, in contempt oi" the au- 
 
184 
 
 and his progress of consequence, was gradual. The doc- 
 trines of popery are so closely connected, that the ex- 
 posing of one error conducted liira naturally to the detec- 
 tion of another ; and all the parts of that artificial fabric 
 were bo united together, that the pulling down of one 
 loosened the foundation of the rest, and rendered it more 
 easy to overturn them. In confutmg the extravagant 
 tenets concerning indulgences, he was obliged to inquire 
 into the true cause of our justification and acceptance 
 with God. The knowledge of that discovered to him, by 
 degrees, the inutility of })ilgrimages and penances ; the 
 v'anity of rel^-ing on the intercession of saints ; the impiety 
 of worshipping them ; the abuses of auricular confession, 
 and the imaginary existence of piu'gatory. 
 
 The detection of so many errors led him, of course, to 
 consider the character of the clergy who taught them, 
 and their exorbitant wealth. The severe injunction of ce- 
 libacy, together with the intolerable rigor of monastic vows, 
 appeared to him the great sources of their corruption. 
 From thence it was but one step to call in question the di- 
 vme original of the papal power, which authorized such a 
 S3'stem of errors as the unavoidable result of the whole. 
 He disclaimed the infallibility of the pope, the decisions of 
 schoolmen, or any other human authority, and appealed to 
 the word of God, as the onlv standard of theoloeicai truth. 
 To this gradual progress Luther owed his success. His 
 hearers were not shocked at first by any proposition too 
 repugnant to their ancient prejudices, or too remote from 
 established opinions. They were insensibly conducted 
 from one doctrine to another ; their faith and conviction 
 were equal to keep pace with his discoveries. To the 
 same cause was owing the inattention and indifference with 
 which Leo X. viewed Luther's first proceedings. A di- 
 
 thoritv of the pope, and Caesar, and of the hatred of all the devils in hell. 
 Why,' then, it should be sufficient to 333^, Mr. Martin Luther wrote this 
 will, God Almighty's notary, and the wituees of his gospel." 
 
185 
 
 rect or violent attack upon the authority of the church 
 would at once have dratvn upon Luther the whole weight 
 of its vengeance ; bat as this was far from his thoughts, 
 as he continued long to profess great respect for the pope, 
 and made repeated offers of submission to his decision, 
 there seemed to be no reason for apprehending that be 
 would prove the author of any desperate revolt ; and he 
 was suffered to proceed step by step in undermining the con- 
 stitution of the church, until the remedy applied at last, 
 came too late to produce an}' effect." 
 
 Such was the plan of o|}erations against the ancient re- 
 ligion of Europe, by the profound and learned Luther ; 
 and so dexterous was this great reformer (according to 
 Mr. Robertson) in his mode of attacking the old preju- 
 dices of mankind, that we cannot refuse him the aid of 
 inspiration, when we contemplate the difficuhies he had to 
 conquer and the enemies he had to contend with. But 
 what has been the real effect of this boasted reformation, this 
 contempt for all human authority — this appeal to the word 
 of God, as the only standard of theological truth ? The 
 question will be answered by the hundred sects into which 
 Lutheranism and presbyterianism have branched ; the in- 
 numerable theological opinions with which England now 
 swarms. The empty churches, and the crowded meeting- 
 houses of various denominations ; the inspired taylors, and 
 cobblers, and tinkers, and soldiers, whom we see travellincr 
 through the protestant world, bear testimony to the light 
 which the reformation has shed upon the human mind. 
 Mankind, tossed about on the tempestuous ocean of pole- 
 mical discussion, sink into the grave before their minds 
 are able to find a resting-place ; before their understand- 
 ings are fixed on that belief which tranquillizes the feel- 
 ings, gives confidence to the heart, and puts to ffight all 
 doubt and uncertainty on the subject most important ami 
 interesting to man. The reformer, ceasing to be credu- 
 lous, becomes miserably sceptical, and perpetually oscil- 
 
 Z 
 
186 
 
 laring between liope and fear, passes through life without 
 a pilot, and in the last moments of his existence, is still 
 seeking that doctrine most likely to secure his salvation. 
 Such are the effects of the reformation upon a great major- 
 ity of the protestant minds of Europe at this moment. 
 
 It has been the good fortune of Irishmen to have clung 
 with fidelity to the faith of their forefathers. — It is their 
 consolation on the bed of affliction, and has often blunted 
 the edge of that relentless prosecution with which ambition, 
 rapacity and fanaticism has visited them. A milder spirit 
 of government has succeeded ;' and the only remedy for the 
 misfortunes flowing from the conflicts and struggles of dif- 
 ferent religious persecutions, is now more genei'ally acted 
 upon in everj' part of Europe. Toleration, the radical 
 cure for the bigotry of sects, seems now to be the principle 
 by which the greatest monarchs regulate their government 
 of mankind. It is the precious secret by which the most 
 acrimonious and unforgiving passions are reconciled; 
 and the silken thread by which mankind are conducted 
 through the labyrinths of superstition and credulity. 
 
 The foregoing observations naturally precede the rela- 
 tion of those events which took place on the introduction 
 of the reformed rehgion, and subsequent to its establishment 
 in Ireland ; and an inquiry into tlie effects of the latter on 
 the human mind, and the happiness of man, was consi- 
 dered not unnecessary nor uninteresting, in a work which 
 has for its object the instruction of the people in those prin- 
 ciples that are best calculated to secure their comforts and 
 perpetuate their honor. We shall now proceed to relate 
 the various efforts that were made by the first reformers to 
 root out of the Irish heart the ancient religion of the 
 countr}'. 
 
 Hfer.ry VIII. had made such triumphant progress in his 
 scheme of reformation in England, that he resolved to 
 make the experiment in Ireland. For this purpose, George 
 Browne, provincial of the friars of St. Augustine, was 
 
187 
 
 appointed to the see of Dublin, and instructed by his so- 
 vereign to adopt such plans, in conjunction with the cler- 
 gy and nobility of the pale, as would be calculated to pro- 
 mote the views of th(.« reformers. 
 
 The observations of Mr. Leland on the resistance made 
 by Ireland to any attempt at innovation upon the ancient 
 religion, discovers but little of that regard for truth, or 
 of that honourable anxiety to render justice to the Irish 
 who are no more, which should more particularly animate 
 the breast of an Irish historian, and which should be the 
 leading feature of every Irish history that pretends to cha- 
 racter or to credit. The reader will observe the followiuir 
 
 o 
 
 lines; and, after he has read them, let him turn back the pages 
 of this little history, and ask himself — were the priesthood 
 of Ireland deserving of the censures which the historian of 
 the pale has thought proper to pass on them? Were the'if 
 the tyrants and oppressors ? Or rather were they not the 
 guardians and protectors of their flocks ? And was not the 
 parental feeling which warmed the bosom of the Irish 
 priesthood, returned with an affectionate and grateful sen- 
 sibihty by a brave and honest nation ? Mr. Leland writes 
 otherwise. " Ireland was not a place for these circumstan- 
 ces to operate, which favoured the first reformers in other 
 parts of Europe. A people not connected by one and the 
 same system of polity, and, for the most part, strangers 
 to the refinements and advantages of political union, — 
 harassed by a perpetual succession of petty wars, distracted 
 by mutual jealousy, and the most civilized among them be- 
 ing in continual alarm, and daily called out to repel in- 
 vasion, could have httle leisure for speculation, and little 
 disposition for those inquiries which were pursued with 
 such avidity in countries more composed. The people had 
 severely felt the oppression of the cleigy ; but what in other 
 countries appeared to be the capital and leadhig grievance, 
 was but one of those oppressions wliich the land expe- 
 rienced. When Europe had declared almost unanimously 
 
1S8 
 
 against the yoke of ecclesiastical power, a slight attempt 
 made in one province of Ireland to circumscribe the pri- 
 vilege of the clero;v, raised a most violent and insolent 
 clamour among the order, though it {\mounted to nothing 
 more than empowering the civil magistrate to imprison 
 ecclesiastical debtors." Well might it be asked of Mr. 
 Iceland, would he think the refusal of the Irish catholic to 
 pay tithes to a protectant hierarchy, such an innovation as 
 sliould raise an insolent and violent clamour among his 
 protcstant brcthrcji ? Certainly he would think this a mon- 
 strous innovation, and that the clamours which the clergy 
 •would undoubtedly raise iigainist it would be most sacred 
 and religious. May it not be allowecl to tlie old Irish to 
 lament the innovation which the rude and savage hand of 
 Henry VIII. struggled to make on their venerated reli- 
 gion ; and may it not be considered a harsh and unworthy 
 expression to use against this people, so grateful to the 
 religion whicli was their refuge in calamity, that they rai- 
 sed a violent and insolent clamour against the, introduction, 
 of new and strange doctrine, whicli entangled the learned, 
 plunged the ignorant into darkness, and all into un- 
 certainty ? 
 
 No sooner had Browne and his colleagues demanded an 
 acknowledgment of the supremacy of the English king, 
 than Cromer, primate of AMiiagh, openly and boldly 
 declared against an attempt so impious, lie dispatched 
 emissaries to Rome, to represent the danger of the church, 
 and to entreat the interposition of the pontiff in defending 
 the rights and the religion of Ireland, a general sentiment 
 of resistance having pervaded the country. Henry order- 
 ed Leonard Grey to summon a parliament, which was ac- 
 cordingly convened in Dublin, on the first day of May 
 1536. The law of Poynings Mas for the present suspended 
 by Henry, whicli made it necessary previously to certify 
 and transmit the bills before their discussion ami adoption 
 by parliament. The latter echoed with rigid fidelity, the 
 
189 
 
 acts of the English parliament relative to the right of 
 succession — the pronouncing the marriage of Catharine 
 of Arragon with Henry null and void, and the sentence of 
 dispensation by tli^j archbishop of Canterbury, good and 
 effectual — they declared the inheritance of the crown to be 
 in Anne Boleyn and her heirs — they declared it treason to 
 oppose this succession, and misprison to slander it. No 
 sooner had those acts passed, than the information of Anne 
 Boylen's death arrived, and the king's marriage with lady 
 Jane Seymour. This compliant parliament soon undid all 
 they had done, to sooth their amorous monarch. They 
 passed an act of attainder against the late queen, and all 
 her friends and relations. Both the former marriages were 
 by this act declared null and void; the succession confirmed 
 anew to the heirs of the king by queen Jane, and in de- 
 fault of such heirs Henry was empowered to dispose of the 
 inheritance of the crown of England, and lordship of 
 Ireland, by letters patent at will. 
 
 Henry was declared, by stat. 20, to be the supreme 
 head of the church of Ireland. All appeals to Rome in 
 spirituals taken away; the supporters of papal supremacy 
 were made liable to all the penalties of premunire. At 
 length the national indignation at those measures of the 
 legislature were so great, that the animosities of the septs 
 smik into the general sentiment of resistance to such dfir- 
 ing innovation on the religion of the country. Lord 
 Leonard Grey made many efforts to overawe the people, 
 and put in force all the barbarous and excluding acts of 
 former reigns against the Irish. The spirit of Ireland 
 was roused against her oppressors ; and O'Nial, the chief- 
 tain of the north, led his forces through the territories of 
 Meath, reviewed his troops at Tarah, and denounced ven- 
 geance against the invaders of their religious rights. The 
 battle of Killahoe, on the borders of Meath, was soon 
 after fought, in which the Iri^h displayed their usual cou- 
 rage; but, dispirited by the fall of their illustrious leader, 
 
190 
 
 they retreated to the main body of the Irish army, which 
 lay at some distance, and which, on hearing the deatli of 
 O'Nial, broke up into all the old divisions that distinguish- 
 ed the various septs of which they were composed. In 
 this instance, as in others which preceded it, the cause of 
 Ireland was sacrificed to some idle feud, or some con- 
 temptible vanity; and a nation of as brave men as ever 
 drew the sword, were obliged to fly before a compact, 
 united, and rapacious invader. The lord Leonard Grey, 
 who commanded the colonists in the battle of Killahoe, 
 displayed the highest valour and activity ; and though the 
 victory which he gained, by a fortunate concurrence of 
 circumstances, struck terror into the opponents of his 
 master, yet this distinguished soldier fell a victim to the 
 intrigues of faction, and was rewarded with an ignominious 
 death on the scaffold, by the king whom he had so faith- 
 folly served. 
 
 The death of lord Grey gave new courage to the 
 friends of the old religion, and they resolved once more to 
 draw the sword in its defence. Murrough O'Brien, suc- 
 cessor to the sovereignty of Thomond, took the command 
 of the Irish army ; but the accursed spirit of jealousy a- 
 mong the rival chieftains prevented that corcUal and effi- 
 cient co-operation before which the English colony should 
 have yielded. The Irish leaders despaired of success a- 
 gainst the arms of England, backed by the divisions of 
 their own people; and O'Brien agreed to submit to Hen- 
 ry, and acknovvledge his supremacy. To give brilliancy 
 to the triumph which Henry gained over his Irish sub- 
 jects, his ministers artfully proposed to give a king to Ire- 
 land. They said that Ireland was degraded by the hum- 
 ble honor of being governed by a lord, the title which the 
 kinjTs of Enjvland assumed in their jjovernment of Ireland. 
 
 Do O 
 
 They therefore recommended the Irish parliament to con- 
 fer upon Henry and his heirs the title of kmg of Ireland. 
 An act to this effect was passed by parliament, making it 
 
191 
 
 higli treason to Impeach this title, or to oppose the royal 
 authority. It is manifest from the extraordinaj'y change 
 which took place in the minds of the principal chieftains 
 of the Irish, at this period, that the ministers of Hcniy 
 VIII. felt it necessary to court the Irish mind, with which 
 they seemed afraid to combat ; and that the bribes of titles 
 and honors, places of trust and emolument, were en- 
 gines with which they now thought it would be more pru- 
 dent to assail the integrity and fidelity of Irishmen to the 
 independence of their religion and their country. W«. 
 therefore see peerages and promotions flowing abundantly 
 upon the suspected chieftain, as well as the trusted roval- 
 ist; and the monarch shaking hands with the Irishman, 
 whom a less artful minister than Wolsey would have ad- 
 vised him to have hanged. O'Nial from the north, the 
 earl of Desmond from the south, O'Connor from the west, 
 the O'Rom'ks, and the O'Briens, are become objects of 
 royal favour; and the experiment on the heart and the 
 vanity of Ireland was found more successful in subjugatino- 
 Irishmen, than the devastation of the sword, or the slower 
 murder of the scaffold. The following list of Dro motions 
 which now took place, is the best evidence of the new po- 
 licy that actuated the English cabinet. Edmund Butler 
 was created baron of Dunboyne, Bernard Fit2})atrick, 
 baron of Upper Ossory, sir Oliver Plunket, baron of Louth, 
 William Bermingham, baron of Carbery, Rawson, late 
 prior of Kilmainham, viscount Clontarfe, Thomas Eustace, 
 viscount Baltinglass. Henry did not confine his policy 
 to the mere conferring of title, or honorable distinctions. 
 He professed to place particular confidence in the Irish 
 chieftains he promoted; ordered them to his court, re- 
 received them with gracious and royal favor, and sent 
 them back to Ireland intrusted with the royal confidence, 
 and prompt to execute its wishes. Thus Henry and his 
 ministers managed the Irish witli dexterity and effect ; and 
 the scene now acted affords an example to his successors. 
 
193 
 
 that even from tlic hands of the most infamous monarch 
 that ever reijrnecl in England, affected kindness and 
 clemency was attended with results which all the 
 power he could wield would not have effected. We 
 find the house of O'Nial degrading itself by the offer of 
 surrendering the ancient customs of his country ; assimi- 
 lating its habits and its manners to those of England. We 
 find the northern chieftain, unbending as he was to 
 the threats of England, surrendering to the hypocritical 
 compliments of the English court, and forgetting the foun- 
 tain from which he flowed. The northern chieftain O'Nial 
 is created a peer of the realm, by the title of earl of Tyr- 
 owen, and his son, baron of Dungannon, and a priest, are 
 also promoted, and obtain the honors of knighthood from 
 the chaste and spotless hands of Henry, for two reasons. 
 First, because he was chaplain to O'Nial; and secondly, 
 because he broke the oath of allegiance which he swore to 
 his religion. These are the formidable weapons which 
 find their wav throufjh the strongest barrier — break 
 down the proud and haughty spirit of patriotism, and 
 that man isconsidered a fool who rejects the temptation, 
 and clings to his countiy. The people sometimes un- 
 thinkingly joined in the sneer of corruption; and the 
 honest and pure patriot had no consolation to repose 
 on, but the great and mipurchasable satisfaction of 
 having acted with truth and with integrity. Notwith- 
 standing the arts v.'hich the English cabinet success- 
 fully practised at this period on the vanity and tlie cor- 
 ruption of Ireland, we do not find any alteration in the 
 system of jurisdiction among the people. The principal 
 Irish chieftains agreed to hold of the king by military ser- 
 vice; but the inferior chieftains remained in their usual 
 state of dependence on. their more powerful neighbours, 
 and the old Irish vassalage and Brehon jurisdiction were 
 ttill continued. So unwise was the policy whicli directed 
 the Irish administration of those days, that even the sup- 
 
193 
 
 supplications of some of the Irish to be governed by Eng- 
 lish laws were either resisted with effect by the powerful 
 Irish chieftains, or unattended to by an improvident gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 Little advantage was therefore derived to the connec- 
 tion with England by the brilliant display of allegiance 
 among the chief lords of Ireland. Most of the counties 
 that were imperfectly reduced to submission to English po- 
 lity, went back to their old laws and their old customs. 
 In Munster, Connaught, Leinstei', and Ulster, the people 
 returned to an ancient and venerated jurisdiction ; and 
 the acts of Parliament that were pompously promulgated 
 by the colony, with the intention of regulating the adminis- 
 tration of justice in those countries, were heard with con- 
 temptuous silence,* and often resisted by force of arms. 
 Though the measures lately adopted by the ministers of 
 king Henry VIII. did not succeed in extending the pow- 
 er of England in this country, yet some progress was 
 made in the reformation of the ancient religion, and a 
 period of peace and tranquillity was the consequence of 
 their conciliatory and artful counsels. If examples in th^ 
 liijitory of Ireland were wanting, to establish the good 
 sense of appealing to the honorable feelings of Irishmen, 
 rather than having recourse to the artifices of duplicity 
 and the efforts of violence, the scenes which took place af- 
 ter Henry had distributed the honors of 'royal confidence 
 among the principal Irish chieftains, should be a source of 
 instruction to the succeeding governors of Ireland, and 
 should convince the most stubborn monopolist, that the al- 
 legiance of an honourable mind is more to be depended up- 
 on than the ferocious provisions of an intolerant penal 
 
 * Cf this sir John Davis gives a remarkahle instance. " The abbeys 
 and religious houses of Tyrowen, Tyrconnell and Fermanagh," he writes, 
 " though they were dissolved in the thirty third year of Henry VIII. were 
 never surveyed nor reduced into charge, but were continually possessed 
 by religious persons." 
 
 A a 
 
194 
 
 code, or the galling ascendancy of a privileged class of fa- 
 vored subjects. Francis I, in vain endeavoured to se- 
 duce from their allegiance those Irish chieftains who had 
 been honored with the royal patronage ; and the armies 
 of France had now to contend with Henry's intrepid Irish 
 auxiliaries, who excited universal admiration by the agility 
 of their movements, the fury of their courage, and their 
 unconquerable patience of the hardships and privations of 
 war. Mr. Lelaiid is induced to attribute to the influence 
 of terror those effects which the impartial observer must 
 acknowledge to be the natural consequence of a mild and 
 protecting policy. Henry VIII. restored peace to Ireland 
 by the cheap and easy remedy of stars, and garters, and 
 royal honors. Former sovereigns convulsed it by an idle 
 display of power which could not follow up its blow, and a 
 destructive system of policy, which recoiled on its au- 
 thors. From this reign the reader of Irish history should 
 peruse its pages with more than ordinary attention. The 
 scenes that were acted, as well as the characters which ap- 
 peared, have a greater bearing on the politics of succeed- 
 ing times, than those which we have been describing. 
 
 The great lights which burst upon Europe in the com- 
 mencement of the sixteenth century, communicated some 
 of their rays to the Irish mind ; and although the re- 
 forming spirit met in Ireland with a resistance unexampled 
 as it is wonderful, when we consider the varied eiforts of lis 
 propagators, yet Ireland participated in that improvement 
 which flowed to the civilized world from the struggles of 
 the new and the old religion. The universal agitation of 
 the mind, and the perpetual exertion which the understan- 
 ding was obliged to make in the attack and defence of the 
 most sacred interests of mankind — the art of printing — 
 the improvements in navigation — the discovery of a new 
 world — the bold and intrepid spirit of innovation upon all 
 tlie venerated systems, religious and political, to which men 
 had been accustomed for centuries — render the history of 
 
195 
 
 those times, which we are now about to relate, sources of 
 instruction to the youthful and inexperienced, and of ad- 
 miration and delight to the philosopher. The latter sees, 
 in the successful progress of the human mind to its pre- 
 sent great and e)ilightened epoch, the certainty of that in- 
 finite perfection which extends the limits of human to the 
 verge uf divine intelligence, and realizes the prophecies of 
 those superior souls, whose speculations have been consi- 
 dered the dreams of the poet, or the ravings of insanity. 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Edward VL 
 
 i yv 1 HE reign which we have just concluded, hav- 
 
 , - . w incj given existence to such novel and alarming 
 innovations upon the ancient principles and ha- 
 bits of the Irish, it is not matter of any great surprise 
 that the annalists who were zealously devoted to the ancient 
 religion of Ireland, should visit the last moments of Hen- 
 ry VIII. with all the penalties of an apostate, and the ter- 
 rific omens of future misery. The imagination of the fa- 
 natic of all relioions deems himself the most favoured of 
 ?J1 human beings, and consigns to the vengeance of an in- 
 sulted deity those unhappy persons who may conscientious- 
 ly dissent from his opinions. It is extraordinary that the 
 readers of history do not learn from the numerous exam- 
 ples with which its pages are crowded, of tlie ludicrous 
 follies that intolerance has been always committing, and 
 the laughable denunciations it has been ever proclaiming, 
 how much more wise and useful, how much more Chris- 
 tian and kind is that principle which leaves every man to 
 the dictates of his own conscience, and to the profession, 
 of tliat form of religion which cither education or prejudice 
 
197 
 
 may incline him to pursue. Three hundred years of ah in- 
 tolerant warfare have been waged by the innumerable sects 
 of Christianity, ahuost all guilty of the same eiiormities-^^alt 
 violating the sacred principles of that religion they affect to 
 advance ; under the pretence of vindicating the rights of 
 Heaven, insulting the majesty of its benevolent doctrines, 
 and perverting the spirit of mercy which breathes through 
 its instructions. We therefore see the various contending 
 sects alternately denouncing and damning each other, 
 and the zeal of the sectarian estimated by the violence 
 of his unchristian illiberality, and the fury of his persecu- 
 tion. Modern philosophy has discovered the remedy for 
 this desolating folly ; and the mild and parental spirit of 
 toleration protects mankind from the absurd struggles of 
 the polemic, and the sanguinary* violence of fanaticism. 
 When Henry VIII. had closed his eventful life, the ene- 
 mies of the reformation were inchistrious in circulatin,<x a- 
 mong the credulous the most dreadful fictions which their 
 enraged fancy could conceive. They reported that angels 
 of darkness hovered round his bed, during the last mo- 
 ments of his existence,, and snatched away his spirit to 
 irredeemable sufFerino-. The more sober contented them- 
 selves with the consolation, that Henry, since his schism 
 and divorce, had not a moment's tranquillity of mind ; 
 that his numerous wives were concubines ; that the here- 
 sies which he detested crept in through the breaches Which 
 his passions or his folly had made ; that he died unregret- 
 ted ; that he was not even honored with a sepulchre nor 
 an epitaph by his children ; that the latter died without 
 issue, and that the seed of the wicked had perished — thus 
 defeating the hopes and the ambition of the apostate mo- 
 narch. Such were the consolations of those who deprecat- 
 ed the principles of the reign of Henry VIII. 
 
 We have little to record during the reimi of his sue- 
 cessor interesting to the reader. Sir Anthony St. Leger, 
 whose administration of Ii'eland, in the latter part of Hen- 
 
198 
 
 ry's reign, was considered vigorous and etecient, alienated 
 the affections of the principal Irish chieftains by the weight of 
 his exactions, and the excess of those taxes which he levied to 
 recruit the resources of an exhausted exchequer. We find 
 Ormond and his partizans resisting the viceroy; and in the 
 course of the contest which arose between those rival pow- 
 ers, it is lamentable to behold the treachery to which the 
 enemies of Ormond had recourse, in order to gain the as- 
 cendant over their formidable rival. It is recorded, that 
 Ormond, with sixteen of his retinue, were poisoned at a 
 feast in Ely house, and that the instruments of this dis- 
 gusting treachery were the devoted friends of the English 
 interest. 
 
 As the protector of England, Somerset, determined to 
 follow up the principles of reformation in Ireland with all 
 the vigour of which he was master, it was deemed neces- 
 sary to send into the latter a reinforcement of 600 horse 
 and 4000 foot, which, on their arrival, were soon brought 
 into action, against the Irish headed by O' Moore, chief, 
 tain of Leix, and O'Connor of Offally. The celebrated 
 Bellingham, an old and experienced officer, led the Eng- 
 lish ; and after some unsuccessful efforts, O'Connor and 
 O'lNIoore surrendered to the pledged faith of the English 
 commander, who promised the royal clemency, held out 
 hopes that they would be received into the royal confidence, 
 and perhaps obtain the same dignities as were formerly 
 conferred upon their countrymen who had submitted to 
 Henry. The Irish chieftains had no sooner arrived in 
 England, than they were committed to prison, their lands 
 declared forfeit, and granted to those very men who had 
 so infamously violated their words. O' Moore died in cap- 
 tivity, by treachery or by force. Bellingham reduced the 
 territories of those devoted Irishmen, and thus left on 
 record an example which should ever have destroyed the 
 confidence of Ireland in the honor and integrity of Eng- 
 lish faith. Two considerable districts were thus added to 
 
199 
 
 the English colony ; and as England be^an her operations 
 in Ireland in fraud and violence, she seemed to rely on the 
 same despicable and deceitful means for the extension and 
 security of her power. It may be observed, that such a 
 policy has cost 600 years of national misfortune, and that 
 for nearly this period Ireland has been the grave of Eng- 
 lish blood and treasure. Until this policy was changed — 
 until an honest and ingenuous feeling succeeded to the dis- 
 trustful and jealous spirit; Ireland never contributed a shil- 
 ling to the English treasury. Her resources were chained 
 down; her heart was alienated; her inhabitants were 
 dreaded and suspected ; consuming English strength, in- 
 stead of adding to it, and palsying that arm, which a hu- 
 mane and enlightened system would have nerved. Bel- 
 lingham received the reward of knighthood for that act, 
 for which he merited the most degrading punishment, and 
 this monstrous violation of public feeling, contributed to 
 prepare the public mmd for that resistance to the reformers, 
 which we shall shortly relate. 
 
 It is curious to remark, that Mr. Leland represents 
 this Bellingham, to whose treachery O'Moore and O'Con- 
 nor fell victims, as an active and efficient governor of the 
 colony, and laments that Ireland should have been so soon 
 deprived of his protecting genius; but Mr. Leland always 
 writes for England, and th^ English colony, and if the 
 Irish be extinguished, no matter what means are employed, 
 what sentiment is violated, what heart is broken, or what 
 misery is ])roduced. All such considerations are swallowed 
 up in the grand and paramount one of English ascendan- 
 cy. — An Irishman should have a different feelino-. 
 
 Somerset the protector, about this period (1550) resolv- 
 ed that tlie liturgy of the church of England, lately es- 
 tablished by the legislature, should be introduced into Ire- 
 land. For the purpose he appointed sir Anthony St. 
 Leger viceroy, with a commission to convene a parliament 
 in that kingdom,^ Mr, Leland says, that " In England 
 
200 
 
 the dispositions of a great part of the people ran before 
 their rulers in their revolt from popery." In Ireland the 
 sentiment was different ; and he writes, that " the factious 
 opposcrs of administration naturally regarded every new 
 regulation in the affairs of religion, as arbitrary, oppres- 
 sive, and injurious." He quotes a chancellor's words in a 
 letter to the duke of Northumberland. " Hard it is," said 
 the chancellor, " that men should know their duties to 
 God and to the king, when they shall not hear teaching 
 or preaching throughout the j'car. At a time when the 
 mechanic* in England can hear and convey instruction, 
 and is habituated to religious inquiry, in Ireland we 
 have no preaching, which is our lack, and without which 
 the ifrnorant can have no knowledge." Were we to esti- 
 mate the English mechanics of those days by the English 
 mechanics of whom England now boasts, we could not 
 hesitate to say, that they might be good mechanics, but 
 certainly very bad preachers ; nor can we see any great in- 
 jury the religion of Irishmen has sustained by the not hav- 
 ing the Irish mechanics preaching their various construc- 
 tions of the gospel through the land, and setting up their 
 opinions against the old and venerated doctrines of the 
 Irish church. Mr. Leland is displeased that Irishmen did 
 not part with their religion as he would part with his coat — 
 chanoe it as the fashion changes, and make it black, or 
 
 * " It is a great wonder," says Mr. Spenser, who was secretary to lord 
 Leonard Grey, deputy of Ireland, in the reign o.f Elizabeth, " to see the 
 odds which is between the zeal of popish priests, and the ministers of the 
 gospel. For thev spare not to come out of Spain, from Rome, and from 
 Rhcinis, by a long toil, and dangerous travelling hither, when they know 
 peril of death aA-aiteth them, and no reward or riches to be found, only 
 to draw the people to the church of Rome. Whereas, some of our idl« 
 isiinisters having a way for credit and estimation thereby oiTered, and hav- 
 ing livings of the country ofFercd to them, and without peril, will neither 
 for the same, nor for any love of God, or zeal for religion, be drawn 
 from their warm nests, to look out into God's harvest." It was a great 
 omission in the leformers not to have sent over to Ireland some of those 
 famous gospel mechanics, to resist the preaching of such priests as Spenser 
 here describes. 
 
SOI 
 
 white, or brown, or any other color, as the whims and 
 capi'ices of human fancy might please to dictate. We can 
 see no great comfort flowing to mankind from this perpetu- 
 al change ; nor do we discern that the catholic of tlie pre- 
 sent day is at all deficient, or at all inferior to his protestant 
 countryman, in those arts and sciences which distinguish 
 the enlightened of modern times; but Mr. Leland goes 
 on, and deplores not only the invincible stubbornness of Ire- 
 land in support of its religion, but the ignorance and vi' 
 cious conchict of those reformers who were connnissioued 
 to disseminate the new light among the Irish. Ignorant 
 of the language, strangers to the habits of the Irish, they 
 were unsuccessful opponents to those Irish clergy, whose 
 zeal and whose purity increased with opposition. The re- 
 formers translated into the mother tongue the prayers of 
 the reformed church — this was done by royal proclamation ; 
 but an Irish priest now rose up, named Dowdal, who 
 boldly and resolutely opposed the proclamation of the re- 
 formers, and the popularity thus gained by this spirited 
 resistance of Dowdal, was not a little increased by the 
 furious and destructive progress of plunder and desolation 
 from the hands of the reformers. Even Mr. Leland, who 
 cannot be considered on this sxibject a bad authority, re- 
 probates the conduct of those officers of tlje Irish gov- 
 ernment, who despoiled the churches of all the sacred or- 
 naments they contained, and exposed them to sale without 
 decency or reserve. The Irish annalists, on this occasion, 
 loudly exclaim against the sacrilegious plunder, and des- 
 cribe with feeling and pathetic force, the painful insults 
 offered to their sacred temples. 
 
 The power of the people, and the advocates of the old 
 religion, were so formidable, that we find an overture to 
 Dowdal by the viceroy, to confer with the retbrmed clergy, 
 and to discuss those points of controversy which had di- 
 vided the people and their governors. It is recorded, that 
 the conference was held; that the tenets of the catholic 
 ""^---^' '"'"^ ablv defended by Dowdal, and that Stunles? 
 
 B b 
 
sot 
 
 bishop of Meatb, pleaded with abihty the cause of the re- 
 formers. Upon this occasion, both parties returned with 
 the same conviction with which they entered the place of 
 controversy, and as it will be seen in all succeeding con- 
 tests of this nature, the combatants only dispute each other 
 into a more firm adherence to their own opinions. The 
 pride of the polemic always gets the ascendancy of his sin- 
 cerity; and though he should be convinced, he always 
 prefers sacrificing candor to the degradation of be- 
 ing vanquished in argument. Dowdal was to be punished 
 for his obstinacy by depriving the archbishop of Armagh 
 of the high and dignitying title of primate of all Ireland. 
 This title was, for the future, to be conferred on the arch- 
 bishop of Dubhn ; a change which wounded the pride and 
 depressed the spirits of the Roman catholic archbishop. 
 His courage forsook him, and, in the apprehension of 
 greater violence from government, he retired to the con- 
 tinent. So determined was the nation to resist the efforts 
 of the reformers, that we are informed John Bale, arch- 
 bishop of Ossory, was assailed by the people, when preach- 
 ino- the reformino- doctrines. Five of his domestics 'Vi'ere 
 slain, and he himself narrowly escaped. Mr. Leland 
 ■writes, that " This inveterate adherence to the manners 
 and institutions of former ages, was now become the great 
 obstacle to the Irish viceroy in his attempts to preserve 
 the different inhabitants within the bounds of peace and 
 submission." We have already the seductive arguments 
 made use of by the reformers, in the violation of the al- 
 tars, the stripping of their temples, and the constant out- 
 rages on the old attachments of the people. Is it matter 
 of surprise, therefore, to the philosophic historian, that 
 Irishmen should be so difficult of governing, and that 
 the tranquillity of the colony should be of so short a 
 duration ? 
 
 The principal opposition experienced at this period 
 (1553) by the English government of the pale, arose from 
 the factious disorders of the great northern family of 
 
203 
 
 O'Nial. John, or as he is stiled, Shane O'Niul, a youth 
 of great vigor and intrepidity, and animated with the spi- 
 rit of his ancestors, once more asserted the ancient dig- 
 nity and independence of his house. He was joined by the 
 Scotch ; invaded the territories of the English colony, and 
 laid waste one of the most fertile districts in the north of 
 Ireland. Various efforts were made by sir James Crofts to 
 induce him to obedience; and the flame thus kindled in 
 Tyro wen was not extinguished for a long series of years. 
 The reforming principles bound their opponents together 
 in the strongest bonds of fidelity; and the divisions which 
 have hitherto disgraced the Irish people, seemed to yield 
 to the common concern for the interests of the national 
 religion. 
 
 The death of Edward VI. defeated the hopes and ex- 
 pectation of the zealous reformers of the colony ; and the 
 interval of reflection thus given to the country on the efforts 
 which had been made to alter their ancient religion, gave 
 new vigor to their ardor for the maintenance of those doc- 
 trines and tenets which had been rendered venerable by 
 time, and to which their fathers had adhered with fidelity 
 under all circumstances and changes which their country 
 had experienced. 
 
THK 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 . -rj I HE reign which we are now about to record, 
 
 ,^p« is a m-eat and loromincnt instance of the miseries 
 lo53. ^ ^ , 
 
 which flowed to the human race Irom the dis- 
 tractions of an unsettled rehgion, and the wild fanaticism 
 of a varjung credulity. IMankind were doomed to be the 
 t'ictims of every passion, and the humble instruments of 
 every theological tyrant. No sooner is one despot wearied 
 with persecuting the catholic into an acknowledgment 
 of his favourite tenets, than a catholic tyrant starts up 
 equally sanguinary, and equally remorseless, to force back 
 the current of public opinion, and if his victim should not 
 be compliant to the dictates of his sacred director, to con- 
 sjon him to the faffot or the scaffold. With the same 
 enthusiastic devotion we may see Cranmer and Gardiner 
 leading their protestant and catholic victims to the 
 flames. With the same zeal in the cause of God, have 
 each plunged their hands into the blood of the innocent. 
 What was the cause of this wide wasting desolation ? 
 Was it not that reformation, so much the theme of the 
 philosophic historian and theunthinking zealot ? But may 
 it not be asked, what is our best protection against the re- 
 turn of the devouriuij monster of fanaticism ? It can-^ 
 not be too often repeated in this compendium of Irish 
 history, that the sacred principle of toleration is the only ex- 
 tinguisher of the bigot's fire — the power which blunts the 
 
205 
 
 edge of his vengeance, snatches the poniard from his 
 hand, and leaving the mind without opposition, suffers it 
 to evaporate in silent neglect and contemptuous indif- 
 ference. Had such a principle been known in the 16th 
 century, we should not have to enumerate the religious 
 murders which disgust the reader, and force him almost to 
 abjure his species. We should not have to deplore 
 the miserable spectacle exhibited so often, of those per- 
 sons whose characters are considered by their country- 
 men worthy of their highest esteem, so far degraded by 
 the spirit of fanaticism, as to become the insatiable de- 
 stroyers of every man who chose to think for himself, or 
 who refused to sacrifice his conviction to his fears. We 
 should not have seen the amiable and learned sir Thomas 
 More consign a fellow-creature to the scaffold for the 
 crime of differing in a point of theology which no human 
 tribunal is capable of deciding upon. Even in this com- 
 pendium, it would be injustice to the reader to omit the 
 admirable and enlightened observatioris of Mr. Hume on 
 the effects of toleration. They are to be found in his reign 
 of Mary ; but as many will peruse this book whose 
 time and occupation may not permit them to refer .to the 
 history of England, I shall transcribe the passage, and 
 recommend it to the serious reflection of every man 
 who has at heart the peace and happiness of his fellow- 
 creatures. 
 
 " The practice of persecution," writes Mr. Hume, " 13 
 the scandal of all religion ; and the theological animosity, 
 so fierce and so violent, far from bcinfj an ars-ument of 
 men's conviction in their opposite tenets, "is a certain proof 
 that they never reached any serious persuasion with 
 regard to those remote and sublime subjects. Even those 
 who are the most impatient, in other controversies, are 
 mild and moderate in comparison of polemical divines j 
 and when a man's knowledge and experience give, him a 
 perfect assurance of his own opinion, he regards with con- 
 tempt, rather than anger, the opposition and mistakes of 
 
505 
 
 others. But while men zealously maintain what they nei- 
 ther clearly comprehend, nor entirely beheve, they are 
 shaken in their imagined faith by the opposite persuasion, 
 or even doubts of other men, and vent on their antagon- 
 ists that impatience which is the result of so disagreeable a 
 state of the understanduig. They then embrace easily any 
 pretence tor representing opponents as impious and pro- 
 fane : and if thev can also find a colour for connectinor 
 tills violence with the interests of civil government, thev 
 can no lon<^er be constrained firom giving uncontrouled 
 scope to ventjeance and resentment- But surely never en- 
 terprise was more unfortunate than founding persecution 
 upon policy, or endeavouring, for the sake of peace, to 
 settle an entire uniformity of opinion, in questions which, 
 of all others^ are least subjected to the extent of human rea- 
 son. Tlie universal and uncontradicted prevalence^of one 
 opinion on religious subjects, can only be owing, at first, 
 to die stupid ignorance and barbarism of the people, who 
 never indulge themselves in any speculation or inquiry; 
 and there is no other expedient for maintaining that uni- 
 formity so fondly sought, but by banishing tor ever all cu- 
 riosity and all improvement m science and cultivation. It 
 may not, indeed, appear difiicult to check, by a steady 
 severity, the first beginnings of controversy : but besides 
 that this policy exposes, for ever, the people to all the ab- 
 ject terrors of su}>erstition. and the magistrate to the end- 
 less encroachments of ecclesiastics, it also renders men 
 so delicate, that they never can endure to hear of oppo- 
 sition, and they will sometime pay dearly for that false 
 tranquillity in which they have been so long indulged. As 
 healtiiful bodies are ruined by too mild a regimen, and are 
 hereby rendered incapable of bearing the unavoidable in- 
 cidents of human hfe, a people who never were allowed to 
 imagine that their principles would be contested, fly out 
 into the most outrageous violence, when any sect (and 
 such sects are common) produces a faction among their 
 clergy, and gives rise to any difference in tenet or opinion. 
 
207 
 
 But whatever may be said in ftivour of suppressing, by 
 persecution, the first beginnings of heresy, no solid ar- 
 gument can be alleged for extending severity towards mul- 
 titudes, or endeavouring, by capital punishments, to ex- 
 tirpate an opinion which has diffused itself tlirough men of 
 every rank and station. Besides the extreme barbarity of 
 such an attempt, it proves commonly ineffectual to the 
 purpose intended, and seems only to make men more ob- 
 stinate in their persuasion, and to increase the nuniber of 
 their proselytes. The melancholy with which the fear of 
 death, torture, and persecution inspires the sectaries, is 
 the proper disposition for fostering religious zeal. The 
 prospect of eternal rewards, when brought near, over- 
 powers the dread of temporary punishment. The glory 
 of martyrdom animates all the more furious zealots, espe- 
 cially the leaders and preachers. Where a violent animo- 
 sity is excited by oppressions, men pass naturally from ha- 
 ting the persons of their tyrants, to a more violent abhor- 
 rence of their doctrines : and the spectators, moved with 
 pity towards the supposed martyrs, are naturally seduced 
 to embrace those principles which can inspire men with 
 a constancy almost supernatural. O^jen the doer to tola-a- 
 tion — the mutual hatred relaxes among the sectaries ; their 
 attachment to their particular religion decays ; the com- 
 mon occupations and pleasures succeed to the acrimony 
 of disputation, and the same man, who in other circum- 
 stances would have braved flames and tortures, is eno-ao-ed 
 to change his religion from the smallest prospect of pinver 
 and advancement, or even from the frivolous hopes of be- 
 coming more fashionable in his principles. If any excep- 
 tion can be admitted to this maxim of toleration, it will 
 be only where a theology altogether new, no wise connectr 
 ed with the ancient rehgion of the state, is imported from 
 foreign countries, and may easily at one blow, be eradi- 
 cated, without leaving the seeds of future innovations. 
 But as this instance would involve some apology for the 
 ancient pagan persecutions, or ibr the extirpation of Chris- 
 
208 
 
 tianity in China or Japan, it ought, surely, on account of 
 the detested consequence, to be rather buried in eternal si- 
 lence, and oblivion." 
 
 Such are the profound and masterly observations of Mr. 
 Hume, on the folly of endeavouring to extinguish the li- 
 berty of thought on subjects of which no human tribunal 
 can take cognizance; and the history of the world de- 
 monstrates the wisdom of that principle, which Mr. Hume 
 recommends as the only cure for the disease of fanaticism, 
 and the only preventative of those evils which flow from 
 the zeal of the bigot of every religious persuasion. The 
 pride of the adherents of the ancient rehgion, and the in- 
 novating frenzy of the professors of the new, were too ex- 
 cessive to allow the mild and healing voice of toleration to 
 be heard amidst their tumultuary conflicts. Mankind took 
 the alarm, when they saw the daring spirit of reformation 
 breaking down those bounds which restraine^and directed 
 human passions. The licentiousness of the reformer in- 
 creased as he went on in his work of innovation, and every 
 effort made to reunite the parties in controversy but added 
 fresh fuel to the flames, and fresh ardour to their enthusiasm. 
 The reign of Mary was not so productive of calamity to 
 Ireland as to England. The principles of the reformer had 
 not succeeded in making any great progress, and the few 
 who struggled to inc-ulcate the new doctrines Avere not so 
 steady in their principles, as to refuse yielding to the threats 
 or the remonstrances of the ministers of Mary. In Ire- 
 land, therefore, Mary and Philip had few victims to sa- 
 crifice to their depraved fanatacism, biit we shall find this 
 sanguinary queen following up the political principles of 
 her predecessors in this devoted country, and treachery 
 and murder of the basest kind, are to be the distinguishing 
 marks of that reign which covered England with scaffolds, 
 and shed the blood of thousands to gratify the passions of 
 a, remorseless theologian, or, in the cant of the day, to 
 promote the glory and religion of the Almighty. 
 
 On the accession of Mary, there was no material altera- 
 
209 
 
 tion of Irish ministers. The celebrated George Dowel al 
 was restored to tiie dignity and office of primate of all Ire- 
 land, and invested with the priory of Atherdee. " A li- 
 cence," Mr. Leland says, "was granted for the celebra- 
 tion of mass, witliout penalty or compulsion ; and among 
 the royal titles, that of supreme head of the church of 
 Ireland still continued to be inserted in the acts of state." 
 
 The family of Kildare were restored to all their aiicient 
 honors. The young loi'd Gerald, a favourite of the queen, 
 was vested with all estates possessed by his ancestors. 
 Charles Kavanagh, also, the head of the great Leinster 
 family of Mac Murchad, was created a peer of the realm, 
 by the title of Baron Balyan. O'Connor of Offaly was 
 restored to his own county by the mediation of his own 
 daughter with the queen. We find sir Anthony St. Legcr, 
 who was the instrument of Edward in the prosecution of 
 his reforming principles, accommodating himself to the 
 doctrines of the queen, and re-appointed in the office of 
 her representative. The return of Dowdal was the uner- 
 ring signal of Mary's determination to restore the ancient 
 faith. The partizans of the reformation fled from the im- 
 pending storm ; having none of those earthly inducements 
 to martyrdom Vvhich presented themselves to their Eng- 
 lish colleagues. They could neither expect the wonder 
 nor the pity of any number of the Irish people, however pa- 
 tient in suffering, or however inflexible in their pi incipies; 
 and the hope of obtaining the crown of salvation was too dis- 
 tant a prize to animate such men as Bale of Ossory, and 
 Casey of Limerick. " They fled in dismay," says Mr. 
 Leland. The general amnesty published by Mary on 
 her accession, made an exception, which sufficiently marks 
 the character of the times, how little sense of justice was 
 entertained by those Avhose bigotry was to be gratified. 
 Those priests of the colony whom the lav\'3 of Heniy 
 and Edward allowed to marry, were punished for their 
 violation of the catholic religion, by the loss of their sees 
 and their livings. 
 
 c c 
 
210 
 
 iBut a transaction now occurred, (1554) which cort-* 
 signs the memory of Mary's Irish administration to perpe- 
 tual infamy. It is not the madness of fanaticism ; it is 
 not the ignorant and ludicrous anxiety for the future wel- 
 fare of its victim ; it is not a holy zeal for the preservation 
 of a religion which the persecutor of humanity may con- 
 sider the best. No — the execrable transaction which we 
 have now to record, is the offspring of avarice and tyran- 
 ny, of an insatiable lust of power, and a desire to possess 
 the property of an innocent and unoffending people. — The 
 inhabitants of Offaly and Leix are doomed to a treacher- 
 ous and cowardly slaughter. The instruments of the 
 assassin are preferred to the honourable warfare of sol- 
 diers, and Englishmen are degraded into the eold-blooded 
 executioners of a generous and hospitable nation. The 
 inhabitants of Leix (or the Queen's county) were almost 
 perpetually at war with the colony of the pale. The latter 
 beheld with greedy eyes the fertile fields of Leix and Of- 
 faly, and thirsted for the opportunity of plundering its 
 ■Wealth and its comforts. Its brave inhabitants could not 
 be conquered in the field ; it remained, therefore, to the 
 English colony, to adopt any expedient, however infamous, 
 to get possession of so valuable an acquisition. The 
 laws of God or of man were no restraint on their passiops ; 
 the principles of honor, of generosity and hospitality, 
 gave way to the insatiable spirit of rapacity, and the un- 
 suspecting. Irish were to be slaughtered in those hours 
 when confidence was at its height, — M'hen the heart over- 
 flowed with sensibility, — when the cup of peace and friend- 
 ship was circulating round the festive board, — when the 
 eye glistened v/ith philanthropy, and the cheek glowed with 
 benevolence, — this was the sacred hour selected by the 
 English colony, to extirpate the chieftains and the nobles 
 of Leix and Oflaly. The chief men of the two septs, in 
 number four hundred, were invited by the earl of Sussex, 
 successor to St. Leger, as to an amicable conference, to the 
 rathmore of Mullahmast, Thither they came, — all th« 
 
211 
 
 jnost eminent in law, war, pliysic, and divinity, and all the 
 leading men ol" talents and authority in either sept, 
 ** They rode," says an historian who lived a few years sub- 
 seqilent to this event, " into the fatal rath, (confiding in 
 the olive branch of peace, held out to allure,) in the cha- 
 racter of ambassadors, — sacred among all nations, eveu 
 barbarians and heathens. The cup of friendship was 
 pledged by the ambassadors of the colony; refreshments 
 given with the acustomed hospitality; when the Irish 
 found themselves suddenly surrounded by a triple line of 
 horse and foot, who, on a given signal, fell on the un- 
 armed, defenceless gentlemen, and murdered them all on 
 the spot," 
 
 On reading the sad and dismal scenes of Roman and 
 Grecian treachery, the heart is desired by our instructors 
 to pause, and reflect on the enormity of the crime ; and the 
 youthful talent is employed in the defence and the im- 
 peachment of those characters who were the prominent 
 actors on the barbarous theatre of antiquity. Here is a 
 theme of deep and melancholy reflection to the Irish mind, 
 from which a volume of instruction may be drawn. Here 
 js a transaction which calls forth the tear of sensibility, 
 and in the contemplation of which the honest and in- 
 dignant heart sinks into a sad and melancholy reverie. 
 Yet the Irish should not forget that the sacred blood thus 
 barbarously shed, was the worJ<; of a papist English 
 queen ; and they should be taught to remember that the 
 monopoly of the colony, whether in the robes of catholic 
 city or protestantism, was equally savage, equally relentless, 
 and equally insatiable. Leland passes over those disastrous 
 scenes ; — Dr. Curry places them ir\ the reign of Ehza- 
 beth ; — but as this massacre seems to have preceded the 
 change of the naniesof Leix, for the Qi\een's county, and 
 Offaly for the King's county, (a change which could not 
 have taken place without the destruction of its principal 
 inhabitants by massacre, as at MuUahmast, or by a se- 
 ries of battles, of which we have no account) we have 
 
212 
 
 placed this horrid transaction in tlie reign of Mary. 
 Mr. Taaffe, who has accurately examined the old annal- 
 ists, asserts that this murder took place in the reign of 
 Mary; that the principal fort in Leix was called Ma- 
 ryborough, from the same queen ; that the fort in Of- 
 faly was called Philipstown, from her husband Philip ; and 
 that the English colony passed an act, about the year 
 1556, confiscating the two counties, and vesting the mur- 
 derers of the Irish with the properly of their victims. 
 Thus were the noble and illustrious families of the 
 O' Moore's, the O'Connor's, the Dempsies, swept away by 
 the daggers of the a sassins; and Mullahmast remains a 
 monument of English treachery which the Irish can never 
 forget, until England, by the mildness and protection of 
 her laws, convinces the people that their interest and hap- 
 piness is hers — their privileges and their liberties, the 
 strength and bulwark of the British empire. The com- 
 memorations of ascendancy have often provoked the un- 
 bought Irishman to turn Ids eye back ou the sad record 
 which relates the transactions at Mullahmast ; and the re- 
 flection that such scenes are countenanced by their rulers, 
 tears open the wound which time, and the native forgive- 
 ness of -the Irish heart, would long since have healed. 
 
 In the 3'ear 1556, Mary concluded her treaty of mar- 
 riage with Philip, and received cardinal Pole into Eng- 
 land, in the character of legate, for the purpose of recon- 
 ciling her kingdom to the holy see. The cardinal is re- 
 presented by all parties, as a mild, moderate, and l^ene- 
 volent minister of religion, who would, if possible, have 
 softened the rancor of the bigot, and endeavored to pro- 
 cure the ascendancy ol' his religious tenets rather by per- 
 suasion thaii by vioience— by the powers cf reason, rather 
 than the terrors of the scaffold. ' Air. Hume says, in his 
 character of cardinal Pole, " la a nation where the most 
 furious persecution v/as caiiied on, and the most violent 
 religious factions prevailed over justice, even by most of 
 ill e reformers, has justice been cu>no to his merit." The 
 
213 
 
 benign character of this prelate, liis modesty and human- 
 ity, made him universally beloved. The lords and com- 
 mons assembled on the l3t of Jmie, 1556; and the bull 
 from the legate, cardinal Pole, wa^ read in full parliament, 
 confratulatino- the nation on its return to the ancient faith 
 of their ancestry. This bull was read aloud by the chan- 
 cellor on his knees, and received by the whole assembly of 
 lords and commons, in token, says Leland, of reverence 
 and contrition. 
 
 The law of this parliament most worthy of notice, i? 
 that for the explana.tion of the law of Poynings. — Thirteen 
 years had elapsed, in whidi no parliament had been held 
 in Ireland, and the powers of that assembly required an 
 accurate definition with regard to the law of Poynings, by 
 which they were to be hereafter regulated. This parlia- 
 ment, therefore, formally defined the intent and meaning 
 of Poynings' law. It was enacted, that no parliament 
 shoukl be summoned or holden in Ireland, until the chief 
 governor and council should certify to the throne the 
 causes and considerations, and such acts and ordinances as 
 they judged meet to be enacted ; that when these were ap- 
 proved and returned under the great seal of England, a 
 parliament should be summoned for the purpose of passing 
 such acts, and no other. Thus the usage of holding par- 
 liaments and enacting laws in Ireland, was finally esta- 
 blished, by which all contest' and debate on the construc- 
 tion of the act of Henry VIII. or of Poynings, was for 
 the future put an end to. It is consoling to be able to re- 
 mark, that in this reign we cannot set down the horrible ex- 
 amples of infuriated bigotry that disgrace the page of Eng- 
 lish history during the same period, that yv e cannot record 
 the same unrelenting and unpitying reliscious fury in Ire- 
 • land which governed the councils of Mary in England. 
 An Irishman, partial even to his native air, imputes to its 
 influence, as well as to the generous sentiment that distin- 
 guished his countrymen for centuries, the mild spirit of to- 
 leration which directed the administration of the colony, 
 
214 
 
 during the sanguinary reign of Mary ; and triumphantly 
 seizes the opportunity of boasting their superior qualifica-. 
 tions in head and heart, compared with those of English- 
 men, who were to be seen sacrificing each other to the 
 gloomy demon of fanaticism ; but the progress of the re- 
 formation in Ireland was comparatively slow, and the con- 
 verts from popery were too few to provoke the severity of 
 persecution ; nor can we believe, with Mr. Leland, that we 
 are to attribute this great blessing of religious freedom, 
 which every writer of those times, however prejudiced, al- 
 lows to have existed in Ireland, to the " stupid composure of 
 ignorance and superstition." We rather attribute the ex- 
 istence of such a blessing to the fortunate circumstance, 
 that the rage of fanaticism had made no very successful 
 encroacliments on the ancient faith of the country, and 
 that the few who opposed were too insignificant to excite 
 the fears or the jealousy of the ascendant religion. It re- 
 mained for future days to experience the effects of break- 
 ing down the venerated principles of antiquity, and dis- 
 turbing the conscience and belief of those who lived with 
 their neighbours in harmony and peace. " What a pity," 
 w rites an honest and animated historian " that the Irish 
 are not roused from their stupid composuse, by running 
 after crazy mountebanks, — vending their quackeries of nev/ 
 invented doctrines, with as great an assortment of sample 
 patterns, as there are delirious fancies in the heated brains 
 of bible-mad fanatics ! So, the calm enjoyed by the Pro- 
 testants in Ireland, when they were few, and the catho'- 
 lies all powerful, (the effect of an enlightened philosophy, 
 or great native generosity,) is, according to Leland, the 
 effect of a stupid composure in ignorance and superstition.' 
 l^Jo ; we should rather conclude, with the writer of these 
 observation:,, that the native kindness of the Irish heart 
 did not feel any gratification in the bloody triumphs of 
 bigotry, and that the indiUgence granted to the propagar 
 tors of reformation in Ireland, flowed from the influence of 
 that generosity, which has so long and so remarkably cha- 
 
215 
 
 ractcrised the Irish nation. Ware Informs us, tliat seve- 
 ral English families fled into Ireland, and there enjoyed 
 their opinions and worship, in privacy, without notice or 
 molestation. 
 
 During the remainder of this reign, there is little wor- 
 
 o 
 
 thy of record, little calculated to instruct the understand- 
 ing or improve the heart. The battles fought between the 
 houses of Tyrowen and Tyrconnel, display all that fruit- 
 less bravery which always distinguished the contending 
 Irish septs ; and the reader of the sanguinary scene must 
 lament the waste of so much precious blood in the odious 
 struggles of civil war. We have passed through so many 
 occurrences of this kind, that we deem it an unprofitable 
 labour to re-echo either the courage or the follies of our 
 countrymen. 
 
TMS 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 A. D. 
 
 1558. 
 
 The liistory of Ireland may be considered the 
 only history in which the mind and heart of the 
 reader are imable to find a resting place from the 
 miseries and sorrows of liis fellow-creatures, in which even 
 a short interval of peace cannot be discovered, or a mo- 
 mentary cessation from himian calamity cannot be enjoyed 
 — in which a perpetual succession of afflictions, unrelieved 
 by one gleam of comfort, or by one ray of hope, passes 
 before the eye — wearying and exhausting its sensibility by 
 the reiteration of sorrow. Despair takes possession of the 
 Irish patriot ; and all future efforfe to rescue his country 
 from the miserable distractions to which Providence seems to 
 have doomed it, strike him to be the dreams of the visionary, 
 rather than the result of reflection, or the sober dictate of 
 cool and dispassionate reason. The Irishman who is not 
 insensible to the long course of misery experienced by his 
 country, who has sympathized with her sufferings, and has 
 followed her varied fortunes — who has reflected upon the 
 hundred struggles made by the mutual exertions of the 
 prudent, and the violent precipitancy of the enthusiastic, 
 is inclined to close the record of such repeated disappoint- 
 ment, with the humane and benevolent exclamation of 
 regret, that the sword had not in the infancy of Ireland's 
 connection with England, extirpated the seed of that spi- 
 rit which lias struggled with despotism in vain for a period 
 
217 
 
 of seven hundred years, and which only contributed to 
 excite by resistance that persecution which has so long de- 
 solated the richest and most beautiful island on the globe. 
 The Irishman, who, from time to time, flattered his coun- 
 try with hope, 'has done little more than prepare her for 
 the scaffold, and the struggle which promised the fairest 
 prospects, and the most trimnphant issue, have hitherto 
 terminated in general disaster — unprofitable to the con- 
 queror, and ruinous to the conquered. Tliat a people, 
 possessing the great and enviable qualities of Irishmen — 
 brave, generous and humane ;— that a nation illustrious for 
 its hospitality and kindness, should for centuries be the 
 victims of the most unequalled misfortunes, excite the pi- 
 ty and indignation of every reader. For four hundred 
 years previous to Elizabeth, we have witnessed one unbro- 
 ken chain of calamity; we have seen the wealth and re- 
 sources of our country sacrificed to the rapacity of mono- 
 poly, and a small and contemptible band of settlers gnaw- 
 ing the vitals of a nation who could have extinguished them 
 by the union of its people. During this dreary period, 
 the catholic English colony are to be found plundering the 
 people of Ireland professing the same religion, and wor- 
 shipping the same God with their persecutors. We see the 
 spirit of robbery generating the same torments against their 
 victims as we shall shortly see adopted by the furious spi- 
 rit of bigotry ; and when the Irish native was nearly strip- 
 ped of his property, and had almost ceased to be worthy 
 the notice of persecution, we shall find him uncovered, 
 and unsheltered — exposed to the fury of the fanatical re- 
 former, and the sacred liberty of serving the Supreme 
 Being as his conscience dictated, rudely torn from him by 
 the ministers of that British queen, who gave an asylum to 
 the victims of popish fanaticism, and rescued from the 
 daffsers of the assassin the Husonots of France. It seems 
 that the principle which gave protection to the persecuted 
 of a foreign country dictated the persecution of Irishmen, 
 and that the examples of the sanguinary and ferocious 
 
 D d 
 
218 
 
 Charles, and the stupid and bigotted Philip, were worthy 
 of imitation, against the devoted people of Ireland. " If 
 the scene," says Mr. TaafTe, " has been hitherto turbulent 
 and sanguinary? it is speedily to be darkened by a louring 
 tempest, pregnant with ruin to the inhabitants. The an- 
 cient glory and happiness of the island of sanctity, learn- 
 ing, hospitality and heroism, are to be trampled under 
 foot. In addition to their former misforfunes, a fresh 
 scourge is prepared for Ireland. If popish England assails 
 their persons and fortunes, protestant England assaults 
 even the sanctuary of conscience. The loss of life audits 
 comforts, God knows, were grievous enough ; but the at- 
 tempt of wresting from them, by tyrannic violence, their 
 belief and hopes of an immortal inheritance, was still re- 
 served to fill the cup of miserj^ brim full, and drive a re- 
 ligious people to ufter despair." That the ministers of 
 England could see no safer mode of governing Ireland 
 than by persecution, Vvas not the cause of the cruel war 
 which they waged against the feelings of the Irish nation ; 
 the torture in Ireland had the effect of propagating by its 
 terror the principles of reformation in England ; the pre- 
 text of conformity gave an opportunity to the artful Cecil 
 to provide the factious and turbulent and disaffected of his 
 own country, with the forfeited property of conscientious 
 Ireland, not so iodifferent to the creed of their ancestors as 
 Englishmen. The Irish olfered up their lives and their 
 fortunes on the altar of their religion, and preferred the 
 miferies of poverty to the crime of apostacy. Not so Eng- 
 land: no matter from what quarter the wind of their reli- 
 gious doctrine blew; whether from the brutal Henry VIII. 
 the fanatic ministers of Edward VI. or the wretched bigo- 
 try of Mary, they were equally ready to embrace the creed 
 of each, and equally ready- to plunder the altar of the ca- 
 tholic, and burn the bible of the protestant. The Irisii 
 were not so fortunate in the mutability of their belief, and 
 it has pleased Providence that for adhering to the religion 
 of their lathers, they should be visited with temporal suf- 
 
2\9 
 
 fering, inflicted with all the remorseless fury of paganism. 
 Future times will startle when they read tlie miseries which 
 one sect of christians inflicted on another; and they will 
 repeat those names with indignation, who converted fideli- 
 ty into crime, and sincere religion into superstitious fa- 
 naticism. 
 
 We shall find, in the reign which we are about to re- 
 cord, the calamitous effects of that wretched policy which 
 would force a religion upon the people of any nation. 
 Notwithstanding tiie blood that has been shed, and the 
 tears which have flowed, what have been the fruits of per- 
 secution to the reformed religion of Ireland? Where are 
 its numbers, compared witii the persecuted catholic ? Is 
 not catholic Ireland more powerful at this moment than 
 ever she was ? and have not the struggles to weaken her 
 but increased her strength, and raised her character and 
 importance in Europe ? We may learn from the past, 
 that no religion can be propagated by the violence of the 
 sword, or the statute book; that persecution covers the hu- 
 man mind with an impenetrable armour; that it mul- 
 tiplies its victims or impoverishes and destroys itself; and 
 that there is no axiom better established by the page 
 of history, than that to which pagan persecution gave 
 birth, — "'Sanguis martyrum est semen religionis." The 
 catholic religion has arisen in Ireland from the ashes 
 of its professors, and now chsplays to the reason pi' 
 mankind a sober and settled rule by which humanity 
 cau regulate its future hopes, or its pi'esent consistency. 
 The folly of that zeal which would compel by privations 
 and political disabilities and indignities, the profession of 
 a particular speculative opinion,* is universally ackiiow- 
 
 * The following observations coming from lord Clare, the excessive 
 liberality of whose opinions cannot be compiauied of by the partizans 
 of bigotry, fully demonstrate that tjie most prejudiced mind cannot refuse 
 assent to the instruction which history gives to mankind, hi the year 
 1800, he thus spoke in the Irish house of lords. " It seems difficult," 
 said his lordship, " to conceive any more ur.just or impolitic act of go- 
 Tcrnmeotj than an auempt to forc» new modes of religious fiich *ud 
 
220 
 
 ledged ; and the civilized world tiow seem to be anxious 
 for the general estabUshment of that tolerant principle 
 which is best calculated to procure and perpetuate the 
 peace and harmony of mankind. 
 
 On the accession of Elizabeth, the west and north of 
 Ireland were desolated by the aspiring ambition of the 
 two houses of Desmond and O'Nial. The latter claimed 
 the sovereignty of all Ulster, and re-assumed the ancient 
 grandeur of his house. O'Nial perceived that a great ex- 
 ertioji should be made to save himself from a fate similar 
 to that of the two powerful clans of OffaJy and Leix ; and 
 he therefore, with becoming spirit, determined to put 
 forth all his strength, consolidate his kingdom, unite the 
 distracted chieftains who were subordinate to him in one 
 common bond of union, and boldly assert his indepen- 
 dence against the violence and fraud of his English ene- 
 mies. He reduced the O'Reillys of Cavan, and Calvach 
 O'Donnell of Donegall. The colony were alarmed at 
 the rapidity of O'Nial's progress ; and their deputy, the 
 earl of Sussex, led all his forces against the Irish chieftain. 
 Before a blow was struck, an accommodation was a- 
 greed to. O'Nial pleaded the justice of his resistaijce, 
 and a treaty was concluded, in which he was acknowledged 
 dynast of Tyrowen. The treaty being finally arranged, he 
 attended the lord deputy to Dublin, swore allegiance, and 
 promised to repair to the queen, and renew his dutiful submis- 
 sion at the foot of the throne. It is said that he appeared 
 before Elizabeth with all the pomp and magnificence pe- 
 culiar to his country. He was attended, on the day of au- 
 dience by a guard of gallow-glasses, arrayed in the richest 
 
 worsMp, by severe penalties, upon a rude, superstitious, and unlettered 
 people. Persecution, or attempts to force conscience, will never pro- 
 duce conviction ; they are calculated only to make hypocrites and mar- 
 tyrs ; and accordingly the violence committed by the regency of Edward, 
 and continued by Elizabeth, to force the reformed religion on Ireland, 
 had no other effect than to foment a general disaffection to the Eng- 
 lish government ; a disaffection so general as to induce Philip II. cf Spain 
 to attempt partial descents on the southern coasts of this island, pre- 
 paratory to his meditated attack upon England." 
 
habiliments of tlieix* country, armed with the battle-axe, 
 their heads bare, their hair flowing on their shoulders, their 
 linen vests dyed with saffron, with long and open sleeves, 
 and surcharged with their short military harness ; a spec- 
 tacle astonishing to the people, who imagined that they 
 beheld the inhabitants of some distant quarter of the 
 globe. Elizabeth received the Irish chieftain with the 
 grep'':cst courtesy, and patiently listened to his defence. 
 The candour and magnanimity of O'Nial's deportment so 
 gained upon the queen, that she dismissed him wath assur- 
 ances of her favor and protection. O'Nial did not dis- 
 appomt the hopes of the queen when he returned to his 
 native country. His fidelity to her interests was zealous 
 and sincere. He led his forces against the Hebridean 
 Scots, defeated and drove them from the castles they had 
 occupied on the northern coast. Notwithstanding these 
 strong demonstrations of attachment to the cause of Eliza- 
 beth, the deputy still entertained unworthy suspicions of 
 the sincerity of O'Nial, and communicated those suspi- 
 cions to his ro3'al mistress. The answer of Elizabeth on 
 this occasion displays at once her determination and her 
 sagacity. " Be not dismayed," said she ; " tell my friends, 
 if he arise, it will turn to their advantage ; there will be 
 estates for them who want ; — from me he must expect no 
 further favor." 
 
 Sir Henry Sydney was now appointed to the ^^ceregency 
 of Ireland ; which, at this period, required all the intelli- 
 gence and activity wliich that enterprising Englishman 
 v/as known to possess. Sii' William St. Leger was order- 
 ed to co-operate with sir Henry Sidney ; and special in- 
 structions were given to the pri\'y council of the colony, 
 to devise such measures, in concurrence with the deputy, 
 as were calculated to enforce the queen's authority,* and 
 
 • It has been often observed by the hberal readers of Irish history, 
 that Ireland is distinguished from all other countries, not so much by the 
 magnitude of her misfortunes, and tlie excess of her sufferings, as she 
 is bj the malignant calumnies of the hired traducer, and the abandoned 
 
22g 
 
 propagate the reformed religion. To intimidate the male- 
 contents of Ulster, Arnold, an English officer, was station- 
 ed with a strong force in Deny ; and O'Nial determined to 
 
 testimony of her prostitute children. At the moment some of our Irish 
 historiaus are recording the greatest provocations which human feelings 
 could be goaded bv, we find so;ne merciless epithet, some insolent denun- 
 ciation of tlie b'aroarous character of the country which they describe as 
 bleedmg from every pore. In the aame page which registers the despotic 
 violence with which Elizabeth insulted the conscience of the nation", by 
 prescribing a form of religion tliat warred v^fith the feelings of Irishmen, 
 and which might be considered the fantastic composition of Elizabeth 
 herself, we see same impudent sneer against that honorable fidelity to the 
 venerated religion of their fathers, which distinguished our countrymen. 
 The pen of the historian is employed in covering with obloquy those sacred 
 names who resisted vv-ith their lives the arrogant dictates of that power, 
 that presumed to part down the religion of Ireland to the measure of its 
 passions, its ambition, and its avarice. The historians who have hitherto 
 devoted their talents to the investigation of Irish calaniity, can see no 
 causes for Ireland's sufFermgs in the dreadful efforts of that tyranny which 
 endeavoured, if the expression be allowed, to tear out her heart — which 
 Trampled on the most sacred right of human nature — the liberty ef cojn- 
 municating with God in the form and manner the conscience of the peo- 
 ple dictated. The protestant who reads the persecution of his fellovv- 
 protestant, whether under Charles of France, who presided over the hort 
 rible scenes of St. Bartholomew's day, pr of Philip of Spain, lays down 
 the book in an agony of distress, and all the manly and honorable feel- 
 ings of liis nature are roused to an uis,tantaneous deprecation of the fa- 
 naticism which could so brutalise our nature. Such a feeling, no doubt, 
 is as salutary to our country, as it is full of dignity and honor; and the 
 historian who most successfully calls forth the vengeance of his reader 
 awaiust such monsters as Charles and PJiiiip. do the greatest service to the 
 cause of true religion and humanity. But how comes it to pass, that a- 
 midst the dreadful and fanatical persecutions of our countrymen, amidst 
 the slaughter of the rr.ost sacred feelings of our nature, which covered 
 our country, not a sigh is heard — not a single sentiment of iudignation at 
 the liand which inflicted the suffuring ? No voice of pity whispers con- 
 solation to the honorable men who have braved and survived the storm. 
 This would not be prudent for the writer's purposes. This perhaps 
 >-ould wound the sensibility of the ruling powers. It would be opening 
 the wound which their kindness would close for ever; and therefore it is 
 rnach better, say the grave and judicious, to go on slandering and de- 
 faming the memory of those who have fallen in the cause of religious and 
 political freedom ; much better to go on denominating those honorable 
 irishmen who resisted the reformation, barbarous ignorant, and incapable 
 of improvc.ment. We think difFf rently ; and shall, in obedience to truth, 
 >et down what we conceive to be the cause of Irish misfortune, and the 
 fruitful source of those disastrous divisions, which have rendered one 
 party odious, another feared, and all weak and impotent. The reforma- 
 tion has been to Ireland what the invasion of the Spaniard was to South 
 America. It propagated civilisiatton by the sword, and cultivated re- 
 ligion by estirpating the original inhabitants; it commenced in despo- 
 tism, and has ended in the acknowledged impotency of its efforts. Aii- 
 oiher and a better policy has succeeded to the fanaticism of the reformer • 
 
223 
 
 expel from his territories the only obstacle which now pre- 
 sented itself to the completion of his ambitious views. He 
 coukl no longer hold terms with a government which would 
 not place the most complete confidence in his professions 
 of loyalty ; and he^resolved rather to struggle for his in- 
 dependence,, than pass a precarious existence under a 
 power which (hscredited his character. 
 
 Tlie lord of Desmond had now surrendered to the arms 
 
 and Ireland, left to the direction of her own conscience, on questions «f 
 religion, promises as much strength to her rulers as she has been hitlierto 
 a source of weakness and torment. The measures adopted by the Irish 
 parhament to promote the success of the reformation in Ireland, wei-e 
 well calculated for the object they had in view. The parliament of the 
 pale, at the accession of Elizabeth, was not qompnsed of those malleable 
 materials, that could, without a struggle^ surrender the religion cf their 
 fathers; we find, however, that such were the threats of despotism, that 
 in a session of a few weeks, the whole ecclesiastical system of t!ie colonr 
 was changed. The act of supremacy, the act empowering the viceroy to 
 nominate to sees, for the space of ten years, the act for erecting schools 
 of reformation, the act enacting that all persons in office shall talje the 
 oath of supremacy, the act making it high treason to defend the ancient 
 religion, either by word or by writing — the punishment death; the act 
 making the Book of Common Prayer, composed by Elizabeth, the only- 
 book of prayer to be read by the clergv of the pale, who, on refusal, 
 were subject to the penalty of confinement for life. These were some of 
 the acts enacted by Elizabeth, for the propagation of her religion; but it 
 is to be remarked, that she always reserved to herself the power of pre- 
 scribing other forms and ceremonies, as it might please her majestv. These 
 were the acts which Irishmen resisted with their blood, becau.-e they were 
 taught to believe it was raore religious, as well as more honorable, to die 
 in defence of religious freedom, than embrace doctrines which ther 
 could not believe. For this fidelity, which should have raised Ireland iti 
 the estimation of a great statesman, the ministerial hypocrite and the 
 plunderer laid waste her property, and deluged her fields with blood; 
 and the experience of two centuries was necessary to develope the infatu- 
 ated weakness of such a policy. Is it to be wondered thjt the Irish pea- 
 sant should, after the lapse of such a period of horror, connect the name 
 of protestant with persecutor ? And tliat the mild and merciful protest- 
 ants of the present day should sometimes hear the murmurings of those 
 men, whose ancestors have fallen victims in the defence oS principles, 
 whichnone prize more highly than the enlightened and benevolent reform- 
 er of the present day. The respecting mind will admit, that years of 
 kindness can only obliterate the impression vi'hich two centuries of per- 
 secution has made on the Irish heart; and that the greatest enemy that Ire- 
 land has, will have the candor to acknowledge that no nation more 
 prt)mptly forgives an injury, nor more gratefully remembers a benefit. 
 It is therefore the duty of the protestant to respect the nan his ancestors 
 would have persecuted; and it is the duty of the catholic, wherever that 
 feeliag is acted upon, to forget and to forgive the vices and the follies of 
 the ages tbat are past. 
 
224 
 
 of the queen ; his lands were restored to him, to be held 
 by English tenure, and he himself created a lord of par- 
 liament by the title of the earl of Clancarthy. The excla- 
 mation of O'Nial on this occasion, does not indicate that 
 savage and debased ferositj^ for which he has been dis- 
 tinguished by the pen of Mr. Leland. A spirit of deter- 
 mined independence and honest patriotism mark the obser- 
 vations we are about to read. " A precious earl !" said 
 O'Nial to some English commissioners, sent to treat with 
 him. "I keep a lacquey at my table as noble as he; but 
 let him enjoy his honor, it is not worthy of O'Nial ! I have 
 indeed made peace with the queen at her desire; but I 
 have not forgotten the royal dignity of my ancestors. Ul- 
 ster was theirs, and shall be mine; with the sword they 
 won it — with the sword I will maintain it." From this 
 moment we find O'Nial the furious and relentless enemy of 
 England, carrying fire and sword through the entire of 
 the north ; burning down the reformed churches ; pursu- 
 ing the propagators of reformation, and calling up the 
 dormant spirit of Irishmen in every corner of the island. 
 O'Nial could only be opposed with effect by a division 
 among the Irish themselves ; and this was the policy which 
 tlie prudejit Sydney preferred to the precarious result of 
 the sword. He conciliated the principal chieftains of the 
 north, Calvagh of Tj-rconnel, Macguire, the lord of Fer- 
 managh, and some other chieftains of the north-west ; who 
 from motives of jealousy and envy, basely prefen-ed the 
 humiliation of their brave enemy, O'Nial, to the greater 
 object of weakening the common enemy of their country. 
 
 O'Nial, unsupported by foi'eign or domestic aid, was 
 obliged to yield before superior force. A temporary gleam 
 of hope bhone upon his fortunes; he was invited to join the 
 Scots, now encamped in clanterboy ; but here O'Nial had 
 to contend with the base and^ contemptible practices of 
 treachery and cowardice. O'Nial was invited by the Scots 
 in all the confidence of the most generous friendship ; he 
 accepted the invitation, and at the moment the unthinking 
 
225 
 
 Irish chieftain was enjoying the feast of hospitahty, the 
 soldiers of his infamous host rushed in and butchered the 
 brave Irishman and all his followers. To this act of inde- 
 lible nifamy the Scotch were excited by the artifices of Syd- 
 ney ; and by such practices have we already seen the pow- 
 er of the colony triumph over the honorable credulity of a 
 brave and generous people. 
 
 Mr. Leland relates this transaction with his accustomed 
 coldness ; not a single sigh of resentment escapes his lips, 
 and innocence falls unpitied and unrevenged, even by the 
 historian, under the poisoned cup of the coward, or the 
 dasjijer of the assassin. For this great and maOTanimous 
 achievement the murderers received a reward of one thou- 
 sand drachms from the deputy, who immediately marched 
 into the territories of the intrepid O'Niah 
 
 The contests between Ormond and Desmond, continued 
 to exhaust their respective territories. Tlieir conflicts 
 were sanguinary and destructive to each party, and their 
 petty war ended in the defeat of Desmond, who was made 
 a prisoner. The Ormondians carrying their wounded 
 prisoner in triumph from the fi\}ld of battle, were assailed 
 by a rebuke from Desmond, which may be considered a, 
 singular instance of resolution as well as wit. " Where," 
 said the victors, "is now the great lord of Desmond!" 
 *' Where," replied the heroic Desmond, " but in his pro- 
 per place? — still upon the necks of the Butlers.'" 
 
 A temporary submission on the part of Desmond to the 
 English government took place, but the old feuds broke 
 out again between Ormond and him. The deputy, in con- 
 junction with the former, reduced Desmond, took him 
 prisoner, and sent him to England. — Here Elizabeth's 
 ministers considered it prudent to confine hira. Sir Hen- 
 ry Sydney accompanied his prisoner, in order to defend 
 the acts of his government before his royal mistress, and 
 in his absence we find the colony assailed and convulsed by 
 the rival chieftains, Butler, the Geraldines, the O'Moores, 
 and the O'Connors, Sydney, on his return, convened ^ 
 
 E e 
 
226 ' 
 
 parliament, to consult them on the most efficacious means 
 of restoring peace to the country. The enemies of the re- 
 formation in Ireland were so numerous and so- important a 
 body, that it required ail the artifices and influence of the 
 queen's Irish government to assemble such a parliament as 
 would forward the objects for which they were convened. 
 Every effort that corruption could make v/as exerted to 
 procure such a house of commons as would be obedient to 
 the nod of the viceroy. Sir Christopher Barnewall char- 
 ged the house of ccm.mons with being illegally constituted; 
 ■ t^iat numbers were returned for towns not incorporated ; 
 that several sheriffs and magistrates had returned them- 
 selves : that numbers of Enolishmcn had been returned as 
 burgesses for towns which they had never seen nor known, 
 far from beino: residents as the law directs. Great and warm 
 debate ensued, and the speaker attended the deputy and 
 council to explain the objections urged against the consti- 
 tution of the house of commons. The judges were con- 
 sulted, who declared, that those members returned for 
 towns not incorporated, ,and n^agistrates who had returned 
 themselves, were incapahle of sitting in parliament ; but, as 
 to the members not resident within towns for which they 
 were returned, that they were entitled to their seats. 
 This decision of the judges insured the triumph of govern- 
 ment ; and here do we see a constitutional stand made in 
 the house of parliament, against tlie n)easures of a party, 
 opprobriously designated the English faction. Sir Chris- 
 topher Earnewall headed this popular party. It is curious 
 to observe the popular party in this parliament advocating 
 the continuance of Poyninga' law, and reprobating the 
 struggles of the court to suspend its operation. The ob- 
 jection to its suspertsion is a singular one, and worthy of 
 record. Thet it was an attempt by the court against the 
 foundation of public security; that its effect would be to 
 deliver up the kingdom to tlic mercy of a viceroy and his 
 English ministers, who might then conspire to enact such 
 laws as tlieir ambition or avarice misht dictate. So writes 
 
2S7 
 
 Hooker, who was cotemporaneous with those events ; and 
 perhaps the argument, considering tlie constitution of the 
 commons, was a fair and unanswerable one; for surely 
 there is no tyranny so rapacious nor so cruel as the tyranny 
 of an aristocracy, which multiplies the sufferings of the 
 subject in proportion to its numbers, and visits on every 
 village and hamlet a more malignant despotism tlian the 
 most unlimited monarch would dare to exercise. An act 
 of attainder was passed by this parliament again&t the late 
 John O'Nial ; it declares all Ulster exempt from the au- 
 thority of O'Nial, and vests his lands for ever in the crown. 
 By another act of this parliament, worthy of notice, the 
 chancellor w^as empowered to appoint commissioners for 
 viewino- all territories not reduced to English counties, 
 and the deputy authorized them, on their certificate, to di- 
 vide them into shires. The act of presentation for ten 
 years, and for the erection of free schools, was now passed, 
 and the most remorseless eiforts made to propagate the re- 
 formed creed. Such w^ere the occupations of the ten first 
 years of Elizabeth's government ; and surely no impartial 
 mind who reads the inflexible tyranny with which she and 
 her officers inflicted the penalties of the reforming acts, 
 wall be surprised at the scene of distraction and misery 
 through which we are doomed to wade during the succeed- 
 ing reigns. 
 
 The reader of Mr. Leland can with difiiculty suppress 
 his indignation, when he finds the historian lamenting the 
 perverse continuance of the Irish in their ancient l^arbarous 
 habits, as he is pleased to call them, and recording in the 
 very same page, the miserable revolutions which this un- 
 liapp}' people were doomed to suffer. Mr.' Leland laments 
 that the same vigor which violated the feeling, was net 
 sufficient to extirpate the man ; and that the leYiient impo- 
 licy of one governor frequently revived the spirit of resist- 
 ance which his predecessor endeavoured to extinguish. 
 Though the strong and decisive measures adopted by 
 Elizabeth to tear up the old religion ot" Ireland, and sub- 
 
228 
 
 stitute her own, were apparently well calculated to promote 
 her object, yet causes still existed to counteract her efforts ; 
 and the policy in preserving the conquests she had made 
 over the Irish mind, was not so prudent or so provident 
 as the principle was vigorous which enabled her to obtain 
 them. " Those causes arose," says sir John,Davis, " from 
 an insatiable avarice to grasp at more territory than she 
 was able to regulate. Elizabeth passed from county to 
 county, without placing those securities, or making those 
 regulations which were only calculated to preserve the sys- 
 tem sjie had introduced. She divided the province of Con- 
 naught, in 1570, into six counties — Clare, Galway, Sligo, 
 Leitrim, Mayo, and Roscommon ; but she sent no justices 
 of assize into those counties to administer justice according 
 to the laws of England. She left them to the merciful di- 
 rection of a governor, armed with civil and military pow- 
 ers: and the people were permitted to relapse into the 
 same customs, for the extirpation of which so much blood 
 had been shed." Mr. Leland has assigned a better reason 
 for the small progress of that civility and good order which 
 an impartial administration of justice must produce in every 
 country. " Those," says Mr. Leland, " whom the revival 
 of the English power in Ireland had tempted into the king- 
 dom, came with the most unfavourable prejudices against 
 the old natives, whom they were interested to represent 
 (both of the native and the old English race) as dangerous 
 and disaffected. The natives were provoked at the paF- 
 tiality shown to those insolent adventurers. They were 
 treated like aliens and enemies, as the annalist of Eliza- 
 beth observes, and excluded with contemptuous insolence 
 from every office of trust and power. It is therefore natu- 
 ral to find them not always zealously affected to the ad- 
 ministration of the Irish government." 
 
 ' Such Has been the true cause of Irish disaffection ; — the 
 upstart adventurer shouldering the ancient and revered 
 settler, — the offspring of public misfortune rising on the 
 a&hes of the ancient proprietor, and perhaps an attorney, 
 
220 
 
 or revenue officer, whose names are lost in the obscurity ot' 
 their origin, encouraged by the Enghsh patron to struggle 
 for precedency with the Irish nobleman, who enjoys the 
 confidence and affection of the people. Such creatures ^ 
 are generated in the corrupt principle of division ; and 
 even to this hour, though centuries of misfortune and weak- 
 ness have flowed from it, the meanest and most ignorant 
 followers of English faction are encourao;ed to beard the 
 dignity and independence of our country, and audaciously 
 presume to monopolize the confidence of government, the 
 distribution of honor, and the possession of emolument. 
 Such a system could not long exist without producing its 
 natural effects. Sir Henry Sydney, whom we see packing 
 a parliament to carry his projects of reformation, insults 
 sir Edmund Butler, who, careless of consequences, yields 
 to his resentment, and involves the south in war and de- 
 solation. Sir James Fitzmaurice, brother of the earl of 
 Desmond, with the earl of Clancarthy, take up arms 
 against the desperate encroachment on their religion and 
 their properties. The Irish annalists of those days describe 
 the ravages of Fitzmaurice's ai'ms in the most excessive 
 colours. He intrigued with Turlough O'Nial, the nor- 
 thern chieftain ; he dispatched messengers to Rome and 
 to Spain, soliciting aid against the tyrannical reformers 
 who governed his country. The present distracted state 
 of the colony greatly alarmed Elizabeth. She relied not 
 solely on the power of her arms ; she solicited the medi- 
 ation of the earl of Ormond with his brother, sir Edmund 
 Butler, who was prevailed on by the earl to abandon tho 
 cause of Fitzmaurice. Thus, partly by intrigue, partly 
 by force, was the rebellion of sir Edmund Butler aiul 
 Fitzmaurice put an end to, Turlough O'Nial seceded 
 from the confederacy, and the north and south were once 
 more restored to tranquillity. Sir John Perrot was ap- 
 pointed governor of Munster. His administration was 
 at once just and vigorous. Hooker says that his govern- 
 ment gave an unusual appearance of peace, industry and 
 
230 
 
 civility to the entire province. It is reasonable to suppose 
 that Sir Jolm Perrot deserves the charactei* which English 
 historians record of him, from the single fact, that he 
 held his court of justice in different quarters, heard and 
 redressed grievances, and though he enforced the law with 
 firmness, yet he administered it with mercy. 
 
 The justice of an individual had but little effect, balanc- 
 ed against the paramount principle of English policy, " di- 
 vide and conquer." Ireland was doomed to be the subject 
 on which every state empiric might practise with impunity 
 — the bank on which every creature of despotism might 
 hope to draw, and the hospital in which every incurable 
 Englishman might flatter himself with shelter. The bas- 
 tard of a secretary, or the mistress of a minister, might 
 look with confidence to Ireland, as the source of their 
 fortune, of their fame, and their dominion. The native 
 Irish were to be plundered, to enrich the profligate and 
 corrupt adventurer, and thousands of our countrymen 
 were doomed to surrender their property and their reli- 
 gion, for the gratification of lust, of avarice, and ambition. 
 The secretary* of Elizabeth, sir Thomas Smith, had a na- 
 tural son, who was to be provided for : a portion of the 
 north of Ireland and its inhabitants were to be sacrificed 
 to this pure and immaculate Englishman. . He was com- 
 missioned to take possession of a place called Ardes, in 
 the eastern parts of Ulster ; and lands were assigned to 
 his followers, at the rate of one penny per acre. The 
 Irish 7nost unnaturally become indignant that their families 
 were to be phmdered, their wives and children driven 
 from their homes, and, exposed to nakedness and want. 
 The young English bastard was assassinated by those 
 exasperated people ; and the fate of thousands of the na- 
 tive Irish was for a time suspended by the desperate catas- 
 trophe. The fate of this adventurer was not sufficient to 
 intimidate. Walter Devereux, lately created earl of Es- 
 sex, proposes to plant an English colony in Ulster ; or in 
 other words, to pkmder and desolate the Irish, Elizabeth 
 
231 
 
 supplied him with forces, and with monej' : every horseman 
 is promised a grant of four hundred acres, and every 
 footman two hundred acres, at two pence per acre. Es- 
 sex is appointed governor of the colony for seven years ; 
 and a number of the principal English noblemen join with 
 the earl, mortgage their properties in England, and sail 
 for Ireland, in the hope of gratifying the utmost aspirings 
 of their ambition. They were but the dreams of ava- 
 rice, — defeat and disappointment pursued their efforts. 
 The Irish were roused, and united against those audacious 
 plunderers. Bryan ^lac Phelan, Hugh O'Nial, Tur- 
 Icugh O'Nial, the lord of Tyrowen, forgot their animosi- 
 ties, and marched against the common enemy. Essex, and 
 his noble associates, fellow-plunderers, and colonists, re- 
 treated with afflicted and broken hearts ; and thou"h Es- 
 sex remained some time in Ireland, after the failure of 
 his attempt on Ulster, he at length fell a victim to his am- 
 bition, and sunk into the grave, unpitied by his country- 
 men, and hated by the Irish. 
 
 At this period (1576) Ireland, almost in every point, 
 north, east, west and south, exhibited one scene of con- 
 fusion and conflict. The struggles of the reformers with 
 the intrepid fidelity of the people — the zeal of fanaticism, 
 and the insatiable avarice of extended dominion, animated 
 the ministers of Elizabetli. The O'Moores in Leinster, llie 
 sons of Clanrickard in Connaught, the friends of Desmond 
 in INIunster, and the O'Nials of the north, exhausted the 
 treasury of Elizabeth, and consumed her soldiers in per- 
 petual engageinents. The confederacy was a formidable 
 one; and, unlesss dissolved by intrigue or bi'oken by force, 
 might terminate in the expulsion of Elizabeth from her' 
 Irish dominions. The pov^^er of the purse, and the seduc- 
 tions of royal blandishment was considered a more potent 
 weapon against the Irish, than the sword or the cannon — 
 and the principal allies of Desmond and O'Nial were soon 
 seduced from that confederacy which threatened the dejs- 
 truction of the connectiou with England, Sir Henry Syd- 
 
232 
 
 ney was again recalled to the government of Ireland, and 
 for some time after lie took into his hands the reins of 
 poAver, the kingdom enjojed an interval of peace and tran- 
 quillity. A transaction occurred about this period in the 
 south of Ireland, which peculiarly marks the character of 
 her governors, at once discovering the fear and the cruel- 
 ty of cov.ards. Under the pretence of introducing Eng- 
 lish law, the rights of human nature are violated, the sa- 
 cred principles of hospitality abused and insulted, and the 
 innocent and unoffending Irishman plundered of his pro- 
 perty, his peace and his happiness. Sir William Drury 
 was appointed governor of Munster by the viceroy, and so 
 great w^as his anxiety to extend English jurisprudence 
 throughout the south of Ireland, that he determined to 
 treat with contempt the rights of Desmond, who was by 
 patent the chief of that country, and w ho, on this occa- 
 sion, pleaded his ancient and acknowledged privilege, as 
 lord of the lands of Kerry. Desmond appealed from Dru- 
 ry to the viceroy, and before his appeal Avas heard, assu- 
 rances of warm regard were given by the Irish chief to the 
 English governor. Though Desmond claimed his ac- 
 knowledged privileges of exemption from the interference 
 of an English authority, yet he professed the sincerest res- 
 pect for the man whose authority he disputed ; and, in the 
 kindness of the most genuine hospitality, hoped that there 
 would be no interruption to that social intercourse w^hich 
 the Irish ever wished to cultivate with the stranger. With 
 those feelings, the earl of Desmond invited the president to 
 partake of the good cheer his table afforded. — Sir Wil- 
 liam Drury accepted the invitation, and on the appoint- 
 ed day went to the entertainment of the eai*l. Desmond, 
 in obedience to the customs of his country, received Dru- 
 ry with all the honors of his house. Seven hundred of 
 Desmond's followers appeared as if meditating some hostile 
 movement; havino- been summoned to contribute to the 
 amusement of the president, by an exhibition of the noble 
 *port of hunting, to which the people of England were 
 
233 
 
 greatly addicted. Sir "William Drury stopped not to re- 
 flect, but ordered the soldiers who accompanied him, to 
 anticij:)ate their, attack. The Desmondians returned in amaze- 
 ment at the extraordinary movement, and the countess of 
 Desmond laboured to explain the appearance of that body 
 of D^esmond's people which created such unnecessary 
 alarms. Though the })resident might have been easily the 
 victim of his own rashness, we find Desmond and his 
 countess interpose, and protect the man who thus had en- 
 tertained such unworthy suspicions. 
 
 The English policy of governing Ireland is now about 
 to develope its fruits to the most sceptical of those who do 
 not consider the most impartial administration of justice as 
 the best or the most secure system, by which the affairs of 
 this country could be regulated. The poverty and embar- 
 rassment which followed the struo-gles of the reformers 
 with the stubborn fidelity of Ireland, are a good lesson 
 of instruction to those who measure dominion by plunder, 
 and consider the connection between the countries most se- 
 cure when the energies of the nation are most exhausted — 
 who consult their safety in the extirpation of public spirit, 
 and measure their loyalty to their king by their persecu- 
 tion of the people. The Irish governors of Elizabeth were 
 zealous and indefatigable in their efforts to break down 
 the Irish heart, and extirpate the Irish religion. What 
 was the result? A beggared exchequer and a trembling 
 government : an exhausted and wearied si;;irit of persecu- 
 tion On one side, and an eternal spirit of vengeance on the 
 other : perpetual complaints from Elizabeth, that Ireland 
 was a burthen to her empire, the torment of her mind, 
 and the insatiable vortex which swallowed up the fruits 
 of her most rigid economy. Though profuse of the blood 
 and the treasure of her people in her struggles with Ireland, 
 still no progress was making by her generals ; not a convert 
 was added to her religion, nor a guinea to her treasury. 
 Such complaints naturally roused the loyal zeal of sir 
 Henry Sydnev. He determined to make the experiment 
 
 F f 
 
234 
 
 of the queen's prerogative, and to dispense Avitli the usual 
 forms of obtaining supplies througli the representations 
 of the people. He conveited the annual contribution or 
 assessment granted by the various districts over which the 
 English authority extended, into a regular and permanent 
 revenue : he dissolved those patents which gave exclusive 
 privileges to certain great lords, and by the mandate of hi» 
 council, imposed the new tax on the people. This tax, 
 v.lien first imposed, amounted to ten pounds on every 
 })lowland. The tax was reduced to five pounds; but the 
 principle of raising the tax by the mere authority of the 
 viceroy and council, warred with' the constitutional feehngs 
 of tlie English settlers, and an appeal to Elizabeth was 
 immediately determined ujion. The inhabitants of the 
 })ale assembled — deliberated : they intrusted their cause to 
 three agents, of distinguished celebrity, eminent for their 
 knowledge in the laws. The lords Baltinglass, Dillon, 
 Howth, Trimblestown, Bellew, Nangle, Plunket, Nu- 
 gent, signed the remonstrance, for and on behalf of all the 
 subjects of the pale. Sydney was nob inactive in poisoning 
 the mind of the queen and her ministers against the peti- 
 tioh of her Irish subjects. He njisrepresentcd their mo- 
 tives and characters ; and as usual, the cause of Ireland 
 came on to be heard before an English tribunal inflamed 
 v.ith prejudice, and exasperated by expostulation. Even 
 Elizabeth, who we cannot suppose much s^-mpathized with 
 the sufferings of Irishmen, could not suppress her classic 
 illustrations of Irish misfortune. She for a moment re- 
 laxed the reins of her power, and cast her ej'es on the 
 wounds of her people. *' Ah ! (she exclaimed) how I fear, 
 lest it be objected to us, as it was to, Tiberius by Bato, 
 conceruins; the Dalmatian commotions — ' You — i/ou it is 
 that are in fouJt, xdio have committed your Jlocks, not to 
 shepherds, hut to "iwlves.^ " Kotv.ithstanding this charita- 
 ble ejaculation, she preferred her darling prerogative to the 
 comfort of her Ii ish subjects; and reprimanded her Irish 
 minister, for not havhig immediately punished the auda^ 
 
235 
 
 cious opposers of her will, however sanctioned by rio-ht, 
 or justified by the laws of their country. Sucli severity of 
 denunciation had but little effect on the lords and "-eutlc- 
 men of the pale; and the spirit manifested by the Irish and 
 English at this period is a singular instance of the benefits 
 often flowing to Ireland from the operation of foi'eio-n 
 causes. It will be admitted, that had Elizabeth put forth 
 her entire strength against those of her Irish subjects 
 who resisted her prerogative, she would have been able to 
 crush the spirit of opposition, hovvever determined or how- 
 ever united. It is to be recollected, that the inhabitants 
 of the pale were but a small part of Ireland, and that its 
 menaces against the despotism of Elizabeth were, as com- 
 pared with the voice of Ireland, the murmurs of a faction 
 and the cries of infancy, but when the pale had the power 
 of throwing into the scale the arms of France or of Spain, 
 their resentment was formidable, and the folly of perse- 
 vering in measures of irritation obvious to the most super- 
 ficial. Elizabeth, therefore, yielded to the peculiar cir- 
 cumstances of Ireland, and relaxed in tliat rigid policy 
 which distijiguished her character and conduct aoainst 
 Englishmen. 
 
 The reformation rendered Ireland a perpetual bank of 
 discontent on which foreign powers, anxious to curb the 
 ambition of Elizabeth, could perpetually draw; and the 
 open and avowed exercise of an undoubted prerogative alie* 
 nated even the hearts of her subjects of the pale, render- 
 ing the entire island a mass of destructive inflammability. 
 The ministers of Elizabeth wisely provided against the 
 storm, tmd preferred yielding to circumstances they could 
 not controul, rather than persevere in an idle contest which 
 might terminate in the dismemberment; of the empire. 
 On this occasion Mr. Leland's words are remarkable. " The 
 conclusion of this dispute, which so little corresponded with 
 that imperious violence first expressed by the queen, is 
 only to be explained by her apprehensions of foreign ene- 
 niies, and the intelligence now received from the ccnti- 
 
236 
 
 nent." May it not here be observed, that what was wis- 
 dom in Cecil, Elizabeth's minister, can not be folly in 
 those men, who deem it courage and consistency to per- 
 severe in goading to distraction, not the people of the pale, 
 not a faction, but the whole people of Ireland — courted 
 and seduced by an intriguing and })owerful enemy, who is 
 vigilant to take advantage of the errors of England, as he 
 is tremendous in tiie execution of his threats, and faithful 
 in the performance of his promises. Elizabeth yielded to 
 the pale, because Philip of Spain, and Charles of France, 
 threatened to take advantao-e of the miso-overnment of 
 Ireland. The British sovereign of the present day is ad- 
 vised by his ministers to persevere in a system of exclu- 
 sion and indignity, though the common enemy of Eng- 
 land, with tenfold liis ancient strength, menaces our shores 
 with those legions who have humbled all the 'powers of 
 Europe, and raised on their ruins a despotism as colossal 
 as it is unparalleled in the annals of the world. This 
 was not the policy of Elizabeth; she regulated her 
 temper by the circumstances of her empire, and advanced 
 to, and retreated from the exercise of her, favourite pre- 
 rogative, according to the peculiar events v»hich presented 
 themselves to the contemplation of her advisers. Eliza- 
 beth had to contend with the ancient religious attachments 
 of Europe. The anathemas of the pope preceded the arms 
 of Philip, and any adventurer, desperate enough to en- 
 gage in any enterprize calculated to harass the dominions 
 of the English queen, was supported with all the ardency 
 of religious and political zeal. To embark in such a con- 
 test was, in other words, fighting the battles of the Al- 
 mighty, and the zeal of the sectarian as well as the ambi- 
 tion of the politician, were pron^pt in embracing every 
 plan which might weaken and distract the councils of Eliza- 
 beth. With those views, Thomas Stukely, whose vanity 
 and falsehood were detected in the reion of Edward VI. 
 was encouraged by Rome to raise a formidable armament 
 for the invasion of Ireland ; and James Fitzmaurice, wh® 
 
$37 
 
 was driven from his country by Sir John Pcrrot, succeed- 
 ed in obtaining from PhiHp of Spain, and pope Gregory 
 XIIL, such a force and such a sanction as was only suffi- 
 cient to plunge Ireland into all the horrors of civil war. 
 Elizabeth lost no time in taking those measures which were 
 best calculated to meet the difficulties with which she was 
 surrounded. With regard tp Stukely and his Italian army, 
 he was diverted from his oriojinal intention of invadino; Ire- 
 land by the more pressing consideration of accompany- 
 ing Don Sebastian, the king of Portugal, into Africa, 
 under whose banners he had the honor to terminate a life 
 which might have otherwise visited its native country with 
 all the calamities of war. The force with which Fitzmau- 
 rice had the boldness or the folly to invade his native coun- 
 try was composed of about fourscore Spaniards, and 
 some Enghsh and Irish fugitives. With this contemptible 
 band he landed at a bay called Smerwick in Kerry. On 
 their arrival, their little army was increased by the follow- 
 ers of sir John and James, brothers to the earl of Des- 
 mond. — The earl himself dissembled his real intentions, 
 and made professions of great zeal for the cause of Elizabeth 
 against the invaders. His dissinmlation was carried so 
 far as to alarm their fears and even excite their suspicions ; 
 and Fitzmaurice was so irritated by the duplicity of the 
 earl's conduct, that he upbraided sir John in terms of -the 
 most poignant aftd insulting nature. Sir John retired in 
 vexation, not to revenge the insult offered to his pride, but 
 to endeavor, by an act of base and sanguinary treachery to 
 an innocent and unoffending Englishman, to demonstrate 
 to his foreign friends, and to Fitzmaurice, the sincerity 
 of his zeal for their cause, and his monstrous hostihty to 
 the cause of the English. 
 
 o 
 
 The relation of acts so infamously treacherous, and so 
 wantonly cruel, though the duty of the historian, has 
 often the effect of diminishing our horror of its authors, 
 and too frequently accustom the human mind to read 
 without proper sentiments of honest emotion those trans-^ 
 
23S 
 
 actions wliich so degrade and blacken our species. Eveiy 
 man contemplates the assassin with vindictive indignation — 
 cverj' heart burns for satisfaction, and every eye sheds tears 
 of pity over the grave of that helpless and undefended 
 fellow-creature, who fulls under the stroke of a mean and 
 cowardly murderer. We join with Mr. Leland in tlie 
 strongest exj^ressipns of his resentment against the base 
 and abandoned treachery which sacrificed the good and 
 amiable Englishman whose story we are now about to re- 
 late, and only lament that the sufferings of the - honest 
 Irish peasant, faithful to the creed of his fathers, and to 
 the independence of his country, can never find a sympa- 
 thetic sigh of commiseration, or condolence for the mi- 
 series with which a cruel and relentless policy has visited 
 him. The humble inhabitants of the cabin are covered un- 
 der its ruins v.ithout a single recollection of their sad and 
 dismal fate ; and the fields of the native Irish arc devastat-* 
 cd by the foreign svy-ord of reformation, witliout exciting 
 in the breast of Mr. Leland a particle of that generous 
 pity which he so profusely lavishes on the tomb of the 
 murdered Englishman. This is not liberal, and should 
 not be the spirit of the historian. But to proceed : Henry 
 Davels, a gentleman of Devonshire, had for some time 
 served in Ireland ; and by the humanity and correctness of 
 conduct, endeared himself to all those of the Irish with 
 whom he came in contact. Mr. Leland Si^ys, and he takes 
 the fact from I looker, that this gentleman had frequently 
 •administered to the wants of sir John Desmond, who now 
 planned his destruction. Mr. Davels was commissioned 
 by the deputy, sir William Drury, to reconnoitre the 
 strength and position of the invaders, and to communicate 
 to the government of the pale all the information he coidd 
 collect. He was also commissioned to repair to the carl 
 of Desmond, whose disaffection was as yet unknown to the 
 deputy, to inform him that he \vould expect his co-opera- 
 tion against the common enemy. Davels, reposing the 
 most unhmited confidence in the old fjriendship wliich sub- 
 
239 
 
 sisted between liini and sir John, entreated him to jokl 
 him with his own followers, and drive tlie eneRiy from 
 their present position. Sir Jolni was deaf to his solicit- 
 ation, and Davels prepared to return to the deputy with 
 whatever information he was able to collect. On his re- 
 turn he Avas obliged to pass through the town of Tralec, to 
 which place sir John Desmond pursued him. 'Ihe house 
 in which Davels lay was surrounded at the awful and silent 
 hour of midnight; the porter was bribed, audthe assassins 
 immediately obtained admittance. They entered Davels* 
 chamber, with sir John Desmond at their head. " Wliat, 
 my son," cried Davels, when he cast his eye on sir John, 
 *' what means this brawl ?" The cowardly assassin replied 
 to his eld defenceless friend with his sword, v>hich he 
 plunged into his breast, while his barbarous followers flew 
 from chamber to chamber, making indiscriminate slaugh- 
 ter of the attendants of Davels. — Mr. Lcland wi itcs, that 
 this atrocious deed is panegyrized by O'Sullivan ; and 
 Hooker says, that Saunders, the clergyman, called it a 
 siveet sacrifice Bigotry, it is true, sometimes steels the 
 heart against every sentiment of our nature; but seldom has 
 it succeeded in so far brutalizing it as to convert the black 
 and detested crime of ingratitude into a virtue worthy of 
 studied eulogium. It is not the nature of an Irishman; 
 and the bigot historian, who triumphs in the sanguinary 
 victory of sir John Desmond over the helpless and unof- 
 fending Davels, little knew the tribunal before Avhich he 
 was about to present the fruits of his historical labours. 
 Had Davels, in his dispatches, as much information as 
 could have inevitably insurjed the defeat of the invaders, 
 as well as the ambitious views of sir John Desmond-^nav 
 more, was the independence of Ireland to be determined 
 by the committal of such an act. Irishmen would rather 
 wear their chains for ever, than be released by the iur 
 strumentality of such a hand as sir John Desmond's. Like 
 the earl of Desmond, his brother, tkey would denounce 
 
no 
 
 the murderer to posterity, and hold him up as a perpetual 
 cbjec-t of tiieir counti'v's detestation. 
 
 Notwithstanding the efforts made by the invaders to 
 rouse the native Irish, they as yet received but httle sup- 
 port, and experienced but little of that gi'eat co-operation 
 with which they were flattered by tlieii' Irish leaders. Fitz- 
 maurices oon after fell in a rencounter with one of the sons 
 of sir \^'iIUam de Bm'gho, whom he endeavoured to se- 
 duce from his allegiance. The deputy, sir William, had 
 now assembled such a force as the pale could at this period 
 (1581) afford, namely four hundred foot, and two him- 
 dred horse, and was joined by those Enghsh officers who 
 "were acquainted \nth the country through which they 
 were to march. Even the earl of Desmond came to the 
 deputy's camp with a well appointed force ; but he could 
 not conceal his dissimulation from the discerning judgment 
 of sir William Drury, who ordered him to be arrested, 
 and, for the security of his allegiance, insisted that his son 
 should be given up to him as an hostage. When we con- 
 sider the very small and insignificant number of the irjvad- 
 ing army, we cannot agree with ^Ir. Leland in despising 
 the strusrgles which were made by the Irish on this occa- 
 sion, aided by so mconsiderable a force. WTien Fitz- 
 maurice fell, sir John Desmond assumed the command ; 
 and we find by the authority- of English vrriters, Hooker, 
 Leland, &c. that nine weeks were consumed in an improfit- 
 able struggle to subdue this little invading army, aided by their 
 Irish allies. We ako find that sir Jclm Desmond suc- 
 ceeded in cutting off two hundred of the English troops, 
 by reason of his superior knowledge of the country. We 
 find tlie deputy petitioning the queen for a reinforcement 
 of six hundred men ; and, at length, conquered by fatigue 
 and want of health, retiring trom his command, and falling a 
 victim to the hardshii^s he sustained. — All these circum- 
 stances demonstrate what a nation can be made to effect, 
 when impelled by a deep and goading resentment against 
 the intolerant riolators of conscience ; and how miserably 
 
241 
 
 yfcak Is that policy which struggles to mould to its will, 
 and its fantastic despotism, those feelings which no hmuan 
 power should presume to control, and which seem to be 
 defended by Heaven against the insolence of human pride. 
 This infatuated struggle between the tyrant and the free- 
 man has been the source of infinite calamity to the human 
 race. We find Elizabeth cruelly and idly attacking the 
 civil and religious liberties of Ireland ; and the same histo- 
 rian who extols to the skies the revolution of 1638, en- 
 deavors to. blacken the character of those brave Jrish, who 
 fought and died in one of the most righteous causes that 
 ever engaged human courage. Englishmen drove Jamics 
 from the throne, because they were apprehensive that he 
 meditated the overthrov,- of their liberties. Irishmen drew 
 their swords against Elizabeth, because they experienced 
 the ruthless dominion of her intolerance, and smarted un-^ 
 der the chains of her petty tyrants. James II. was sus- 
 pected of a design to establish the catholic religior. on the 
 ruins of the protestant; but Elizabeth openly and im.pla- 
 cably tore up the roots of the catholic religion in Ireland, 
 and menaced a war of extermination against its natives. 
 Was not such a system of government Well calculated to 
 multiply the Irish armies ? and have we not seen it the 
 fruitful fountain of weakness and mortification to the per- 
 secutor, and of misery to the persecuted ? 
 
 The English army consisted of 900 men. Three hund- 
 red infantry, and fifty horse, were quartered at a place 
 called Kilmallock ; and Malby, having received informa- 
 tion that sir John Desmond lay a few miles distant froHi 
 Lunerick, marched with 600 men to attack him. The al- 
 lied army of Spanish and Irish amounted, according to 
 Hooker, to 2000, directed by Spanish officers. The on^ 
 set of the Irish army was so furious, and the battle so ob- 
 stinately maintained by them, tliat victory was for a long 
 time doubtful to which side she would incline. At length 
 the superior discipline of the English army prevniied, and 
 the Irish were pursued with considerable loss. The earl 
 
 G g 
 
242 
 
 tof Desmond wrote a congratulatory letter to Malby, -which 
 that officer was pleased to consider as a cover to some real 
 designs against the English by Desmond. Indeed the 
 suspicions so perpetually entertained against this earl by 
 the English, would naturally drive him to those acts of 
 disloyalty, which it appears his enemies were panting for. 
 The earl of Desmond's estates were viewed with the vo- 
 racious ejc of confiscation ; and circumspect indeed must 
 his conduct have been, if some act of his life could not be 
 construed by the ingenuit}' of rapacity into proofs of dis- 
 affection and rebellion. INIalby asserted that he found on 
 ihe person of Allen, the priest, who was discovered ajnong 
 the dead on the field ©f battle, certain papers, which satis- 
 factorily implicated the carl of Desmond; and upon 
 the evidence of those papers, he conceived himself justified 
 in occupying Rathkeale, a town belonging to that earl. 
 Desmond, provoked by this monstrous act of injustice, at- 
 tacked the camp of the English in the night. Malby was 
 proceeding to reduce the various castles of the earl, when 
 the intelligence of the deputy's death caused a suspension of 
 hostilities. Sir William Pelham was appointed chief go- 
 vernor, on the decease of sir William Drury. He pro- 
 ceeded to the south, and there endeavoured, as we are as- 
 sured by English writers, to prevail on the earl of Des- 
 mond, through the mediation of the earl O'Nial, to aban- 
 don his foreign allies, and give them up to the English go- 
 vernment. He was called upon to attend the governor 
 and the council, and to submit to the judgment of her 
 majesty ; and also to surrender the castle of Carrick-on- 
 Foyle. The devoted earl answered those peremptory de- 
 mands by complaints of injuries that he had suffered ; 
 upon the redress of which, he promised to establish the 
 peace and tranquillity of the country. The deputy, sir 
 William Pelham, immediately proclaimed the Irish lord a 
 traitor to the laws of the land. May it not here be 
 asked, — ^liad the earl of Desmond any grievances to redress, 
 or did he wantonly take up arms against a parental sove- 
 
243 
 
 reign, whose government was administered in the spirit of 
 mercy and toleration ? Even Mr. Lehmd will not deny 
 the existence of thg,t despotism which now goaded Irish- 
 men to madness ; which made them prefer the hazards 
 of rebellion to the persecutions of bigotry ; which made 
 war and all its calamities preferable to the lingering tor- 
 ments of religious persecution, or the disgraceful alterna- 
 tive of abandoning the religion and principles of their 
 fathers. What was the great crime with which Desmond 
 was charged by the government of the pale ? The demand 
 of redress for the unparalleled sufferings of his country. 
 What were the inducements to his enemies to refuse him 
 redress, to reject his remonstrances, and to proclaim him 
 a traitor? TheT)esmond estates were the most princely 
 anil extensive in, Ireland : would not these reward the ad- 
 venturing converts to the new belief? and was not Desmond, 
 the very person on whose widely extended property the 
 greedy eye of confiscation would cast its devouring glance? 
 Slight may the pretext be, which will satisfy the conviction 
 of the pohtical plunderer; and strong indeed ought that 
 evidence to be, which would convince posterity that the 
 earl of Desmond ought to be handed down as the unp-in- 
 cipled rebel to his sovereign, rather than the bold and ho- 
 norable defender of the political and religious liberties 
 of his countrymen. The contest was as unequal as the 
 dev'^astation was merciless : the territories of the im fortu- 
 nate earl were immediately exposed to all the horrors of 
 a licentious soldiery, and the most fruitful fields of Ireland 
 were covered with the ruins c-"" their ancient possessors. 
 Elizabeth seemed to have closed her eyes on the sufferings 
 of the Irish, and nothing short of the extermination of 
 the devoted natives would appease the murderous passions 
 of their persecutors. The castles of the earl, which had 
 surrendered to the honor of tlieir besiegers, were razed to 
 the ground, and their credulous inhabitants devoted to the 
 SNVord oj- the gallows. " It would be equally shocking and 
 tedious," writes Dr. Curry, " to recite all those wejl at- 
 
S44 
 
 tested acts of cruelty and perfidy, which are perpetrated 
 on those unhapjiy people, by the order and connivance 
 of her majesty's ministers of Ireland." So writes this hu- 
 mane and laborious inquirer after truth. He then gives 
 that miserable instance which it is our duty to detail, and 
 which alone would be sufficient to palliate the thousand 
 acts of sanguinary vengeance, that the reader of the fol- 
 lowing pages is doomed to peruse. 
 
 Soon after the earl of Desmond was proclaimed a trai- 
 tor by the deputy, bis territories were desolated by a ra- 
 pacious sokhcry, and every act of barbarous and insatiable 
 outrage practised upon the innocent and unoffending inha- 
 bitants. Nature, at length roused by the excess of suffer- 
 ing, made a desperate effort : the Irish attacked the town 
 of Youghal, which they plundered without mercj^, and cut 
 off a large detachment which the deputy had commis- 
 sioned to defend it. This partial success animated the cou- 
 rage and determination of Desmond, and we find him mak- 
 ing those artful a})peals to the religious and patriotic feel- 
 ings of his cpuntrymen, that were best calculated to rouse 
 them to a great and universal effort. The sufferings of 
 the earl of Desmond and his family, in their various strug- 
 gles for their great possessions, excite the sympathy of e- 
 very mind that contemplates tjie ancient power of this per- 
 secuted nobleman;* when we find them taking shelter in 
 the w^oods of the estates of which Desmond was the lawful 
 and honoured master, we cannot refrain from deprecating 
 that infamous principle, which, under the pretext of civil-, 
 ization, desolated the fairest portion of Ireland, and drove 
 to ruin the oldest and most respected of the Irish chieftains. 
 The various castles of earl Desmond were reduced ; and 
 the murder of the Irish in the castle of Carrick-on -Foyle, 
 
 * Desmond (according to Baker's chronicles) possessed whole coun- 
 ties, besides the county palatine of Kerry ; and had of his own iiame and 
 race, at least five hundred gentlemen at his command ; all of whom, and 
 his own life also, he lost within tke sp?.ceof three years ; very few of th« 
 house being left alive. 
 
^5 
 
 under the command of the Italian called Julio, after tliey 
 had surrendered to the British arms, may be taken by the 
 reader as an epitome of the savage warfare waged by Eng- 
 land against the comitry. Soon after, the ignorance of a 
 new deputy contifibuted to raise the almost exhausted spi- 
 rits of the followers of Desmond. Lord Grey, whose ad- 
 ministration was an uninterrupted course of the most in- 
 satiable barbarity and plunder, was appointed lord deputy; 
 land so ardent was his zeal to distinguish himself as the de- 
 stroyer of the Irish people, that it plunged him into dif- 
 ficulties discreditable and injurious to his miUtary charac- 
 ter. Ignorant of the country, he presumed to lead his 
 troops against the Irish, into the valle}' of Glendalough, 
 in the county of Wicklow ; wliich, fortified by nature, 
 and defended by enthusiasm, could bid defiance to the 
 most experienced and skilful of the British generals : Lord 
 Grey was surrounded with enemies whom he could not 
 reach, and assailed on all sides by attacks which he could 
 not return ; he lost his principal officers, and returned to 
 the seat of government, covered with confusion and dis- 
 honour. So decided a victory raised the spirits of the 
 Irish, and the arrival of an army of Italians and 
 Spaniards in the south, inspired the followers of Des- 
 mond with increased confidence and energy ; they landed 
 at a place called Smerwick ; they brought arms and 
 ammunition for five thousand men, and a large sum of 
 money which was to be delivered to the earl of Desmond. 
 The earl of Ormond was ordered to march against the 
 invaders, and sir William Winter proceeded to invest 
 the enemy by sea, whiie Ormond was collecting his 
 forces by land ; thus surrounded, the fort of Smerwick 
 was summoned to surrender ; the refusal of the Spaniards 
 and their Irish auxiliaries was bold and peremptory: 
 they went on with vigour, and the S])aniards finding it 
 impossible to hold out much longer, agreed to capitulate 
 on certain conditions, honourable to the besieged ; ]ord 
 Grey, in the confidence of victory disdained to grant 
 
246 
 
 any terms to an enemy whom he insultingly denominated 
 traitors ; from them no money could be expected ; from, 
 them no money was received : the garrison was forced 
 to surrender, and after being disarmed, were cruelly 
 butchered under the direction, and immediate authority 
 of sir Walter Raleigh.* EHzabeth, it is said, expressed 
 the utmost concern and displeasure at the atrocious and 
 barbarous scene : the continent of Europe heard the ac- 
 count of the massacre with horror, and every heart and 
 every hand volunteered in offering their services to avenge 
 such an outrage on humanity. In Ireland the effects 
 of such sanguinary proceedings were to multiply new 
 enemies, and create new insurrections ; the spirit of ven- 
 geance ran through the country proclaimmg the wanton- 
 ness of English cruelty, and appealing to all the honour- 
 able sympathies of the heart for satisfaction, and the 
 punishment of such barbarous delinquency. The seat 
 of e;overnment was threatened with a conspiracy, and the 
 principal Irish families which surrounded the metropolis 
 Avere suspected of being concerned in the plot against 
 the Encflish government. Such are the invariable con- 
 sequences of persecution ; it multiplies the evil supposed 
 to be exterminated, and the blood of the victim seems 
 to produce new enemies to the oppressor, and new prose- 
 lytes to the principle he vainly imagines he is extinguish- 
 ing. Lord Grey, in the brutality of his finy, was deter- 
 mined to make a great and signal example ; he seized se- 
 veral of the most distinguished persons, some of whom he 
 executed. Among these was Nugent, baron of the ex- 
 chequer, a man (Mr. Leland writes) of a singular good life 
 and reputation ; he was sacrificed to the blind and in- 
 
 • Dr. Cutry says, tliat a Roman catholic writer, who lived near that 
 time, thus relates the afFair we have detailed above. «' Nine hundred 
 Spaniards, except about eleven officers, were stript of their weapons, and 
 all slain or cast over the clifis into the sea, (for the fort of Smerwick 
 itood upon a mighty high rock over the sea,) notwithstanding the lord 
 deputy's word and faith unto them all for their lives, liberties, and goodSj 
 and safe conduct into Spain." Th.aUe of Caih, Rdig. 
 
^7 
 
 discriminate barbarity of the deputy, whom we soon find 
 so detested in his government of Ireland, that even he 
 can no longer bear the eternal indignation with which he is 
 surrounded ; he is weary of his station, and petitions for 
 
 his recal. 
 
 In the histoiy of this unfortunate country, the reader 
 will find numerous instances of the most unaccountable 
 passion for the destruction of its unoffending and innocent 
 inhabitants. They will wonder that the miserable unpro- 
 ductiveness of a system, so often experienced, should not 
 have induced the ministers of Elizabeth to try the mild and 
 merciful plan of equal and impartial protection ; but we 
 shall find the voracious spirit of confiscation swallowing 
 np all other considerations, and the cold blooded murder- 
 ers of the Irish rewarded with the possession of estates and 
 of titles. In Carte's life of Ormond, we read (says Dr. 
 Curry) that for the slaughter of the Irish at Limerick, and 
 at other places, sir Walter Raleigh had forty thousand 
 acres of land bestowed on him, in the county of Cork, 
 which he afterwards sold to Richard, first earl of Cork. 
 We may form some idea of the misery experienced by oiu' 
 country, during the persecution of the earl of Desmond, 
 from the following passage, quoted by Dr. Curry from 
 Spencer. He was secretary to lord Grey during his ad- 
 ministration of Ireland ; and we should conclude, from 
 the pathetic and feeling language of his narrative, was the 
 indignant observer of the wretched scene which he des- 
 cribes. *' Notwithstanding that the province of Muiister 
 was a most plentiful country, full of corn and cattle, yet 
 ere one year and a half, they were brought to such wretch- 
 edness as that any heart would rue the same ; out of every 
 corner of the woods and glyns they came creeping forth 
 upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them; they 
 looked like anatomies of death; they spake like ghosts 
 crying out of their graves: they did eat the dead carrions, 
 happy where they could find them; yea, and one another 
 goon after, insomuch as the very carcases they spared not 
 
248 
 
 to scrape out of their graves ; and if they found a plot of 
 water-cresses or shamrocs, there they flocked as to a feast 
 for the time, yet not able to continue there withal ; that in 
 a short space there was none almost left, and a most po- 
 pulous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man 
 and b«ast." Such is the description of the desolation and 
 misery depicted on one of the fairest portions of Ireland 
 by the secretary of that chief governor who was the author 
 of such unparalleled calamity. Mr. Leland says, that 
 lord Grey tyrannized with such merciless barbarity, that it 
 was represented to the queen, " that little was left in Ire- 
 land for her majesty to reign over, hut ashes and carcases.^* 
 At length lord Grey was recalled, and a pardon offered 
 to those Irish who would accept it. 
 
 The war had now nearly terminated; the forces and the 
 spirits of the earl of Desmond were nearly exhausted : 
 pursued on all sides by the indefatigable yigor of Ormond, 
 he entreated to be received into mercy. His applications 
 were rejected ; he fled for refuge to the woods and bogs, 
 and depended on the fidelity of his followers for the sup- 
 port of nature. He was at length discovered in a misera- 
 ble hut, his head cut off, and carried to the earl of Or- 
 mond : it was immediately conveyed to the queen, and 
 impaled on London bridge. 
 
 Dr. Curry writes, diat after Desmond's death, and the 
 entire suppression of his rebellion, unheard of cruelties 
 were committed on the provincials of Mimster, by the 
 English commanders. Great companies of those pro- 
 vincials, men, women, and children, were often forced 
 into castles and other houses, which were then set on fire ; 
 and if any of them attempted to escape from the flanges, 
 they were shot or stabbed by the soldiers who guarded 
 them. It was a diversion to these monsters of men to take 
 up infants on the point of their spears, and whirl them 
 about in their agony, apologizing for their cruelty by say- 
 ing, " tiiat if they suffered them to live to grovv up, 
 thei^ "would become popish rebels,'* Many of the women 
 
249 
 
 were found hanging on trees, with their cliildren at 
 their breasts, strangletl with the mother's liair. Will any 
 man who reads those atrocities, so much wonder at the 
 horrible vengeance which the Irish took upon their oppres- 
 sors, when the fortune of war in some years after left the 
 Enghsh at the mercy of Ireland ? Mr. Leland says, that 
 Desmond and about one hundred and forty of his accom- 
 plices were attainted, and their estates declared forfeited to 
 the queen. Those estates were offered to the younger sons 
 of Englishmen at three pence, in some places two pence 
 per acre, and for three years more, half only of the stipu- 
 lated rent was to be paid. In another place INIr. Leland 
 writes, that " none of the native Irish were to be admitted 
 among these tenantry." Thus the extermination of the 
 Irish was the grand principle of Elizabeth's government in 
 Ireland ; and to this infatuated and wicked principle may 
 the reader attribute all the scenes of suffering, and cruelty, 
 and calamity, which the English adventurers in Ireland 
 experienced, and which should be a lesson to future go- 
 vernments never to put in practice that system, which may 
 be visited on themselves with such dreadful veno;eance. 
 What Irishman can read the following fact, without yield- 
 ing to those honest feelings of indignation, by which the 
 hearts of our ancestors must have been enflamed to mad- 
 ness ? " Upon the attainder of the Earl of Desmond and 
 his confederates," says Dr. Curry, "not less than 574,628 
 acres of land, English measure, fell to the crown, and 
 were disposed of by queen Elizabeth to English under- 
 takers." 
 
 The death of the earl of Desmond, and the defeat of 
 his confederates, gave an interval of tranquillity to the 
 south of Ireland. That country which, under a protecting 
 government, could have contributed to enrich the royal 
 treasury, and supply its inhabitants with every comfort, 
 presented one unvaried scene of wretchedness and' desola- 
 tion : the solitude of the desert and the tranquillity of the 
 grave; — "Cw« solitudinem faciant^ pace?n aj[>peUant.'" It 
 
 H h 
 
250 
 
 mi<'lit be supposed tliat tl)e jealousy of the Anglo-Irisli 
 rulers would have been buried in the same tomb with its 
 miserable victims, yet we find Elizabeth's counsellors de- 
 termining to continue that system of division and distrac- 
 tion which had already caused such shedding of human 
 blood, and waste of Irish treasure. After the experience 
 of six hundred years of weakness and poverty, it is incre- 
 dible to suppose that Irishmen or Englishmen, in the nine- 
 teenth century, should be found to echo the sentiments 
 and opinions of some of those selfish and unenlightened 
 counsellors of Elizabeth, who thus spoke to their sove- 
 reign : — " Should we exert ourselves," said they, " in re- 
 ducing Ireland to order and civility, it must soon acquire 
 power, consequence and riches ; the inhabitants will be 
 thus alienated from England ; they will cast themselves into 
 the arms of some foreign power, or perhaps erect them- 
 selves into an independent and separate state. Let us ra- 
 ther connive at their disorder; for a v.cak and disordered 
 people never can attcn'.pt to detach themselves from the 
 crown of England."* May it not be then asked, havie 
 such been the effects of that mild and benignant policy 
 which extended to Ireland the rights and privileges of the 
 British constitution ? Have those who accumulated for- 
 tunes and obtained honors, under the protecting patron- 
 age of a free constitution, exhibited any disposition to de- 
 stroy the hand which enriched tliem, or overturn the go- 
 vernment which sheltered them? The people and the go- 
 vernment of a free country are both equally anxious to 
 defend each other; the wealth and strength of the one 
 
 " The s?.ine miserable policy recommended to Elizabeth, has been zea- 
 joufely acted vipou, even within the last litty years, rvien of talents and 
 jiiai'.sihiliry have been found among the rank of the monopolists, who 
 \vill unblushingly advocate a system, v/hich thev arc convinced leads to 
 j)ublic ruin and convulsion. Lord Clare and Mr. Foster, in our own 
 limes, have sacrificed tl.e rights and ic-elings of three-fourths of their 
 tountrymtn, to the ascendancy of a faction, of which they might be tii^ 
 Jeadcisand demigods. Such is the wretched ambition of bome men, 
 >vhf)5e talents secretly despise the duly their corruption and their vanity 
 prompt them to perforin. 
 
251 
 
 Are the wealth and strength of the other ; but the govern- 
 ment whicli rests its security en the poverty of tlie people, 
 inu:5t trust to the terror of tlie bayonet, or the cruelty of 
 penal law, for its defence against the disaffection of that 
 people it rules over. The reign we are giving a brief ac- 
 count of, demonstrates this truth in the most glaring co- 
 lours ; its policy was as impoverishing to the royal trea- 
 sury, as it was cruel and merciless to the Irish peojDle. 
 Sir John Perrot, an Englishman of whose character 
 historians speak with much admiration, was now, (IjSi,) 
 appointed deputy; and it is with pleasure we observe 
 liis honourable efforts to heal the wounds inflicted by 
 his predecessor; he was an advocate for mild and paren- 
 tal measures. Convinced of the superiority of British 
 law, in the dispensation of equal and impartial justice* 
 we find him making every exertion to comniunicate to 
 the distracted oeople of the south, those salutary re-^ula- 
 tions which were calculated to procure peace and tran- 
 quillity. The Irish meet their viceroy with con-espond- 
 ing sentiments, regard and confidence, and profess the 
 most dutiful alacrity to acquiescence; they agree with 
 .the regulations of sir John Perrot, who appoints sher- 
 iffs to the counties of Clare, Galwaj, Sligo, Mayo, 
 Roscommon, Leitrim, and assigns the presidency of 
 the whole province to sir Richard Bingham. We shall 
 now see great examples of the happy and productive 
 .effects of fair and equitable government. When sir 
 John Perrot was making his usual and salutary airange- 
 tnent in the south, an account arrives of the landing ^f 
 one thousand Scotch in Ulster: the deputy returned tp 
 Dublin, received the subscriptions of some of the Lein- 
 ster chieftains, and marched to the north. Mr. Leland's 
 reflection is liere worthy the attention of every reader : 
 " Here the appearance of a governor, renowned for 
 valour and justice, and noted especially for a humane 
 and equitable attention to the ancient natives, had a 
 sudden and powerful effect. The new arrived Scot* 
 
252 
 
 fied to tlieir ships, and left their brethren of Ulster, 
 after some ineffectual resistance, to make their peace 
 with government." Is not this fact a volume to every 
 governor of Ireland, to act towards Ireland with justice 
 and with mercy ? " The Irish chieftains crowded to sir 
 John Perrot," says Mr. Leland, "with the most zealous 
 professions of loyalty and submission." — Would the 
 cold and frozen heart of such a man as Lord Grey, 
 whose bravery was that of the assassin, and whose mercy 
 was that of the tyger ; would his appearance produce 
 an instantaneous movement of loyal and grateful fidelity 
 at the moment of formidable invar-ion ? The Irish heart, 
 which is not insensible to services, nor un^io^'getful of 
 injuries, will answer the question ; but the effects of sir 
 John Perrot's wisdom do not stop here ; he prevails on 
 the Irish to maintain a force of eleven hundred men 
 at their own cxpence, to be devoted to the service of 
 Elizabeth.* This, no doubt, astonished the men who 
 reposed no confidence in Ireland ; but such will ever be 
 the effects of a generous and manly policy. England is 
 now convinced of it, and every year adds new force to 
 its truth, and new inducements to its adoption. The 
 honorable and useful course which this wise and excel- 
 lent man was pursuing, was doomed to be interrupted 
 by those little intriguing reptiles, which sometimes un- 
 dermine the most sound and generous understandings, 
 and by misrepresentation and falsehood succeed in per- 
 verting every act, discolouring every motive, and making 
 the virtues which they hate the instruments of ruin to 
 their amiable and enlightened possessors. 
 
 " Sir John Perrot," says Mr. Leland, " ever profes- 
 sed a tender regard for the rights of the old native Irish ;f 
 
 ^ The Irish chieftains aj^reed to maintain eleven hundred men for 
 the queen, at tlitir own charge, provided they were allowed the free 
 excrci'^e of their religion, and be liberated from the ravages and op- 
 pressions of the sherflfj--. 
 
 f Tlie results of sir John Perrot's administrytion incontrovertibiy 
 prove if proof were -wanting to elucidate a self evident propositioa. 
 
253 
 
 a principle equally honorable and politic, and which na- 
 turally made him attentive to gu.ard against oppression 
 and abuses in the lower offices of administration ; and this 
 could scarcely fail of raising a number of secret enemies.'* 
 Loftus, the archbishop of Dublin, in consequence of a 
 plan suggested by sir John Perrot, to erect a university 
 in Ireland, militating against his personal interest, made 
 every possible effort to misrepresent the deputy to Eliza- 
 beth. The friend of the Irish people was immediately as- 
 sailed by all the satellites which circulate round corruption 
 and rapacity ; the queen was surrounded with a crowd of 
 whisperers against the character of sir John Perrot ; and 
 the services of a wise and faithful servant were obliterated 
 from the royal mind by the ceaseless importunities of a des- 
 picable faction. So certain was Perrot that he could suc- 
 cessfully confute his accusers, that he petitioned Elizabeth 
 to suffer him to appear before her, to justify his conduct, 
 and to confound his enemies. A Spanish invasion being 
 at the time apprehended, sir John Perrot proposed to 
 Elizabeth, as the best evidence of the regard in which he 
 was held in Ireland, and of tlie influence which he en- 
 joyed, that he would bring with him to her majesty a 
 number of Irish chieftains of the several provinces, on 
 whom the common enemy rehed for the success of their en- 
 terprize, — and that those very chiellams would be hostages 
 
 " that such a national emancipation could have been efFected, — 
 unitintj the two races, English and Irish, into one people ; obeying one 
 g;ov°rniTienf, agreeably to one coHstitutioa and system of laws, without 
 fighting a blow ; but it would not suit the inhuman policy of those who 
 •Wished to keep the Irish divided and poor to ensure their obedience, nor 
 of those blood-thirsty vultures, who sought the confiscation of a king- 
 dom, by exterminating a nation always renowned for hospitality, gener- 
 osity, sanctity, and learning; the emment benefactress of England and 
 Europe; nor the queen, whose unquenchable fury against the catholic 
 faith, required the extirpation thereof out of the land. What if the Mi- 
 lesians were exterminated by war, perished by famine, by murderous 
 banquets and negociations, sham plots ? Elizabeth could colonize t!ie 
 land, and thus get rid of the superabundant population of Ireland." Tiie 
 above reflection came from the pen of Mr. TaatFe, whose integr;ty and 
 warm feelings for his country's sufferings render his history truly valuable 
 to Irishmea. 
 
254 
 
 to her majesty for the fideh'tj' of her Irish people. The ap- 
 plications of sir John Perrot do not appear to have 
 been attended to ; for the present, however, he was 
 not disturbed in his government. The Irish parhament 
 proceeded to attaint the earl of Desmond and his adher- 
 ents; and the favourite plan of re-peopling Munsrter 
 with English adventurers, began to be acted upon with 
 vigor. Those English officers who distinguished them- 
 selves in the persecution of the Irish people, received 
 grants of large portions of Irish territory. Sir Walter 
 Raleigh, sir Christopher Hatton, sir Thomas Morris, sir 
 Warham St. Lciger, received exclusive donations ; it is 
 easy to conceive the miserable state of the poor devoted in- 
 liabitants, who still occupied those lands, whom the sword 
 had spared for the cold relentless cruelty of those unjust 
 taskmasters that were doomed to be their landlords. Such 
 ^persons as these we have named, entrusted the settlement 
 of their estates to agents, viiddle men, ignorant, voracious 
 and corrupt. They became powerful sources of that heart 
 burning vexation that found relief only in those moments 
 of public convulsion, which frequently exposed to hazard 
 the connection between England and Ireland. Had the 
 same spirit of kindness and mercy which governed the bo- 
 som of sir John Perrot, characterized those English go- 
 vernors who were sent into the diiferent provinces, much 
 advantage would have fiov>fed from the communication of 
 British laws and British customs ; but the wanton tyran- 
 ny of sir Richard Bingham disgusted them with every 
 thing English in the province of Connaught. The sheriffs, 
 and other officers of justice, enmlatcd the example of the 
 president : and the whole province presented a scene of 
 suffering on the side of the people, and the most goading 
 tyranny on the part of their governors. Sir John Perrot 
 listened with respect to the complaints of the people, and 
 summoned the president to the seat of government : the 
 Scotch invade the province, and sir John Perrot is obliged 
 
255 
 
 to take the reins of power into his own liancls, and thus 
 protect sir Richard Bingham against the consequences of 
 bis own cruelty and folly. The people of the north were 
 equally oppressed and plundered by those law officers of 
 Elizabeth. Her sheriffs were here equally odious as in 
 Connaught, and the whole system of English policy the 
 subject of general execration. About this period, Hugh 
 O'Nial, whose power was so formidable to England, ob- 
 tained from the Irish parliament the place and title of earl 
 of Tyrone; he also succeeded in obtaining the inherit- 
 ance of his ancestor, John O'Nial, by his personal appli- 
 cation to the queen. The abilities and address of this ce- 
 lebrated Irishman are described by historians as of the fu'st 
 note. Mr. Leiand thus describes him. " Less respected 
 in his sept, on account of the illegitimacy of his descent, he 
 entered easily into the service of the English government, 
 and in the rebellion of Desmond, was distinguished for In's 
 industry, activity, and valour. By an English education, 
 and a constant intercourse with the state, he added the 
 polish of English manners to a temper naturally insinuat- 
 ing and subtle ; but this refinement he could easily dis- 
 guise among his own people, and assume all the port, 
 and accommodate himself to all the barbarous manners of 
 O'Nial. He succeeded in his interviews with Ehzabeth, 
 and made the most favourable impression on her mind ; 
 she dismissed him wuth sentiments of the greatest con- 
 fidence in his zeal and fidelity to her throne and inter- 
 est. Every act of his fife, from the period of his being- 
 vested with the title and inheritance of Tyrone, seems to 
 have been auxiliary to the great scheme of asserting his in- 
 dependence against the usurpation of England. At the 
 moment most confidence was reposed, he was most securely, 
 laying the foundation of that power which became so truly 
 formidable to the British interests. Surrounded as the 
 earl was by rival chieftains, and a wily administration, he 
 has given no small proofs of great dexterity in his ad- 
 dress, and great ingenuity in his designs." 
 
S56 
 
 About this period, (1587) Ireland was deprived of the 
 kind and parental government of sir John Perrot ; and 
 the same scene of confusion and desolation which we have 
 recorded, are about to be again visited on this ill-fated 
 country, by the cruelty or the folly of his successor. The 
 Irish followed their beloved governor in tears ; and by the 
 lamentations with which sir John Perrot was accompanied, 
 when giving up his administration, we may conceive that 
 the people had a melancholy foreboding of the scenes 
 whicli were to follow. Sir Wilham Fitzwilliam succeeded 
 to sir John Perrot; and, as if it were the study of the 
 English government to undo the wise and beneficent work 
 of his predecessor, they took care to select that man whose 
 vicious and corru})t propensities could best accomplish its 
 wishes. Cruel, avaricious, and despotic, no mercy was 
 great enough to impede the progress of his sword — no 
 submission sufficiently passive to restrain the fury of his 
 despotism. After the defeat of the celebrated armada, 
 pompously stiled the invincible, seventeen ships belonging 
 to this Quixotic expedition of the Spanish monarch were 
 driven by a storm on the northern coasts of Ireland : 
 they carried five thousand four hundred men, a formi- 
 dable force, considering the then alienated state of the 
 Irish, as well as the colony. O'Ruarc, the chieftain of Breff- 
 ney, hospitably received the enemy. He flattered him- 
 self that with such co-operation, another struggle might 
 be made for the liberty of his country, and the safety of 
 his religion. The Spanish commander, however, declined 
 the overtures made to him by the Irish, and left his host 
 and Ireland to the vengeance of an enraged English gov- 
 ernor. O'Ruarc was conquered in the field, and being 
 taken prisoner, was sent to London, where he was exe- 
 cuted as a traitor. The avarice of sir William Fitzwilham 
 Avas sharpened by the reports, that the Spanish vessels 
 driven into the north, carried large quantities of gold and 
 •ilver : he sent forward his emissaries to pursue their in- 
 
257 
 
 quiries with fire and sword ; and enraged by the barren- 
 ness of his purssuit, he sacrificed sir Owen O'Toole, and 
 sir John O'Doherty to his disappointed avarice. These 
 two Irishmen were remarkable for the zeal of their loyalty, 
 and the sincerity of their fidelity. Such wanton atrocity 
 succeeded in obliterating the favourable impressions which 
 the government of sir John Perrot had made on the minds 
 of the Irish; he soon after ordered Mac Mahon, the head 
 of one of the princi;?al families in Monaghan, to be tried 
 by a jury of private soldiers, for the violation of a law of 
 which the accused was not aware, or before such law w^as 
 established in the country : the pretext was sufnciLnit when 
 the reward was taken into consideration; the estates of 
 this devoted Irish cliieftain were distributed among the 
 followers of the de})utv. The natural cifcct of such, pro- 
 ceedings was an universal abhorrence of every institution 
 recommended by England; the distribution of English 
 justice was, in the -opinion of the Irish, the dissemination 
 of ruin and desolation ; their sheriffs we/e considered as 
 executioners, and their boasted trial by jury was looked 
 on as a more plausible scheme by which their plans of 
 barbarity might be perpetrated. The celebrated saying of 
 Mac Guire, the chieftain of Fermanagh, demonstrates the 
 feelings of horror with which the Irish contemplated the intro- 
 duction of British law. Vv hen Fitawiiiiain, the deputy, 
 told Mac Guire that he intended to send a sheriff into his 
 district, he answered with a simplicity and humour pe- 
 culiar to his country — " Your sheriiF shall be welcome • 
 but let me know his eric, that if jiiy people should cut off 
 his head, I may levy it upon the country." — The jn'otest- 
 ant university of Dublin was founded about this period, 
 and notwithstanding the miserable iUiberality and narrow- 
 ness of the principles on which it was established, has 
 succeeded in giving to Ireland, and to the world, the great- 
 est geniuses in evei-y art and science. 
 
 The mind which even this partial patronage has brought 
 forth, demonstrates the abundance of intellectual v/ealtU 
 
 I i 
 
258 
 
 with which Ireland is pregnant ; and though we must ever 
 consider the seminary in which Usher, Swift, Burkci 
 Flood, Grattan, and Curran had gi'aduated, as a blessing 
 to our covnitry, yet we cannot forget that Trinity col- 
 lege has also been the nurse of every prejudice, the slave 
 of every despot, and the sycophantic tool of every bad 
 passion which has guided the helm of our country for the 
 last two hundred years. 
 
 The artful minister of Elizabeth recommended this per- 
 ennial fountain of hatred to the mere Irish, as the chief 
 monument of her antipathy to the ancient religion of 
 Irishmen ; and under the fascinating robe of national edu- 
 cation, she concealed the secret design of establishing an 
 everlasting bank of national antipathy on which England 
 might draw without the possibility of exhaustion. 
 
 Trinity college was incorporated on the 29th day of 
 December, 1591. It was to consist of a provost, three 
 fellows, in the name of more, and three scholars in the 
 name of more, Cecil, the great ami artful minister of 
 Elizabetli, was named in ths charter first chancellor, and 
 all future elections were vested in the provost and fellov.^s» 
 they were to hold theit stations for seven years, and to be 
 visited by the archbishop of Dublin, bishop of Meath, 
 vice-treasurers, tvoasarcr at war, chief justice, and mayor 
 of Dublin. Mr. Leland writes, that the institution had 
 to struggle with the poverty of the kingdom, and the re- 
 luctance of the popish party : a most extraordinary cir- 
 cumstance, no doubt, when it is considered that the ob- 
 ject of its foundation was the extinction of the Irish re- 
 ligion, and the subjugation of the Irish conscience. It 
 was one of those expedients which fanaticism is perpetually 
 furnishing to the passions of its votaries, in which we see 
 the mild and universal tolerance of the Christian sacrificed 
 to the idle and fruitless visions of the sectarian ; in which 
 the human mind is forced to move, as in a magic circle, 
 out of whose periphery neither truth is to be heard, nor 
 salvation to be obtained. Exclusive doctrines, which pre- 
 
S59 
 
 sumptuously pronounce on tlie everlasting doom of hu- 
 manity, .are no longer attended to by the reflecting or 
 the merciful : every man is suffered, (without being expos- 
 ed to the reproach of libertinism,) to follow the sugges- 
 tions of his own conscience. The comprehensive princi- 
 ples of Christianity are preferred to the contracted feelings 
 of religious monopoly, and a iiappy futurity is no longer 
 denied to be the reward of every man who conscientiously 
 follows the religion of his fathers. 
 
 It was about the year 1594, that O'Nial, the earl of Tyrone, 
 excited the suspicions of the English government, by his 
 wily and inexplicable conduct; at one time manifesting a 
 spirit of dissatisfaction, at ai)other co-operating with the 
 viceroy in the establishment of English laws and English ha- 
 bits.' On the death of Turlough O'Nial, the earl of Tyrone 
 assumed the high and important title of "theO*Nial," 
 and seized and threw into prison the sons of John O'Nial, 
 who v/ere the only bars to his ambition. The government 
 of Elizabeth in Ireland vras unable to punish such violence, 
 and was, content to receive the well-<lissembied homage of 
 this artful Irish chieftain. 1 he power of the English in 
 Ireland was now fcjrmidably threatened by the vigorous 
 and rapitl movements of O'Donnel in Fermanagh. The 
 earl of Tyrone, though so often successful in conciliating 
 the confidence of the English, Avas suspected to be the 
 principal source of all the calamities which now visite^l the 
 colony. 
 
 Elizabeth became alarmed for her English ,siibjects in 
 Irelraid, and immediately sent forward one of husr most 
 exj>erienced captains, sir John Morris, at the head of 
 three thousand veteran troopsj to put down the formidable 
 comliination with which the Irish government was threat- 
 ened. The earl of Tyrone, on this occasion, put forth all 
 the resources which an ingenious duplicity could suo-gest: 
 secrftly stirring up the most powerful Irish chieftains a- 
 gainst the English, while he was professing the most pas- 
 sive submission, and courting in the most earnest manner 
 
260 
 
 the co-opei'ation of tlie Spanish monarch, at the moment 
 lie Avas admitted to the confidence of Elizabeth's Irish go- 
 vernment. Wc cannot suppose that any other considera- 
 aion but the prudent apprehension of the formidable pow- 
 er of the Irish chieftains could have incluced the ministers 
 of Elizabeth to advise her to sooth and conciliate an enemy 
 whose guilt was so palyiable, and whose violence was so 
 flagrant. We therefore find commissioners apj^ointed to 
 treat with Tyrone and O'Donnell, and the redress of all 
 crievances of which the Irish had to complain, set forth as 
 the condition of their alliance and the price of their friend- 
 ship ; the full and free exercise of their religion, (the 
 constant prayer of Ireland,) and that the part of the coun- 
 try possessed by the rebel chieftains, should be freed from 
 the dreadful scourge of English garrisons and English 
 sheriffs. Those terms were rejected, and tlie Irish flew to 
 arms to assert their rights and privileges. Sir John Mor- 
 ris, a brave and humane soldier, marched against the ene- 
 my ; but inexperienced in a species of warfare peculiar to 
 Ireland, he was deprived of the opportunity of acquiring 
 any considerable military fame. The soldiers whom he 
 commanded were unaccustomed to th.e air as well as food of 
 Ireland; they were less patient of labour and distress, and 
 little capable of bearing up against that perpetual harassing, 
 to which they were exposed from the practice of retreating 
 within the bogs and fortresses which covered the country. 
 All those pai'ts of Ulster, which are now scenes of the 
 most improved agriculture, and the favoured seat of an 
 enrirfiing manufacture, was at the period of which we are 
 writino-, covered with woods, deep and in^penetrable to 
 the English. 
 
 It is to this ignorance of the country, that we are to 
 attribute t!ie facility with w hich the English general was 
 induced to treat with Tyrone and the Irish, who had now 
 despaired of the promised relief from Spain. The })ower 
 and menaces of the Spanish monarch occupied the entire 
 mind vi Elizabeth; and she was not displeased at any ex- 
 
261 
 
 pedient that could, even for the piomcnt, protect her 
 against the embarrassment of an Irish war. Tyrone, ex- 
 perienced in all the arts of diplomacy, did not hesitate to 
 subscribe to any conditions which might conciliate so pow- 
 erful an enemy; he agreed, in the year 1596, to admit 
 sheriffs into his country ; he surrendered the title of O'NiaJ, 
 confessed his correspondence with foreign powers, and al- 
 most agreed to become the vassal of an English viceroy. 
 O'Donnell, O'Ruarc, and Mac Guire made similar submis- 
 sions. 
 
 The affairs of the north being thus settled, sir John 
 Morris proceeded to Connaught, the scene of the most 
 wanton oppressions, by sir Richard Bingham. The pe- 
 culiar address with which Tyrone must have conducted 
 himself to disarm the resentment of his enemies, after so 
 many provocations, must compel the most partial historian 
 to allow, that the talents of the Irish chieftain must have 
 been of the first order. In answer to the charges of dis- 
 simulation and hypocrisy which Mr. Leiand brings aiiainst 
 Tyrone, in all his communications with the Enghsh qo- 
 vernmeiit, through servants of the colony, I>Ir. Taaffe 
 makes the following very just observations : — " Tyrone had 
 two incompatible interests to manage; that of the northern 
 Irish, who daily experienced such violent oppressions from 
 government as seemed to announce a settled plan for their 
 total extirpation, and that of the exterminating power, 
 which though it chose to employ him, gave him abundant 
 proof that it did not trust him, and meant to devour him, 
 perhaps the last. In all his trials (and he had severe ones) 
 he acted with great judgment, and cool steady resolution, 
 confounding his enemies and bringing home conviction to 
 the queen, her council, and her generals, by facts and 
 arguments which they were unable to withstand. It has 
 been said, he had great powers of persuasion ; they must 
 have been great indeed, were they able to deceive such 
 understandings as the ministers of Elizabeth possessed: 
 such minds as Bacon's, Cecil's, Walshinghani's. If he 
 
263 
 
 possessed talents equal to the conviction, or rather to the 
 fastination of such men as those, without truth or justice 
 on his side, he must have been the most eloquent of ora- 
 tors. The fact is, he struggled to keep the peace of the 
 north as long as it could be kept, without saciificing hia 
 religion and the interests of the northerns, which would 
 cause a general alienation of all hearts from him, and de- 
 grade him to a vile satellite of tyranny, despised even by 
 those Avhom he served. It a[)pears that Tyrone was 
 able to baffle the exertions of sir John Morris, whose un- 
 productive campaigns now began to excite the dissatisfac- 
 tioij of his sovereign ; he was ordered to surrender tlie 
 vice-regency of the colony to lord Burgh, whose charac- 
 ter fitted him for that despei'ate warfare which Ireland then 
 exhibited. Sir John Morris, a man of the highest honor 
 and most acute sensibilit}', fell a victim to the displeasure 
 of Elizabeth, and is said to have died of a brok<fn heart in 
 tlie arms of his brother. We shall pass over the various 
 subordinate efforts made by the colony to reduce the pow- 
 er of 1 .rone, and proceed to that in which Tyrone suc- 
 ceeded m obtaining a signal triumph over his enemies. 
 Tyrone detenuined to attack the fort of Blackwater ; tliis 
 fort being one of the most important depots of Eng- 
 lish strength in the north, was defended with as much spi- 
 rit as it was assailed. The English and Irish armies, head- 
 ed by two generals, not more remarkable for their valor 
 and their prowco.^, than for the rancorous antipathy they 
 entertained towards each other, seemed determined to de- 
 cide the fate of Ir; land by a single battle. Marshal Bag- 
 iial commanded four thousand five hundred foot and five 
 hundred horse, composed of those veterans who distin- 
 guished themselves in the campaigns of the continent; 
 they were opposed to an Irish army nearly of equal num- 
 bers, animated by every stinmlant that can inflame the hu- 
 man bosom. The onset of the Irish was furious and ii*- 
 rcsisiible: the English army retired before the shock, and 
 the marshal was one of the first who fell under the swor<Is 
 
263 
 
 of the Irish. Victory ahuost immediately ilcclargd for 
 Tyrone; fifteen hundred English fell on the field of bat- 
 tle; the slaughter of their principal ciricers was unex- 
 ampled : Tyrone became master of all the artillery, and 
 provisions and ammunition of the royal army, and the 
 fort of Blackwater, the great object of his ambition, sur- 
 rendered at discretion. Borlase, speaking of this victory, 
 says that, " such a victory the Irish never gained since the 
 English first set foot in Ireland." Tyrone's implacable 
 enemy, marshal Bagnal, with other principal officers, was 
 slain. The brilliant triumph of the Irish under Tyrone, 
 fanned the almost extinguished embers of insurrection in 
 the western and southern counties of Ireland. 1 he lords 
 of Lixnaw, Fermoy, Mountgarrett, Cahir, united with 
 the Irish against the English ; and the Geraldincs, who 
 were distinguished by tiie popular titles of the hiights of 
 the valley^ and the ts^hitc knights, joined tlie general confe- 
 deracy for the restoration of Irish independence. The 
 power of England never received so great a shock as at this 
 period ; and Elizabeth had suffered so much in her finan- 
 ces, and in her peace of mind, by the exasperating pro- 
 longation of the Irish war, that she would not, according 
 to the English historian, have much regretted the total loss 
 of such an incumbrance on her government. "The 
 English council," Mr. Hume writes, " were now sensible 
 that the rebellion of Ireland was come to a dangerous 
 head, and that the former temporizing acts of granting 
 truce and pacification to the rebels, and of allowing them 
 to purchase pardons by resigning nart of the plunder ac- 
 quired during their insurrection, served only to encourage 
 the spirit of mutiny and disorder among them. Elizabeth 
 therefore determined that a decided blow should be struck, 
 and that a force should be sent into Irelaiid which from its 
 magnitude must command the reduction of the island." A 
 tolerably correct idea may be formed of the resources of 
 the Irish, by the extent of the force they were now to 
 bring into the field against the English. The ear? of Eo- 
 
26k 
 
 sex, to whom Elizabeth was personally devoted, was se- 
 lected to command the greatest expedition ever sent against 
 Ireland ; he was created lord lieutenant, and put at the 
 head of twenty thousand men, with a power of pardoning 
 all treasons, of removing officers and conferring dignities ; 
 he might conduct the war as his discretion dictated, and 
 was only resj)onsible to Elizabeth, whose affections he 
 commanded with unprecedented success. Tyrone and his 
 companions in arms were undismayed by those gigantic 
 preparations of Elizabeth : the flame of liberty spread 
 through every corner of Ireland, and the glory of making 
 a great and unanimous struoole for their freedom animated 
 every bosom at tliis most eventful crisis. The earl of 
 Essex was in a short time undeceived with respect to the 
 resistance which the Irish were able to make; he was op- 
 posed in every quarter; harassed by indefatigable ene- 
 mies, who were intimately informed in all the difficulties 
 which the country possessed, and at length forced to ac- 
 knowledoe that even the great' force committed to his di- 
 rection by Elizabeth, was inadequate to the reduction of 
 so formidable a povv^er as the Irish commanded : he com- 
 plains that the great cement which held the Irish together 
 was their inveterate antipathy to the reformed religion, 
 that the priests of their own persuasions so entiiely pos- 
 sessed their confidence, that unless b}^ fraud or by force 
 something was done to reduce their power, England 
 would have little chance of making a permanent conquest 
 of Ireland. The enemies of Essex lost no time in exag- 
 gerating the disgrace of the British arms and the vainglo- 
 rious boastings of their leader. The army of the latter 
 was reduced so lov/ as four thousand, when Tyrone, who 
 expected a considerable sup})ly of arms, money and ammu- 
 nition from Spain, proposed a parley to the English gene- 
 rat. The circumstances in which Essex stood forced him 
 to embrace an offer which might be the means of retriev- 
 ing his strength. A truce for five weeks was agreed to, 
 and the usual conditions which we see the Irish demanding 
 
265 
 
 after every struggle with England, of a free exercise of 
 their religion, the restoration of their lands, and an ex- 
 emption from the English government, were agreed to by 
 Essex as a reasonable gronnd of conciliation between the 
 twOipowers. Such a treaty, with such an enemy as Ty- 
 rone, was a source of the bitterest mortification to the 
 queen, who at this time began to suspect the designs of 
 her favourite Essex. It is said she wrote to that general 
 with her own hand, a letter, of severe remonstrance, which 
 stung him so poignantly that he determined to repair im- 
 mechately to her royal presence and confront his enemies. 
 He left the government of Ireland to sir George Carew 
 and chancellor Loftus. Elizabeth was dressing in her bed- 
 chamber when Essex rushed in, covered with dust. All 
 the fond recollections of former confidence returned, 
 which succeeded in suspending the indignation her mis- 
 fortunes in Ireland had created ; but when reflection be- 
 gan to return, and pride re-assumed its place in the bo- 
 som of the queen, the bold and impetuous favourite was 
 repelled with indignity, he was ordered to confine himself 
 to his chamber, and after being examined before the coun- 
 cil, he was committed to the custody of the lor,d keeper. 
 The disgrace suffered by Essex was a sure source of tri- 
 umph to the Irish leaders ; and the co-operation of Spain 
 soon after, who sent supplies of money and ammuni- 
 tion, elevated their hopes to the highest pinnacle, of re- 
 establishing the ancient liberties of their country. Ty- 
 rone, or rather O'Nial, the title so dear to Irish vanity, 
 declared himself the champion of the holy faith^ and thus 
 backed by every passion of the huftian bosom, determin- 
 ed to make one effort more against the common enemy. 
 
 The power of the colony was never more formi aably as- 
 sailed than at the momentous crisis when its defence v»'as en- 
 trusted to a governor who was not heretofore distinguished, 
 either in the field or in the cabinet. Charles Blunt, lord 
 Mountjoy, was appointed deputy of Ireland, with full pow- 
 er to act in this country in such a manner as his own judg- 
 
 K k 
 
266 
 
 !tnent should best direct. A man of studious and se- 
 cluded habits, little of enterprize was expected from his 
 administration. lie started from his study into the field, 
 no doubt with an improved and highly cultivated under- 
 siandino- : and the results of his administration demon- 
 strated, that it did not require yedrs of practical experience 
 to make a man of his capacit}^ an efficient and successful 
 officer. Under his administration the power of the Irish 
 Ireceived the most fatal blow; under him the Irish spirit 
 Was first oblin-ed to bend to the overwhelraihff combination 
 of force and fraud ; under him England most successfully 
 practised her schemes of division among the rival chieftains 
 of Ireland ; he prosecuted the war against the Irish with 
 an uiijVrecedcnted vigour; and the fame of O'Nial, which 
 rendered the Irish so formidable an enemy, sunk before 
 the ascendant fortune of Mountjoy. The various septs 
 seceded from the standard of O'Nial, who was beaten in 
 almost every effi.n-t to recover his military reputation. 
 Mountjoy introduced a new system of wai'fare, which 
 distressed the Irish much moi'e than their accustomed 
 pitched battles witii the English ; he desolated the coun- 
 try, and thus deprived the Irish of the necessaries of life. 
 Famiiie was judged by him his most powerful ally ; and the 
 fields of Ireland, which once exhibited the fruits of in- 
 dustr}', w^re laid waste by the unpitying sword of an Eng- 
 lish army. To these evils were added the destructive 
 plan of circulating a base currency through Ireland, by 
 which the rival chieftains might be deprived of the means 
 of procuring supplies from foreign countries. This plan, 
 though it had the effi:ct of multiplying the distresses of 
 the Irish, recoiled on its authors ; for the army of the 
 English were almost beggared, and their spirit almost 
 conquered by the reflection that the reward of all their toils 
 was to be the possession of a depreciated and debased cur- 
 rency. " The hearts of the queen's soldiers," says Mor- 
 rison, " failed herewith, for they served in discomfort, and 
 came home beggars ; so that only the treasurers and pay- 
 
^ S67 
 
 masters, who were thereby infinitely enriched, had cause 
 to bless the authors of the invention." The murmurs of 
 the soldiers were so great, that Mountjoy determined to 
 give them all the occupation he could ; and with this 
 view he portioned them into small divisions, and proceed- 
 ed to the north against O'Nial, where he received the sub- 
 mission of many of the alKes of this fallen chieftain. 
 
 The south of Ireland now presented a scene of formi- 
 dable hostility, and sir George Carew was instructed to lead 
 his forces into that part of the country where the Irish 
 strength appeared to be most advantageously posted. The 
 people of the south had long complained of the oppres- 
 sion under which they suffered, the extortions of th? 
 English sheriffs, the legal murders which were constantly 
 perpetrating, on the base diabolical speculation of confis- 
 cating their properties, and the cruel and remorseless exe- 
 cution of the penal laws. The Irish historians of those 
 days vindicate the resistance of their countrymen to the pro^ 
 sel}1:izing spirit of Elizabeth, to which they attribute all th« 
 calamities under which Ireland now suffered. To the suc- 
 cessful practice of intrigue and corruption the Irish chief- 
 tains of the greatest influence were found to give their coun- 
 tenance : the rivalship of faction, the liatred of families, 
 the jealousy of those little powers into which the Irish were 
 divided, were so many instruments in the hands of sir 
 George Carew, to effect the subjugation of all. We there- 
 fore find the houses of Mac Arthy, in Munster, exhaust- 
 ing themselves in those destructive contests which left theii- 
 country exposed to the common enemy. At the time siy 
 George Carew proceeded against Munster, the Irish had 
 in a groat measure settled all their domestic feuds, and 
 from the apprehension of the commoii danger, joined a- 
 gainst the invader of their territories ; but their numbers, 
 however formidable, being commanded by separate and 
 independent leaders, jealous of each other, and restrained 
 by no superior authority, could never be able to cope 
 with the English army, under £i leader of decision and o^ 
 
268 
 
 talent, to whom all those he commanded looked up with 
 common reverence, and among whom the spirit of faction 
 and division could never enter. Against such an enemy as 
 the Irish, the weapons of corruption are more formidable 
 than the sword or the bayonet : the one would succeed in 
 dividing and weakening, the other in uniting and streng- 
 thening. Sir George Carew therefore employed the ar- 
 tillery of jealousies and suspicions among the Irish, and 
 succeeded in making the Irish chieftain the instrument of 
 his own degradation. He stooped to the meanest artifices 
 to entrap the Irish ; he would bribe the sister to betray the 
 brother, as in the case of the sister of the earl of Des- 
 mond, who was married to Dermot O'Connor ; and the 
 servant to assassinate his master, as in the case of the ser- 
 vant of the said earl, who confessed at the place of execu- 
 tion, that he was bribed b}' sir George Carew to perform 
 so hoiiorable a duty. Such were the practices by which 
 he endeavoured to effect the humihation of the Irish. 
 "When he drew his sword, the country through which he 
 passed was marked with desolation ;. a divided people fled 
 before the misery of famine ; and the principal strong hold 
 of the south fell into the hands of sir George Carew, by 
 which he completed its conquest. Peace was restored; 
 the peace of annihilation was established ; and the Irish 
 only then began to reflect on the folly of those jealousies 
 which exposed them to the fury and the avarice of the 
 common enemy. 
 
 The arms of Mountjoy and sir George Carew had al- 
 most extinguished the spirit of insurrection, when the re- 
 ports of a new supply from Spain, of men, arms, and 
 money, circulated through every corner of the kingdom. 
 For a length of time the rumor was discredited ; it was 
 supposed that the advice of O'Nial's reverse of fortune 
 might have reached the court of Spain, and prevented the 
 effort which, in the days of victory, might have secured 
 the freedom of Ireland. The Spaniards succeeded in ef- 
 fecting a landing at Kinsale in 1601, and as it generally 
 
^69 
 
 happens in all such cases, the hopes of the invaders 
 were considerably damped by the unflattering prospect 
 which the country now presented of an active and efficient 
 co-operation on the part of the Irish. O'Neil and O'Don- 
 nel, the one at the head of a considerable force from Con- 
 naught and Leinster, the other with the flower of the Ul- 
 ster forces, marched to the assistance of their foreign 
 friends, who were then besieged at Kinsale by sir George 
 Carew. The poor people of Ireland were once more ani- 
 mated with the hope of being able to recover their liber- 
 ty and to preserve theh religion ; the clergy, whom Mr. 
 Leland so often represents as the bigotted fermenters of 
 sedition, yielded to those feelings by which ever} honest 
 Irish mind was impelled, and stimulated their oppressed 
 and persecuted countrymen to a vigorous resistance of that 
 power which had inflicted such unprecedented suffering 
 throughout the land. Ihe colony, on the other hand, put 
 forth all their strength ; and the English government lost 
 no time in sending forward a large force to co-operate with 
 the lord deputy. The Spaniards received a reimbrcement, 
 and all the disaffected septs of Ireland conceived that the 
 hour of their deliverance from England had at length ar- 
 rived. The exertion was universal, and the English army 
 seemed threatened with immediate annihilalion, when 
 they are rescued by the temerity and precipitancy of the 
 Spanish commander. The English had laid siege to Cork, 
 and pressed by the army of O'Nial in their rear, they 
 were nearly starved into submission, when the Spanish 
 commander insisted that O'Nial should no longer deiay at- 
 tacking the English in their camp, who were diminished 
 in numbers, and exhausted in spirit: tiie fatal order was 
 obeyed, contrary to the advice of O'Nial, and the Irish 
 army, after a furious conflict, was disgracefully routed. 
 The various forces of which the Irish army was composed, 
 retired to their respective provinces; and O'Nial and 
 O'Donnell, stung with disappointment and vexation, froiix 
 
270 
 
 that day gave up the cause for which they had endured so 
 much toil, and incurred so much danger. 
 
 The Spanish general, don Juan, under the impression 
 that the Irish had betrayed their country, as well as their 
 allies, immediately proposed a truce with Mountjoy, 
 which, after some conferences, was granted. Mr. Leland 
 has written a speech for the Spanish general, which is not 
 more disgraceful to the liead than to the heart of' the 
 Spaniard ; he makes him upbraid the Irish, who must have 
 been so interested in the success of his enterprise, with 
 treachery, weakness, and cowardice; and he represents 
 the officer of a gallant and generous nation indulginff in 
 all the wretched effusions of pride, disappointment, and 
 mahce. We cannot subscribe to those relations, so incon- 
 sistent with the dictates of common sense, or the obvious 
 suggestions of those circumstances under which the Span- 
 iards then acted in Ireland ; but we cannot close our e^'cs 
 against the object of that historian, who, in every page of 
 liis history, struggles to obscure the character of a people 
 vho so long made a glorious resistance to the greatest des-* 
 potism in Europe. After the failure of tliis last effort, 
 O'Nial considered all further struggles as increasing 
 the calamities of his country : we therefore find him sub- 
 mitting to the humiliating conditions of Mountjoy ; and 
 almost at the moment the inveterate oppressor of his coun- 
 try, Elizabeth, was sinking into the tomb, O'Nial and his 
 gallant companions were obliged to bow to the superior 
 fortune of her arms. A tolerably correct opinion may be 
 formed of the calamities endured by the Irish nation,* 
 
 • Mr. Hume, whenever he writes of Ireland, indulges in all that 
 high and swelling tone of national ascendancy, which the conqueror 
 always assumes, when speaking of a fallen nation ; he takes but little 
 pains in ascertaining the truth of his opinions, but suffers himself to be 
 carried down the current of public rumour, which represented the 
 Irish as a wild and barbarous nation. The volume of Bede, in which 
 Mr. Hume might have read of the ancient fame of Ireland, was opea 
 to him in vain ; the testimony of Alfred to the learning of Ireland, was 
 for him recorded in vain. The integrity with which the poor people 
 ef Ireland clung to their ancient religion was, in the opinion of |Jr, 
 
271 
 
 during this remorseless struggle for her complete subjuga- 
 tion, by a view of the extraordinary prices of every ne- 
 cessary of life. If the Irishman was able to console him- 
 self with the reflection, tJiat the last act of Ireland's suf- 
 
 Hume, an additional evidence of her barbarism ; and the virtues whicU 
 should raise the Irish people in the estimation of every mind of sensi- 
 bility and honor, are the proofs of that incorrigible spirit of resistance 
 to the promulgation of those laws, and the r^itionality of that religion 
 which England so piously laboured to disseminate by fire and sword. 
 " Even at the end of the sixteenth century," writes Mr. Hume, " when 
 every Christian nation was cultivating with ardor every civil art of 
 life, that island, lying in a temperate climate, enjoying a fertile sorl, 
 accessible in ita situation, possessed of innumerable harbours, was still, 
 notwithstanding these advantages, inhabited by a people, whose custonrs 
 and manners approached nearer those of savages, than of barbarians." 
 Mr. Hume kas these observations on Ireland in his reiga of Elizabeth ; 
 but in the reign of Heary Vlll. the same historian seems to have fur- 
 gotten that he has most philosophically accounted for the barbarity 
 which he so unfeelingly charges upon that country. Speaking of the 
 cruelty and folly with which Ireland was treated by England, he says, 
 that " thrown out of the protection' of justice, the natives could tind 
 no security but in force ; and flying the neighbourhood of cities, which 
 they could not approach with safety, they siieltered themselves within 
 marshes and forests from the insolence of their unknown masters ; 
 being treated like wild beasts, they became such ; and joining the 
 ardor of revenge to their yet untamed barbarity, they grew every day 
 more intractable and more dangerous." These were the reasons why 
 Ireland, in the sixteenth century, presented such a scene of ruin, and 
 desolation, and barbarity: and they were bad reasons for upbraiding 
 a nation which had been distinguished in Europe as a principal asylum 
 of the arts and sciences. The ancient prosperity of Irish agriculture 
 is well attested by the most respectable authorities, and the reseaF.:hes 
 of the learned of modern days furnish us with proofs that even the 
 mountains of Ireland were once the seats of wealth, population and 
 refinement. 
 
 Molyneux, in a letter to the archbishop of Dublin, thus writes: 
 " Ireland has certainly been better inhabited formerly, than it is at 
 present. Mountains that are bow covered with bogs, have been former- 
 ly ploughed, for where you dig five or six feet deep, you discern a 
 proper soil for vegetation, and find it ploughed into ridges and furrows. 
 This is observable in the wild mountains between Armagh and Dundalk, 
 and likewise on the mountains of Altimore ; tlie same as I am informed, 
 has been observed in the counties of Derry and Donegal. A plough 
 was found in a very deep bog in ths latter, and an hedge with wattle* 
 standing under a bog that was five or six feet in depth. I ha>e seen 
 likewise large old oaks grow on land that had the remains of furrows 
 and ridges, and I am told that on the top of a high n.ouutain in the 
 north there are yet remaining the streets, and other marks oii a large 
 town : and in truth there are few places, but either at present, or when 
 the bog is removed, exhibit marks of the plough, which must surely 
 have proved the country formerly to be well inhabited." 
 
 Morrison, from whom Mr. L^Iand takes the burthen of his relation 
 during the iti^n of Elizabeth, and who acconipa.uied Mountjoy during 
 
Ti2 
 
 fering closed with the hfe of Ehzabeth, and tliat its devot- 
 ed inhabitants were hereafter to enjoy the blessings of pro- 
 tection and tranquillity; the blood which had been shed in 
 the defence of this licentious liberty, enjoyed by the various 
 septs into which Irishmen .were divided, and by which 
 they were so often distracted and convulsed, would not 
 be considered a dear purchase for the establishment of 
 legitimate government, and the impartial dispensation of 
 justice. The most ardent lover of Irish freedom might 
 not have lamented the overthrow of a system which con- 
 
 the ferocious progress of that deputy's arm through I reland, bears testi- 
 mony to the prosperous state of the Irish agricuUure, even in the six- 
 teenth century. " I was surprised," be writes, " at the beauty and fer- 
 tility of O'Moore's country, and the neat manner in which it was laid 
 out for tillage." Giraldus Cambrensis, one of the most malignant and 
 preju<liced writers of Irish misfortune, gives the following picture of 
 Ireland ; " The plains are fertile in corn, the mountains are covered 
 with llock.5, the woods abound with game ;' also, " This island is rich 
 in pasture and agriculture, in milk, in honey, and in wines, though 
 not of its own growth," Staniluirst says, that Ireland was known to 
 be rich in mi! es of different metals. Donatus, bishop of Fesul, near 
 "Florence, who wrote eleven centuries back, aflirmed, that Ireland 
 abounded with gems, cloth and gold ; the great plenty of gold is attest- 
 ed by the quantity of plate used by the sovereigns of Tara, and in 
 churches throughout the kingdom. The lofty golden goblets, which 
 distinguished the ancient Irish feasts, are an evidence of the luxury of 
 private families. With respect to the ancient commerce of Ireland, 
 Tacitus, in his lifeof Agricola, aflirms that the harbours of Ireland were 
 mor« frequented by foreign merchants, than Britain, and that Ireland 
 connected the most powerful provinces of the empire, by a great com- 
 mercial intercourse." Notwltiistanding the denunciation of Mr. Hiime 
 against the civilization cf ancient Ireland, we mu*t totally reject his- 
 torical evidence, or admit that Ireland was the mart of civilization and 
 science for the west of Europe.. H>^r hospitality and learning, are ex- 
 tolled by all the writers of the middle ages: from all parts of Europe, 
 its youtii llocked hither in crowds, and Irish proftssord laid the fir^t 
 foundation of seminaries and universities abroad. 
 
 The ancient state of Irish learning, so flattering to the pride of an 
 Irishman, is proved beyond the possibility of controversy. There is not 
 a fact in history wiiich may not be dispwtedj if we hesitate lo give 
 credit to the testimonies in favour of our ancient literature. Bede, Usher, 
 Camden, abound with evidence in support of the ancient literary fame 
 of Ireland. Camden, speaking of Sulge.'.ius, who flourished in the tenth 
 centufy, thus writes; " He was sent into Iseland for his education : . 
 he weni hither ,to court the muses in a land far famed for admirable 
 wisdom ; and our English ancestors appear to have borrowed thence 
 their alphabet, as they formerly used the same which is etnployed to 
 this day in Ireland; so that Ireland was adorned with the splendor of 
 genius in those ages, when the rest of the Christian world lay immured 
 ■jjn darkness." 
 
273 
 
 tained in its principles such fruitful seed of anarchy and 
 weakness ; and the introduction of English laws and cus- 
 toms would have been received by the patriot and the phi- 
 losopher as the heiiler of those woinids with which the 
 fugitive and cowardly wars of nearly five centuries had 
 disfigured his country. The scenes which are to follow 
 afford no such consolation to the afflicted reader; the 
 cruelty of the sword only gives way to the more torturing 
 cruelty of the law ; and the ambition of the soldier, which 
 so often threw a ray of glory over the most dreadful ca- 
 tastrophe, is hereafter to be succeeded by the creepino- 
 and insidious artifice of the legal trader on the feelings and 
 the miseries of Irishmen. Elizabeth succeeded in break- 
 ing down the hitherto untameable spirit of Ireland ; and 
 prosecuted the war against a brave and conscientious na- 
 tion, with a fear and barbarity almost unexampled in thei 
 annals of history. 
 
 By an unrelenting system of oppression and violence she 
 overturned a power which had existed for thr^ee thousand 
 years; a power which sometimes greatly struggled with 
 difficulties, was often distinguished by its splendor, its 
 glory, and its intrinsic benefit to mankind ; renowned for 
 its sanctity, its 4earning, hospitality, charity, valor, and 
 lionor. This country, which an insatiable thirst of do- 
 minion and avarice laid waste with such unpitying desola- 
 tion, had once the merit of diffiising through the nations 
 of Europe religion, learning, and the arts ; a proud and 
 consoling fact, to which the high and undisputed authority 
 of Bede, Alfred, and Camden, bear a willing and ingenu- 
 ous testimony. 
 
 Ll 
 
rFis 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Jmnes L 
 
 . Notwithstanding the calamities which the peo 
 , ' „* pie of Ireland had suffered for their fidelity to 
 their religion, we have still to witness the exis- 
 tence of a spirit which no persecution short of annihilation 
 seemed wholly able to extinguish. On the death of Eliza- 
 beth, a gleam of hope animated the bosom of Ireland, tmd 
 the character and policy of the queen's successors gave her 
 some reasonable grounds for supposing that the sword 
 would be sheathed, and that her ancient religion would no 
 longer be a subject of reproach, or of penalty. Foreign 
 powers took advantage of the interval of , peace which the 
 death of Elizabeth bestowed upon Ireland ; and to the in- 
 dustry with which they inculcated the principles of unap- 
 peasable hostility to the doctrines of the reformation, may 
 be attributed a great portion of that jealousy and hatred 
 entertained by James and his counsellors against the ca- 
 tholics of Ireland. The extirpation of the catholic and 
 his religion, was considered as the only mode of securing 
 the power of England against the perpetual experiments 
 of foreign powers. Mountjoy, therefore, marched into the 
 south of Ireland, determined to extinguish the rising spi- 
 rit of insurrection : Cashel Clonmel, Limerick, which had 
 declared for the free and public exercise of catholi- 
 city, submitted to the discretion of the deputy. The 
 public heart was now so completely broken down, that the 
 
215 
 
 government of James conceived it a proper season to allay 
 the jealousies and apprehensions of the Irish, by freeing 
 them from the dreadful vengeance of those laws which 
 had been so lately violated. For this purpose, an act 
 of oblivion and indemnity was proclaimed throughout the 
 countr}'^; all offences against the crown, committed at 
 any time before the king's accession, were pardoned, and 
 the whole body of the Irish yeomanry were received into 
 his majesty's most gracious protection. This was the last 
 act of Mountjoy's administration. Soon after, he return- 
 ed to England, accompanied by the earl of Tyrone and 
 Roderic O'Donnell. They were both graciously received 
 by the king, who confirmed Tyrone in all the honors of 
 his house. The extension of English law, and the estab- 
 lishment of public justice followed the restoration of pub- 
 lic peace ; and if we are to credit the authority of sir John 
 Davis, (one of the itinerant judges who visited the pro- 
 vince of Ulster,) the common people experienced great 
 comfort from the overthrow of that petty oppression mider 
 which they had been accustomed to live. 
 
 Sir Arthur Chichester succeeded lord Mountjoy, as 
 governor of Ii'eland ; and in his government we find the 
 work of reformation advancing with rapid strides. He 
 suppressed the sept of the O'Byrnes of Wicklow, and con- 
 verted their territory into an English county ; he estab- 
 lished courts of justice in Connaught, and restored the 
 circuit of Munster ; he abolished the old Irish customs of 
 tanistry and gavelkind. Irish estates were made descend-* 
 able according to tlie course of the common law of Eng- 
 land. The Brehon jurisdiction was set aside,* and the na-* 
 
 • By the Brehon law or custom, every crime, however enormous, wa» 
 punished, not witli death, but by a fiue, or pecuniary mulct, which was 
 levied upon the criminal. Murder, according to the best authorities, 
 was a crime particularly excepted, as one for which nothing short 
 of the forfeiture of the offender's life could make atonement. The 
 customs of gavelkind and tanistry were attended with the same ab- 
 lurdities in the ddstribution of property. Upon the death of any p«r- 
 
276 
 
 tive Irish were admitted to all the privileges of English 
 law. The im})artial dispensation of justice conciliated the 
 affections of the peojtte, who had so long suffered under 
 the tumultuous violence of the Irish chieftains. The next 
 important measure adopted by James, was the settlement 
 of }>roperty, correctly ascertaining the rights of indivi- 
 duals. For this purpose a commission of grace was is- 
 sued under the great seal of England, for securing the 
 subjects of Ireland against all claims of the crown. From 
 various motives, from tear of the past, and from apprehen- 
 sion of the future, to guard against the vengeance of the 
 crown, as well as to improve their tenure for life, to an es- 
 tate in fee, numbers surrendered their lands, and received 
 them back again as the tenants of the crown. The poor- 
 er classes of the- community were protected against the ex- 
 action of their landlords, by the certainty of an annual 
 rent, beyond which the landlord could not advance his 
 claim. Just regulations gave every man a valuable inter- 
 est in the lands of which he was the master : and building, 
 planting, cultivation and civilizadoa, were their immediate 
 fruits. The towns soon followed the example of the 
 country, and new charters, granting new privileges, were 
 liberally substituted for the old discouraging charter 
 under which they had heretofore exercised their power. 
 The benefit which vvould have flowed to Ireland 
 from that mild and conciliating system upon which 
 the servants of James had hitherto acted, would soon have 
 obhterated the remembrance of all that violence of which 
 we have given an account, were it not that the viru- 
 lence of religious animostiy was doomed to succeed to the 
 
 son, his land, by the custom of oravelkind, was divided among' all the males 
 of the sept or family, boih babiarci and iegititi&ate ; and after partiiiou 
 made, if any of the sept died, h^s portion was not shared out among- his 
 sons; hut the chieftain, at his discretion, made a new partition of all the 
 lands belonging- to that sepi, and gave every one his share. As no man, 
 by reason of this custom, enjoyed the fixed property of any land, — to 
 build, to plant, to inclose, to cultivate, to improve, would have been so 
 much lost labour. 
 
277 
 
 desolation of the sword, and the bigotry oF the monarch 
 ao-ainst the ancient religion of Ireland, to the hostility of 
 his country against her rights, her independence, and cha- 
 racter. It was reasonable that the Irish people should have 
 flattered themselves with protection from that monai'ch 
 who had so often made professions of his attachment to 
 the head of their religion; but when he came to the 
 throne, he had to consult the prejudices of the puritans 
 of England — ^at this period the most powerful religious 
 party in his dominions. James therefore issued his pro- 
 clamations against the catholics ; he commanded all Jesu- 
 its to leave the kingdom, unless they conformed to the es- 
 tablished religion. 
 
 Such violent proceedings excited the apprehensions of 
 all the old English catholic families of the pale, who im- 
 mediately determined on presenting a remonstr^ce to the 
 rnonarch. Then' petition was answered by the arrest of sir 
 Patrick Barnwall, who was soon after sent a prisoner into 
 England. The boldness with which the catholics demand- 
 ed the toleration of their religion, encouraged the circu- 
 lation of a rumour that a conspiracy was forming by the 
 principal Irish chieftains, Tyrone and Tyrccnnell, to 
 seize upon the Irish government, and assassinate the de- 
 deputy and liis council. The interest of both Tyrone* and 
 Tyrconnel were so opposed to any plan of this kind, their 
 reconcilement with the English government so complete, 
 and their restoration to their ancient honors and estates so 
 well established, that the most impartial historians have 
 concluded, that such a conspiracy only had existence in 
 the minds of those who contemplated new confiscations of 
 Irish property. The plan had the desired eiFect ; both 
 Tyrone and Tyrconnel felt that it would be an idle display 
 of courage to confront their enemies, or to demand jus- 
 
 * Tyrone was at this time so closely looked after, that he was heard to 
 complain, " that he had si> jnany eves watching over him, as that he could 
 not drink a full carouse 4)f sack; but the state was advertised thereof in 
 a fgw hours." — Sir J»/m Davis' /tist»r^. 
 
278 
 
 tice from that power wliich appeared to be the secret in- 
 strument of the confederacy against their lives and pro- 
 perties. They therefore fled to the continent, and aban- 
 doned their vast possessions to the disposal of the crown.* 
 The greatest and most valuable parts of Ulster escheated 
 to the crown ; and James was then put in possession of a 
 country into which he might introduce the principle and 
 tlie practice of English laws. A petty insurrection of sir 
 Cahir O'Dogherty gave new pretexts to the enemies of the 
 Irish, to extend their plans of confiscation ; and six nor- 
 thern counties, Tyrconnel, now called Donegall, Tyrone, 
 Derry, Fermanagh, Cavan and Armagh, amounting to 
 about five hundred thousand acres, were now at the dis- 
 posal of the Englisli monarch. *' James," says Mr. 
 Leland, " who affected to derive his glory from the arts of 
 peace, resolved to dispose of those lands in such a man- 
 ner, as might introduce all the happy consequences of 
 peace and cultivation ; the experience of ages bears the 
 most honorable testimony to the design ; and Ireland must 
 gratefully acknowledge that here were the first foundations 
 laid of its affluence and securit}'." Such are the obser- 
 vations of an Irishman, after relating the calamities endu- 
 red by the devoted people of the north, who vv-ere ban- 
 ished from their properties, and sacrificed to the ambition 
 or the avarice of English adventurers.f The lapse of two 
 
 • Tyrone fled privately into Normandy, in 1607, thence to Flanders, 
 »nd thence to Rome, where he lived on the pope's allowance, became 
 blind and died in the year 1616; his son was some years after found 
 strangled in his bed at Brussels, and so ended his race. — -Borlase's reduc- 
 ttaa of J) eland. 
 
 f It has been said by some historians of the pale, that many of the 
 eatholic natives were permitted to settle on these plantations, and even to 
 purchase some part of them; but it appears from the testimony of sir 
 Thomas Philips (an unquestionable authority in the estimation of the 
 Anti-Irish historians,') that "the fundamental ground of this plantation 
 was the avoiding of natives, and the planting only with British." The 
 O'Farreils of the county of Longford, in their remonstrance, November 
 JOih, 1641, set forth that "the restraint of purchase in t/n mere Iris/:, cf 
 lands in ibe escheated counties, and the taint and blemish of them and 
 their posterity, did more discontent then, than that plantation rule; for 
 that they were brought to that extreme of poverty in the^e late times, 
 tint they must be sellers and not buyers oi laad. — Borlasii IrUh rebellion. 
 
279 
 
 hundred years lias given to the north of Ireland the ad- 
 Vantage of encouraged industry ; but it is impossible, even 
 at this distant period, not to contemplate with the most in- 
 dignant feelings the infamous means by which the native 
 Irish were plundered of their property and their privileges. 
 James brought together his most celebrated counsellors to 
 advise with him on the new distribution and division of the 
 confiscated lands of Ireland. Sir Arthur Chichester was 
 the principal anatomist on this occasion, and aided by the 
 illustrious lord Bacon, we find him recommending the 
 Scotch and the English to tlie special favor of his sovereign. 
 The Irish were to be particularly excepted from the list 
 of those who were to be the future proprietors in the north 
 of Ireland. The scheme adopted in the distribution of the 
 lands of Ulster was different from that which had been 
 acted upon by Elizabeth in Munster ; they were divided 
 into different proportions, the greatest to consist of two 
 thousand English acres, the least of one tliousand, and 
 the middle of fifteen hundred. The regulations by which 
 James distributed the lands of Ireland among his EngKsh 
 and Scotch subjects, were such as were calculated to give 
 security and encouragement to the possessor. They were 
 bound to build and to plant, they were to let their lands 
 at determined rents, and for no less term than twenty-one 
 years, or three lives, the tenants' houses to be built after 
 the English fashion ; and in all their customs and habits 
 they were obliged to assimilate as close as possible to those 
 of the country from whence they came. The city of Lon- 
 don took a leading part in the settlement of Ulster ; they 
 accepted large grants in the county of Derry, they stipu- 
 lated to expend twenty thousand pounds on the plantations, 
 to build the cities of Derry and Coleraine, on the condi- 
 tion of enjoying such privilege* as would ensure them com- 
 fort and respectability. Care was taken by James that the 
 clergy should be provided for, the churches rebuilt, and 
 funds established for their preservation. Such was the 
 foundation on which the north of Ireland has risen to its 
 
280 
 
 present flourishing condition ; and, as in other great re- 
 Volutions, we no longer reflect on the sufferings of the an- 
 cient inhabitants, when contemplating the wealth and hap-' 
 piness of those who have succeeded them. The work of 
 plantation was so prolific a source of aggrandizement to 
 English adventurers, that the reader should not be sur- 
 prised to see every expedient which the confusion of past 
 times could offer to avarice and to ambition, adopted to 
 multiply new confiscations and new revolutions of proper- 
 ty. In the turbulence of rebellion lands were industriously 
 concealed and detained from the crown, old records were 
 explored, and such concealments were detected. The 
 old possessors were obliged to abandon their lands, or to 
 compound for their retention. Such services towards the 
 British monarch, and such practices towards Ireland ob- 
 tained for sir Artlmr Chichester, the lordship of Inni- 
 showen, the extensive territory of O'Doghcrty. The 
 pains and penalties of recusancy were inflicted Avith rigor, 
 and the taking of the oath of supremacy was the essential 
 and necessary qualification of every Irishman who wished 
 to enjoy either an office of honor or emolument. Without 
 the acknowledgment of the king's supremacy the magis- 
 trate might be deprived of his commission, and the lawyer 
 stripped of his robe. Mr. Leland observes, " that the 
 indolence and acquiescence to which the errors of pope- 
 ry reduce the mind, added to the shame of deserting their 
 communion, seem to have kept back these men from any 
 advances towards conformity." We must confess we 
 would rather attribute the obstinacy of the Irish gentle- 
 man on this occasion, the magistrate, or the lawyer, to the 
 conscientious sense of the obligations they owed to that 
 religion which they were instructed to believe was the best. 
 We should suppose that their obstinacy Avas the offspring 
 of an honest conviction of the truth of the principle to 
 which they clung, and not the base and interested progeny 
 of pride, folly, or custom. If Mr. Leland was to be de- 
 prived of his rights, because he refused acknowledgifig 
 
281 
 
 the supremacy of the pope, we should not consider it a 
 very liberal conjecture that Mr. Leland refused the oath 
 from obstinacy rather than from principle. Such a feeling 
 could never endure very long. In an individual, the pride 
 of an insulted mind may be found to resist the united ef- 
 forts of force and fraud ; but in the mind of a nation, the 
 sentiment must have a broader foundation ; it must be t\m 
 conviction of the truth of the principle to which it ad- 
 heres, and not a passive obedience to custom or to fashion. 
 
 Cliichester, having witnessed the progress of discontent 
 with considerable apprehension for the security of his go- 
 vernment, determined on convening a parliament. Twen- 
 ty-seven years had elapsed since any parliament was held 
 in this kingdom, in consequence of the extraordinary re- 
 volution which had taken place in the state and circum- 
 stances of Ireland. The new parliament promised to be 
 a more faithful representative of all its mixed inhabitants 
 than any which had hitherto preceded it. 
 
 Seventeen new counties, and a great number of newly 
 created boroughs were to be added to the general repre- 
 sentation. The convening of this parliament, in 1612, a- 
 larmed the minds of the Irish. From the new arrange- 
 ments, the creation of counties and boroughs, the influence 
 of the government was supposed to be increased to an a- 
 larming extent. The Roman catholics suspected the in- 
 tegrity of Chichester's design in calling a parliament ; and 
 their principal leaders, meh of distinguished consequence in 
 the pale, lords Gormanston, JSlane, Kileen, Trimi>leston, 
 Dunsaney, and Louth, addressed a letter to the king, in 
 which they boldly remonstrated against the calling of the 
 parliament. This letter being considered by James as too 
 bold in its language, was contumeUously rejected. The 
 trade of parliament went on ; the 'U)roughs were multi- 
 plied to forty ; the recusants, or, in other words, the in- 
 dependent Irish party, raUied their friends; tlie clergy 
 co-operated in stimulating the people to a vigoious effort 
 
 M m 
 
282 
 
 against further innovations, and every hand and every 
 heart were engaged in the grand contest for the rights 
 iuid privileges of Irishmen. The cathohc lawyers display- 
 ed unprecedented activity, and notwithstanding the exer- 
 tions of government, succeeded in beating their enemies 
 at the majority of the elections. 
 
 Notwithstanding the apparent triumphs of the country, 
 or catholic party, the government had so managed the 
 old and the new boroughs, that on counting the parlia- 
 mentary numbers there appeared one hundred and twenty- 
 five protestants, and one hundred and one catliolics.* — A 
 contest of a singular nature took place on the appointment 
 of the speaker. — Sir John Davis, the Irish attorney-gen- 
 eral was recommended by James. Sir John Everard, a 
 justice of the king's bench, was the favourite of the coun- 
 try party. The btrugglc was so violent, that the party of 
 sir John Davis seated him in the lap of sir John Everard, 
 who had been previously put by his friends into the speak- 
 er's chair. The violence of parties had now so highly in- 
 flamed the public mind, that Chichester felt it necessary 
 to endeavor to calm the rismg tempest by mild and con- 
 
 • ^Xhout the 18th of May, 161«, the lord deputy, with all the peers 
 of the realm, and the clergy, both bishojis and archl)i»hops, attended in 
 sci'.riet robes, very sumptuously, with sound of trumpet. The lord Da- 
 vid Barry, viscount Buttevant, bearing the s>word of state, and the earl 
 of Thomond bearing the cap <!f maintenance; and after all these the 
 lord deputy fiJlowed, riding upon a most stately horse, very richly trap- 
 ed ; himself attired in a very rich and stately robe of purple velvet, 
 which the king's majesty had sent him, liaving his train borne up hv eight 
 gentlemen of worth. 'I'hey rode from the castle «.f Dublin to the ca- 
 thedral church of St. Patrick, to liear divine service, and a sermon 
 preached by th.e reverend father in God Charles Hampton, arclibiihojj 
 of Armagh, and primate of all Ireland. But as many of the nubility of 
 Ireland were catholics, they did not jjo into the church; neither heard 
 divine service or sermon, notwithstanding they were lords of the parlia- 
 ment iiouse, but ihey staid without during the time of service and ser- 
 mon. Now when service was done, the lord deputy returned l)ack to 
 the castle, these recusant Icrds joining themselves again wiih the rest of 
 the state, and rode to the castle, in manner as they came from thence, 
 where the parliament was held — this was the first day of its meeting.— 
 Dcsider. Cuus. Hibcr. Vol. I. 
 
S83 
 
 ciliatlng remonstrance. The puritans, inflated with all 
 the hideous spirit of sectarian despotism, murmured at 
 the policy of the deputy, and, in the genuine language of 
 the inquisition, called for the ri^id enforcement of the 
 penal statutes to establish an obedient conibrmity to their 
 reljoion. 
 
 The shameful multiplication of the meanest and most 
 mercenary sycophants, by tiie late creation of boroughs, 
 roused the pride and the indignation of the catholic no- 
 bility and gentry of Ireland. It was, no doubt, a painful 
 reflection to the independent Irish mind, to have witness- 
 ed the degratled and humbled state to which their country- 
 men were reduced. To see a whole catholic nation, a par- 
 liament, with the exception of the immediate hirelings of 
 govei'n,ment, almost all catholic ; the great majority of the 
 army catholic : to see such a power as this lorded over by 
 a few adventuring innovators from England and Scotland, 
 who composed the administration and filled the offices of 
 the crown, must have greatly afflicted the heart, and 
 roused the vengeance of a high-spirited country. The 
 catholics boldly remonstrated with James against the in- 
 dignities under which they suffered. They ordered the 
 lords Gormanston, Fermoy, Hussey, Luttrel, and Tal- 
 bot, to repair to the British monarch and to seek the im- 
 mediate redress of such intolerable grievances. It is said 
 that James received their complaints with good temper and 
 kindnes; he agreed that commissioners should be sent 
 into Ireland, to ascertain the justice of the Irish remon- 
 strance. Even such a concession as this from James ele- 
 vated the hopes of the catholics ; and one of their dele • 
 gates, sir Jauics Gough, triumphantly announced, on his 
 return to Irelaud, the intention of the British monarck 
 to tolerate the catholic religion, and redress the injuries 
 of which his Irish subjects had complained. The hypo- 
 crisy of the king was not even now discovered by the 
 Irish catholics; the professions of a tolerant and iiber;ii 
 
2S4 
 
 «pirit, which James so often made to Ireland, appeared t» 
 be part of his system of division and weakness. He 
 would raise tlie hopes of those he wished to destroy, and 
 promise toleration to the religion of Ireland, in order 
 that he might the more effectually eradicate it. He sum- 
 moned the Irish delegates to his council, and in a tone of 
 insulting and ignorant mockery, told them that no system 
 of government would content the Irish. " You would," 
 said James, " have the kingdom of Ireland like the 
 kingdom of Heaven." Notwithstanding the practices 
 which we have detailed* and by which his Irish subjects 
 were so msulted and oppressed, this monarch, in the style 
 and spirit of a despot, thus addressed the delegates of the 
 Irish nation. 
 
 "In the matter of parliament, you have carried your- 
 selves tumultuously arid undutifully, and your proceedings 
 have been rude, disorderly? and inexcusable, and worthy 
 of severe punishment, which, by reason of your submis- 
 sion, I do forbear, but not rejnit till I see your dutiful 
 carriage in this parliament, where by your obedience to 
 the deputy and state, and your future good behaviour, 
 you may redeem your past miscarriage, and then you may 
 deserve, not only pardon, but favor and cherishing." 
 
 The spirit of the country party could not be restrained 
 by such language, even coming from the throne; and 
 they continued the sam^ uninterrupted opposition to 
 every measure which trespassed on their religious or 
 political hberty. The court and country party being 
 nearly equal in numbers, began to see the injuries which 
 must flow from the perpetual fire of mutual recrimination. 
 The court ceased te practise on the feelings of the people 
 by measures of violence, and the friends of the people 
 gave up the rigid spirit of resistance to every recommen- 
 dation of the crown. ^All parties now drew together in 
 pavlifanent and agreed to recognise by an express lavf 
 the king's title to the crown. They passed an act, in 161 i, 
 
S85 
 
 for the attainder of the earls of Tyrone, Tyrconnell, and 
 sir Caliir O'Dogherty. The old and sanguinary statutes 
 against the native Irish, by which those within the pale 
 were permitted to treat their devoted countrymen as spies, 
 were repealed; and all distinctions between the native 
 Irish and the colonists, completely done away. For these 
 great and comprehensive blessings, the king's treasury was 
 speedily enriched by the gratitude of his Irish subjects. 
 James acknowledged the liberal contributions of Ireland 
 to the public expenditure, and pledged himself to watch 
 over her interests with indefatio;able zeal. 
 
 The next subject of importance which occupied the 
 Irish government, was the framing a public confession 
 of faith for the Established church of Ireland. Doctor 
 James Usher, so distinguished for his learning and talent*, 
 was selected to perform this difficult undertaking. He 
 drew up a profession which consisted of no less than one 
 hundred and four articles, some of which the British 
 sovereign v.-as known to have dissented from ; but the rigid 
 Calvinism of Usher would compromise with no authority. 
 The success attendant upon the great northern plantation 
 had now encouraged James to make a similar experiment 
 in the southern countries. He determined, therefore, to 
 send forth his agents of discovery, who would easily estab- 
 lish the royal claim to all the lands which its avarice or 
 its despotism might think proper to possess. The political 
 inquisition soon discovered that all that fine trtict of coun- 
 try between the river of Arklow and that of Slanc}'-, was 
 the property of the crown, that the counties of Leitrim, 
 Longford, and Westmeath, were either at a very early 
 period vested in the British crown or forfeited by the 
 rebellion of its inhabitants. 
 
 King James thus had to distribute among his English 
 f<illowers no less than four hundred thousand acres. It is 
 not wonderful that the Irish, who were banished from their 
 houses and their lands, whose families and whose proper- 
 ty were tlius sacrificed to the enliohtened lesislaticn of 
 
286 
 
 king James, should be hereafter found revenging themselves 
 on the successors of those Englishmen who had raised for- 
 tunes on their ruins? It is not difficult to present to 
 the imalgination of the reader of sensibility, the wide and 
 dismal distress which the expulsion of the tfiousand fami- 
 lies that covered such an extent of country, must have cre- 
 ated. It is not difficult to conceive the heart burnings 
 it must have caused, and the unappeasable vengeance with 
 which it must have filled the human bosom; yet there are 
 some men who will express surprise at the barbarous 
 scenes of retaliation which we shall have to record. I'he 
 man who reflects will see that they are the necessary effects 
 of despotism, and the natural vent through which the 
 abused and suffi?ring heart ever looks for relief. 
 
 Sir Arthur Chichester was recalled to England before 
 his last work of regeneration yas coiniilete. He was 
 succeeded in his ad.i:inistration by sir (Jiive; St. John, 
 vvrhose conduct in parliament promised but little indulgence 
 to the religion or conscience of Ireland. He banished the 
 priests by proclamation ; an act of mercy, ui the opinion of 
 Mr. Leland, to the poorer catholics, who were so intolera- 
 bly oppressed by the clei'gy, an idle and factious tribe. It 
 is strange with what fidelity the poorer catholics clung to 
 such oppressors ; but sir Oliver St. John, whom the same 
 historian panegyrizes for his vigor and his decision, does 
 not stop here. He compels all magistrates to take the oath of 
 supremacy.* The severity of such government called forth 
 the remonstrances of the catholic continental powers, who 
 Tsrere always alive to the suffi;rings of the Irish catholics, 
 and whose power so often interposed to blunt the sword of 
 persecution. Such interference had the effect of remov- 
 ing the English deputy, and thus rescuing the Irish from 
 
 ♦ All the counsellors at law that were in Ireland, who would not take 
 the oacJi of supremacy, were put from pleading of causes in any of the 
 four courts, or elsewhere, to speak for clients ; likewise such as were 
 pensiouers, that would not take the same oath, were discharged of their 
 pensionsi 
 
287 
 
 the fanatical violence of a sanguinary sectarian. The Irisli 
 people had flattered themselves, that the consequence of 
 removing sir Oliver St. John, would liave been an indul- 
 gence to their religious feelings, and that an adherence to 
 the practice of their church would be no longer consider- 
 ed incompatible with the sincerest loyalty. They therefore 
 openly attended the duties which their religion prescribed. 
 The reformed clergy took the alarm, and the war of in- 
 tolerance commenced with increased acrimony. Doctor 
 Usher, who was considered the head of the reformers, fii-st 
 drew the polemical. sword, and in a sermon, the text of 
 which was, " he beareth not the sword in vain ;" he incul- 
 cated on the existing government, the necessity of strong 
 and vigorous measures to suppress the rising confidence of 
 the catholics. 
 
 Mr. Leland, who loses no opportunit}'^ of abusing the 
 motives and principles of his countrymen, brands the fi- 
 delity of the Irish to the religion of their ancestors, with 
 the humiliating stigma of ignorance, obstinacy, barbarism ; 
 an unwortliy and cruel commentary on the most unexampled 
 allegiance to those principles, which they were taught to 
 believe were the best calculated to ensure them eternal sal- 
 vation. The criminations and recriminations of all relio-i- 
 
 to 
 
 ous sectarians, equally excite the scorn and contempt of 
 tlie' philosopher. The Uberal and enlightened nlind will 
 have equal reverence for the opinions and principles of one 
 sect as of another, and will endeavour to demonstrate tliat 
 the true Christian, whether protestant, presbyterian, or 
 catholic, will be best fulfilling its duties, when he incul- 
 cates the toleration of all, undisturbed by the insulting im- 
 putations of folly, of ignorance, or of superstition. No 
 sect of Christianity teaches immorality ; no sect of Christi- . 
 anity professes doctrines which would not make its follower 
 a valuable member of society; therefore let each indulge 
 the other, and the human mind unrestrained by the bigot, 
 will soon resume its strength, and throw off the oppresive 
 incumbrance of accumulated prejudices. The scene of ca- 
 
2S8 
 
 iamity r^hlch Ireland exhibited in 1622, and which was 
 principally caused by the merciless prosecution of the dis- 
 coveries of defective titles, is acknowledged by Mr. Lelaud, 
 who has so often been the panegyrizer of the plantation sys- 
 tem of James, as the infallible mode of civilizing the bar- 
 barous inhabitants of Ireland. Never has any nation so 
 dearly purchased the blessings of civilization. 
 
 In the manuscripts of bishop Sterne we find, that in 
 the small county of Longford, twenty-five of one sept were 
 all deprived of their estates, without the least compensa- 
 tion, or any means of subsistence assigned them. Let the 
 reader, (when ho comes to those periods of our history in 
 which the collected vengeance of many years of suffering 
 was poured forth on the unoffending descendants of those 
 men who took pkrt in the legal butchery of the dearest affec- 
 tions of the human heart,) keep in his recollection the pic- 
 ture we shall now give, drawn by the vindicator of the colo- 
 nizers, of the agonizing distress, and the torturing des- 
 potism to which the Irish nation, under the specious pre^ 
 text of civilization, were barbarously devoted. 
 
 Mr. Lfcland, speaking of this period, observes, " it was 
 an age of project and adventure; men's minds were parti- 
 cularly possessed with a passion for new discoveries, and 
 planting of countries. They who were too poor or too spi- 
 ritless to enoao-e in distant adventures, courted fortune' in 
 Ireland, under the pretence of improving the king's reve- 
 nue, in a countiy where it was far less than the charge of 
 government. They obtained commissions of inquiry \nto 
 defective titles and grants of concealed lands, and rents 
 belonging to the crown, the great benefit of which was ge- 
 nerally to accrue to the projector, whilst the king was 
 contented with an inconsiderable proportion of the con- 
 cealment, or a small advance of rent. Discovtridfe were 
 every where busily employed in finding out flaws in men's 
 titles to their estates. The old pipe rolls were searched to 
 find original rents with which they had been charged; the 
 patent rolls in the tower of London were ransacked for 
 
2S9 
 
 the ancient grants : no means of industry or devices of 
 craft were left untried, to foi'ce the possessors to accept of 
 new irrants at an advanced rent. In the enforcement of 
 those inquiries, there are not wantint,^ proofs of the most 
 iniquitous practices of hardened cruelty, of vile perjury, 
 and scandalous, subornation, employed to despoil the 
 fair and unoffending proprietor of his inheritance." Bat 
 the sufferings of Irishmen did not stop there ; " they ei- 
 ther lay under odious disqualifications, or were neglected 
 by the state in the disposal of offices of trust and emolu- 
 ment; they were overshadowed by new men sent from Eng- 
 land to the king's service, whom they saw with indigna- 
 tion rising suddenly into affluence;" and the historian 
 might have added, with honest indignation, rising into 
 that affluence on the beggary and calamity of the native 
 Irish. 
 
 The poverty of the Irish government was the necessary 
 consequence of that system of rapacity and plunder which 
 was carried on by every unprincipled English adventurer, 
 under its immediate patronage. Notwithstanding all 
 James' boasted improvements, his regulations of civiliza- 
 tion and refinement, the resources of his exchequer were 
 daily diminishing, and the necessity of new financial ex- 
 pedients as rapidly increasing. Various plans of rcgenc" 
 ration were adopted ; and various artifices, as dishonest 
 and immoral as they were shalloAv and unwise, were resort- 
 ed to, to recruit the almost bankrupt government of the 
 colony; the ingenuity of legal advisers was exeicisxl in 
 vain. It is true, a partial supply was eviscerated fi om the 
 fears of the inhabitants of Connaught, whose lands \yere 
 threatened to be sacrificed to a contemptible quibble of the 
 law. Their titles to their property were pronounced de- 
 fective, because the patents, under which they held their 
 lands, happened not to be enrolled in the proper office. 
 This was, in the opinion of the English monarch, a sulii- 
 cient justification of that revolution which he contemplated 
 with so much enthusiasm, and by which the calamities of 
 
290 
 
 the Ulster plantation would have been visited upon the in« 
 habitants of Connaught. The pressing wants of James, 
 however, protected the Irish from this favorite experiment 
 of plantation ; and a composition of ten thousand pounds 
 was accepted by him from the trembling landholders of 
 Connaught. Were we to draw any parallel between the san- 
 guinary government of Elizabeth, with the cold and unfeel- 
 ing tyranny of James, we should be inclined to think that 
 the quantity of suffering inflicted on Ireland by the sword 
 of the one, was less cruel than the merciless statute war of 
 the other ; that the victories of Mountjoy over Tyrone and 
 his followers were of a more exalted, and of course a more 
 consoUng nature than the treacherous and cowardly schemes 
 of destruction planned by the legal sophist, and acted up- 
 on by the insatiable avarice of royal rapacity. The go- 
 vernment of Elizabeth put an end to its victim ; that of 
 James preserved it in order to prolong its pains and tri- 
 umph in its agonies. Under the mask of introducing the 
 law and customs of a civilized and enlightened people, 
 every species of oppression was practised ; and Ireland, 
 which could, under a mild and parental system, have en- 
 riched the hand that protected it, punished her persecutor* 
 by the incumbrance of her poverty, and the unappeasable 
 hostility of her children. 
 
TH£ 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Charles I. 
 
 A. D. 
 
 1625. 
 
 The people of Ireland now promised themselves 
 some relaxation of that severe and rigid system, 
 under which they had hitherto suffered. They 
 calculated on the acknowledged necessities of Charles ; his 
 foreign wars, his conflicts with his parliament, his obvious 
 policy in soothing the catholics of Ireland, whose power 
 he might throw into the scale against the stubborn resis- 
 tance of his puritanical subjects of England. Such con- 
 siderations raised the hopes of the Irish, and in an equal 
 proportion excited the apprehension of the colonists. The 
 latter applied to Charles to increase his Irish army to five 
 thousand foot, and five hundred horse. So low was the 
 king's exchequer in Ireland, that Charles was obliged to 
 quarter this army on the different countries and towns. 
 This irresistible evidence of the royal embarrassments en- 
 couraged the Irish to hope for a full toleration of their re- 
 ligion, and a suspension of those penal statutes, by which 
 their feelings and properties were so injured. With their 
 brethren in England, they offered to contribute liberally 
 to the support of Charles' government, jf they would in 
 return, enjoy the royal protection in the exercise of their 
 religion. 
 
 Mr. Leland, speaking of the joy with which the Irish 
 catholic contemplated the prospect of futm-e indulgence 
 to his long persecuted conscience, observei» w;ith apparent 
 
292 
 
 approbation, " that the protestant clergy were provoked 
 at their insolence, and scandalized at the promised con- 
 cessions of government ;" and the same historian trium- 
 phantly sets forth the anathema of the established 
 colonial church, as an evidence of the pure and sacred 
 zeal of the leading prelates of this period. We 
 doubt much whether the records of popery can pro- 
 duce any document more furious in its intolerance, or 
 more despicable in its bigotry. Those who deprecate 
 the uncharitable principles of an exclusive doctrine, will 
 with indignation read the following- protest of the pro- 
 testant bishops of tlie colony against even the toleration 
 of the catholic religion. They will discover the illiber- 
 ality of every Christian sect which can wield the political 
 power of the state ; and they will see that the protestant, 
 presbyterian and catholic, are equally inclined to trample 
 i'.pon the rights of conscience, if the government shall 
 lend them their authority or give them their counte- 
 nance.* " The religion of the papists," say the Irish 
 protestant archbishops and bishops of the seventeenth 
 century, "is superstitious and idolatrous; their faith and 
 doctrine erroneous and heretical; their church., in respect 
 of both, apostatical. To give them therefore a toleration, 
 or to consent that they may freely exercise their religion 
 and profess their faith and doctrine, is a grievous sin, and 
 that in two respects : for, first, it is to make ourselves ac- 
 cessary, not only to their superstitions, idolatries, and 
 heresies, and, in a v."ord, to all the abominations of popery^ 
 but also, (which is a consequence of the former) to the 
 perdition of the seduced people, who perish in the de- 
 luge of the catholic apostacy ; secondly, to grant them a 
 
 * The unbending b!|!.otry of the protestant bishops and archbishops of 
 Ireland, at this period, torir.s a curious contrast with the enlightened 
 libcrahtv ';\ hich distinguishtd the catholic guvernniert of France under 
 the administration of the great Rithheu. Mr. Hume in his reign of 
 Charles I. says "that a toU ration was continued to the Hugonott 
 after the taking of Rochelle ; the only avowed and open toleration," 
 s3.ys Mr. Hume *' which at that time wa« granted in any Europea» 
 kingdom." 
 
293 
 
 toleration in respect of any money to be given, or contri- 
 bution to be made by them, is to set religion to sale, and 
 with it the souls of the people whom Christ hath re- 
 deemed with his blood ; and as it is a great sin, so it is 
 also a matter of most dangerous consequence ; the con- 
 sideration whereof we commit to the wise and judicious^ 
 beseeching the God of truth to make them who are in au- 
 thority zealous of God's glory, and of the advancement 
 of true religion ; zealous, resolute, and courageous, against 
 all popery, superstition, and idolatry." 
 
 We challenge the records of superstition to produce a 
 higher specimen of fanaticism than tliat which we have 
 just quoted : it demonstrates how easily all sects of Chris- 
 tianity can recriminate on each other, and how vain the 
 controversy which attributes to the doctrines of popery 
 a more malignant spirit of intolerance than to those of 
 any other Christian denominiation. The followers of Chris- 
 tianity, in the nineteenth century, laugh at the fanati- 
 cism of th;:'ir ancestors, and all classes of Christians ad- 
 here to the faith of their fathers, undisturbed by the in- 
 solence of sectarian ascendancy. The distress of Charles 
 counterbalanced the prayers of the archbishops and 
 bishops of Ireland, and for a contribution of one hun- 
 dred and twenty thousand pounds, payable in three years, 
 the British monarch promised to redress the grievances 
 of which liis Irish subjects so justly and loudly complained. 
 We have said that Charles promised to redress the grievan- 
 ces, because our readers will find that the instructions com- 
 municated to his deputy in Ireland, were never confirmed 
 by an act of the legislature, and that the immoderate wants 
 of the king forced him to hold out hopes to his Irish 
 subjects, as the price of that aid which their generous 
 credulity had never yet hesitated to contribute. The 
 graces to be conferred were therefore of the most sub- 
 stantial kind. The properties of the Irish were no more 
 to be disturbed, the insulting condition of the oaths of su- 
 premacy and abjuration no longer to be enforced as the 
 necessary quahficatiou Tor office ; the oppressions of the 
 
294 
 
 soldiery were to be restrained, and justice was to be im- 
 partially administered to all denominations of Irishmen* 
 These promises of protection were soon forgotten, the 
 respite of the Irish people from the persecution of fanaticism 
 was of very short duration; for we find soon after, a well 
 authenticated account of a most wanton and atrocious vio- 
 lence on the unoffending catholic, at the moment he was en- 
 gaged in the adoration of his Creator, according to the form 
 and ceremonies of his own religion. Hammon Lestrange, 
 one of the English adventurers who came over to Ireland to 
 insult the nation he assisted in plundering, thus speaks of 
 the Roman catholic clergy in the early part of his reign of 
 Charles I. — " In this year the Roman clergy began to rant 
 it, and to exercise their fancies, called religion, as publicly 
 as^ if they, had gained a toleration." " The reader," says the 
 Jionest and well informed Doctor Curry, " will be surprised 
 to find that tliis ranting of the catholic clergy was nothing 
 more than their reading of prayers quietly to their people 
 in one of their own chapels." — " For," procee(fe the above 
 mentioned author, Hammon Lestrange " while the lords 
 justices were at Christ church in Dublin, on St. Stephen's 
 day, the clergy were celebrating mass in Cook-street, 
 which their lordships taking notice of, they sent the arch- 
 l>ishop of Dublin, the mayor, sheriffs, and recorder of 
 the -city, with a file of musketeers, to apprehend them, 
 which they did, taking away the crucifixes and ornaments 
 of tlie altar, the soldiers hewing down the image of St. 
 Francis. The priests and friars were delivered into the 
 hands of the pursuivants, at whom the people thre\V 
 stones, and rescued them. The lords justices being in- 
 formed of this, sent a guard and delivered them, and 
 clapped eight popish aldermen by the heels for not as- 
 i^isting their mayor. On this account fifteen houses 
 (chapels) by direction of the lords of the council in Eng- 
 land, were seized to the king's use, and the priests and 
 friars were so persecuted, that two of them" adds my 
 liberal and enlightened author, " hanged ihansehes in their 
 
295 
 
 ovon defence" This single fact, which never was disputed, 
 would almost vindicate the catholics of Ireland in the 
 commission of any violence to destroy such atrocious des- 
 potism. Few, I believe, will wonder that the populace 
 endeavoured to rescue their priests in such an exigency ; 
 and fewer that the catholic aldermen of JDublin did 
 not assist their mayor in this priest-catching business. This 
 persecution was afterwards extended all over the kingdom. 
 
 The English council acquainted the justices of Ireland 
 on this memorable occasion, " that his majesty was pleased 
 openly and in the most gracious manner to approve and 
 commend their ability and good service, whereby they 
 might be sufficiently encouraged to go on with the like re- 
 solution and moderation till the work was fully done, as 
 well in the city, as in other places of the kingdom, leavino- 
 to their discretion, when and where to carry a soft and 
 tender hand ;" yet lord Clarendon in the front of these 
 facts, has the boldness to state " that during all tliis, and 
 the former reign, the catholics of Ireland enjoyed an un- 
 disturbed exercise of their religion ; and that even in Dublin, 
 where the seat of the king's chief governor was, they went 
 as publicly and uninterruptedly to their devotions as he went 
 to his." It is to such authorities as lord Clarendon may be 
 attributed all that ignorance which Englishmen discover 
 of the real causes of the cruel vengeance which the Irish 
 were driven to take against their oppressors. No people 
 are to be found in the records of history, who have mani- 
 fested so much patience under so much suffering, nor can 
 any nation produce such a crowd of such exas[)erating 
 causes to justify the furious excesses of their vengeance. 
 They had to contend with the hypocrisy and avarice of xm-> 
 principled monarchs, and the blind and ignorant fanati- 
 cism of the creatures of their power. 
 
 Their loyalty and fidelity v^^ere rewarded with per-^ 
 petual insult and injury, and the evidence of their at- 
 tachment to the state was often the cause of new expe- 
 dients to plunder, to harass, and exasperate. 
 
S96 
 
 The graces promised by lord Falkland, and which 
 amounted to an acknowledgment of the rights of the 
 Irish, had the effect of producing a cheerful submission 
 to the contribution so much wanted by Charles. We 
 shall find in the course of this reign, that to the distress 
 of the monarch may be attributed whatever indulgence 
 the catholics experienced, and that the necessity of 
 counteracting the power of the English puritans, com- 
 pelled the ministers of Charles to conciliate the affec- 
 tions of a people, whose feelings and whose religion 
 thev would otherwise have persecuted. The instruc- 
 tions therefore, to lord Falkland, recommended a mild 
 and parental exercise of authority. The religious wor- 
 ship of the catholics was once more celebrated with all 
 due solemnity, and as Mr. Leland is pleased to describe, 
 " with the full parade of their ostentatious ritual." The 
 toleration now experienced by the catholics gave the 
 greatest displeasure to the established church, and so ex- 
 cited the apprehensions of the council of the colony, that 
 thev prevailed on Falkland to depart from that moderate 
 and indulgent course which he was pursuing, and to 
 issue a proclamation, preventing the presumptuous ex- 
 ercise of all papist rites and ceremonies. This proclama- 
 tion not being in accordance with the policy of the 
 English cabinet, became a dead letter, and the catholics 
 followed their religion without interruption. Those par- 
 tial triumphs over a bigotted monopoly, could, iiot fail of 
 developing the weakness of their ancient enemy, the ca- 
 binet of England. They therefore pressed on this weak- 
 ened power the necessity of making further concessions to 
 tiie people, of ' diminishing the un- ufferable burdens 
 under which they laboured, of ceasing to institute vexatious 
 apd torturing inquisitions into the titles of their estates. 
 The Irish government ■struck to the murmurs of th« 
 people, and one half the stipulated contribution was ac- 
 cepted as the condition of future tranquillity. 
 
 Lord Falkland's administration, in consequence of this 
 
297 
 
 defalcation of the royal resources, soon incurred the 
 charge of imbecihty. He was recalled in 1630, and two 
 lord justices, Adam Loftus, viscount Ely, lord chancel- 
 lor, and llichard, earl of Cork, lord high treasurer, M'ere 
 nominated to succeed lord Falkland in the administra- 
 tion of Ireland. These men were remarkahle for their 
 antipathy to every thing Irish, and their Superstitious 
 abhorrence of the catholic religion. Mr. Leland bestows 
 extravagant praise on the earl of Cork, for the assidui- 
 ty and zeal with which he executed his scheme of 
 banishing the native Irish from their properties in the 
 county of Wicklow, and substituting, as Mr. Leland 
 observes, " a numerous, well-regulated and well -defended 
 body of English protcst^nts." The errors of popery were 
 peculiarly offensive to this active partizan of England; 
 and the barbarism which it promoted, was repugnant 
 to his benevolent principles of civilisation. This coiu- 
 pliment to the character of the earl of Ccrl: is pecu- 
 liarly ludicrous, when following the historical fact, that this 
 same colonist banished the Irish from the lands of their 
 forefathers, and thus most effectually created the barba- 
 rism he pretended to abhor. The same spirit which dis- 
 tinguished him in his private station, characterized hi;} 
 public acts, and the catholics were doomed to experience 
 the extreme rigors of his intolerant bigotry. Charles 
 hx)wever interfered, and suspended the sword of persecu- 
 tion. The wants of the king were hourly multiplyino-, 
 and the necessity of adopting such measures as would 
 procure an effectual supply from his dominions in Ireland, 
 determined him to commit its administration to a noble- 
 man whose vigour and abilities would compromise with 
 no difficulties, and listen to no remonstrance. ITie lord 
 justices, whom Wentworth was about to succeed, were 
 incapable of concurring or acting upon any great and 
 comprehensive measure of finance. The resources of 
 their minds were as limited as the hostility of tlie people 
 to their government was determined; their could enforce 
 
 o o 
 
the reglilatioiis of the laigot with a pious ardor ; they 
 could impose penalties upon conscience; but they could 
 not suggest any scheme of resources, which from its uni- 
 versality, could administer solid or substantial relief to 
 the exhausted treasury of Charles. The king suspected 
 that the lord justices had secret and disloyal practices with 
 his protestant enemies of England ; and though well in- 
 clined to exercise the most relentless tyranny over the de- 
 voted catholics, yet the hopes of forcing Charles by their 
 co-operation with the English parliament, to strike to 
 their demands, slackened their zeal in the enforcement of 
 those contributions which they might otherwise have 
 obtained. 
 
 Lord Wentworth was ordered by his master to assume 
 the reins of oovernment in Ireland ; and though this famed 
 and eloquent nobleman was pursued to the block by the 
 parlizans of English liberty, yet the poor people of Ire- 
 land experienced, during his administration in Ireland, 
 the grateful consolation of witnessing the humiliation of 
 their most inveterate enemies. " One great and favorite 
 scheme of Wentworth," says Mr. Leland, " was to break the 
 power of the great lords, which had frequently been ap- 
 plied to the worst of purposes." He therefore determined 
 to reduce their power, as well as that of the puritans, (the 
 bitterest enemies of the catholics.) On his first interview with 
 the council in 1634, he treated the most exalted chai'ac- 
 ters of the colony with the most insulting arrogiince. He 
 would listen to no remonstrance from them against any mea- 
 sure he thought contributed to promote the interests of 
 Charles; he told them he sought their obedience to his 
 will, not any suggestions from their council, and that with- 
 out a;iy aid from them he would procure the supplies ne- 
 cessai-y lor the support of his government. He told them 
 that he would recommend his majesty to accede to the mea- 
 sui-e of calling a meeting of parliament, if they would 
 agree to renew their contributions for one year : the con- 
 tributions were gi-anted, and an army, formidable in 
 
299 
 
 mumbers and in discipline, was raised under the active 
 genius of the deputy. 
 
 The despotic disposition of Charles is singularly mark- 
 ed in his reply to Wentworth's communication, respect- 
 ing the meeting of his Irish parliament ; and his faitliless 
 and unprincipled anxiety to violate his promise to the 
 Irish, to confirm the royal graces by act of the legislature, 
 clearly points out the wisdom of that jealousy which dis- 
 tinguished the English parliament, and which never sCifi 
 fered them to place any confidence in the royal word. 
 Charles writes thus to his deputy, lord Wentworth : " As 
 for that hydra, a parliament, take good heed, for you 
 know that there have I found it as well cunning as malici- 
 ous ; it is true, that your grounds are well laid, and I as- 
 sure you that I have great trust in your care and judg- 
 jnent ; yet my opinion is, that it will not be the worse for 
 my service, though their obstinacy make you break them, 
 for I fear that they have some ground to demand more thau 
 it is fit for me to give." 
 
 The king conquered his scruples, and trusted implicit- 
 ly to the zeal and talent of his deputy in the management 
 of the Irish parliament. Wentworth went to work wath 
 all the skill of a practical statesman. He made the hopes 
 and fears of each party, the puritan, the church man, and 
 the catholic, tributary to his purposes. He promised 
 protection to the catholic, against the persecution of 
 the puritan, and made the disposition of the latter to in- 
 flict pains and penalties, the argument by which he rea- 
 soned them into a submission to his purposes. He so 
 managed that the house of commons should be composed, 
 of papists and protestants, equally balanced in number* 
 and property ; he refused, as was customary, to consult 
 with the lords of the pale before parliament assembled : 
 he told them their duty was submission to the will of the 
 king. " The king," said Wentworth to the assembled lords 
 of the pale, " desires this great work may be settled by 
 parliament ; as a faithful seryant to his majesty, I ^hsiXl 
 
300 
 
 counsel him to attempt it first by the ordinary means.-^ 
 Disappointetl there, where he may with so much right ex- 
 pect it, I could not, in a cause so just and necessary, deny 
 to appear for him at the head of my army, and there ei- 
 ther persuade them fully that his majesty had reason on 
 his side, or die in the pursuit of his commands so justly 
 laid upon me." The people smiled at the humiliation of 
 tiieir taskmasters ; the lords trembled and submitted to the 
 deputy ; they passed from the impotent tone of dictation, 
 to the cringing sycophancy of the slave, and complied 
 wdth any measure recommended by the avarice or ambi- 
 tion of Wentworth. 
 
 Tlie liouse of lords were not quite so passive to the 
 proud and domineering spirit of Wentworth. 1 he earl of 
 Ormond resisted the insolent attempt made by an Eng- 
 lishman to prostrate the ancient nobility of Ireland ; he 
 refused to strike to the Indelible indignity of being strip- 
 ))cd of his sword at the door of the house of lords; he re^ 
 pelled the humiliating experiment v, ith a spirit worthy of 
 liis high and exalted family, and forced Wentw^orth to 
 yield to the insulted honor of an Irish nobleman. Went- 
 worth soothed the hand he could not degrade ; he took 
 Ormond to his councils, who, at the age of twenty-four, 
 was the confidential favorite of the deputy. 
 
 Parliament proceeded to the enactmoit of a number of 
 laws, which were well calculated to promote the tranquil- 
 lity of the kingdom. Among those, was one for abolish- 
 inir all distinctions betv.een tlie orif^inal natives and other 
 suVjectsj another for adopting the most valuable of the 
 English statutes, passed since the reign of Henry VII. 
 As a perfect conformity to the established church, was the 
 leading feature of Wentworth's policy; he judiciously 
 adopted such measures as were c.dculated to promote its 
 jsiiccehs; he buiit chuiches. Mnd jjrovided them with minis- 
 ter!-, throughout the kingdom; he was particularly attentive 
 lo tiio itUtCiition aiid instruction of the clergy of the estab- 
 ii$hod I lunch. I lis next object was thfe complete assimila- 
 
SOI 
 
 tion of the churches of England and Ireland ; by estab- 
 lishing the Enfflish iirticles and canons in this latter kin:)- 
 doin, as the rule of doctrine and di.scipline. The Irish 
 articles of religion, as compiled by Usher, were doomed 
 to give way to those of the church of England. So great 
 was the ascendancy of Wentworth in the convocation, 
 that only one of its members had the spirit to resist the in- 
 novation he recommendeil. The deputy then proceeded to 
 the appointment of an high commission court, formed on 
 the model of England, with the view of being instrumen- 
 tal to the acquisition of ijiore revenues to the government. 
 Whenever he saw the opportunity of promoting the in- 
 terests of Charles, he seized it with ardor ; and to pro- 
 mote that interest would not stop at the sacrifice of the 
 industry as well as the blood of the Irish. 
 
 To lord Wentworth is Ireland indebted for the de- 
 struction of her v/oollen manufacture ; which, as Mr. Le- 
 land says, " promised to increase, and might in time essen- 
 tially affect the staple commodity of England." Ireland 
 iin-nished wool in great quantities, and its people could 
 afford to vend their cloth in foreio-n markets on more 
 moderate terms than the English trader. Such a pros- 
 pect alarmed the loyal zeal of Wentworth, who did not 
 long hesitate to impose such discouragements on the wool- 
 len manufacture, as amounted almost to a complete aimi- 
 hilation. Wentworth, though anxious to discourage 
 every species of industry in Ireland, which might, by pos- 
 sibility, clash with the interests of England, was not in- 
 attentive to the cultivation of a manufacture, which with- 
 out injury to England, might be of solid and essential 
 service to Ireland. Wentworth himself states, in one 
 of his letters, that he expended thirty thousand pounds 
 ■in the favorite project of the establishment of the linen 
 manufacture. He brought the flaxseed and the manufac- 
 turers from Holland, and made such regulations as laid the 
 strong and immoveable foundation of that prosperity which 
 has distinguished this great soujccs of wealth and comfort 
 
302 
 
 to Ireland. — Wentworth, in 1635, proceeded to the most 
 summary mode of replenishing the coffers of his royal 
 master,- by the wholesale robbery of his Irish subjects: he 
 was aware of the advantages obtained by his two prede- 
 cessors in the adoption of a similar scheme. One of them, 
 sir Arthur Chichester, had lands bestowed upon hira, 
 ■which in the year 1633, were of no less than ten thousand 
 pounds yearly value, and the other obtained ten thousand 
 pounds in one gift. Hoping therefore for the like or 
 greater reti'ibution, his lordship exerted himself in' that 
 business with uncommon assiduity and vigor. He procu- 
 red inquisitions, upon feigned titles to estates, against many 
 hundred year's possession. He proceeded to the western 
 and north western counties with his commission, and the 
 mock inquiry into the validity of the royaX title was imme- 
 diately instituted. So violent a procedure roused the al- 
 most extinguished spirit of the people; and the county 
 Galvvay resisted the kings' title, and boldly combated the 
 sophistry of fraud and robbery. The lawyers, who, Mr. 
 Leland says, were catholics, fearlessly exposed the infamy 
 of the proceeding, and the unprincipled violation of the 
 property of the subject. The jury stood between the pecK 
 ple and the despotism of Wentworth ; and so incurred the 
 vengeance of that haughty lord, that he laid a fine of 
 one thousand pounds ujwm the sheriff, brought the jurors 
 before the castle chamber, and fined them each in the sum 
 of four thousand pounds, sentenced them to imprisonment 
 until it should be paid, and to acknowledge their offence 
 in court, upon their knees : a sad and humiliating instance 
 of the prostrate spirit of Ireland, and a lesson of most im- 
 portant instruction to the Irish nobility and gentry, never 
 to lend themselves to measures which are calculated to 
 weaken their best and most efficient support, the Irish po- 
 pulation. The Irish lords unthinkingly co-operated with 
 Wentworth in his struggles to break the spirit of the peo- 
 ple ; and the latter enjoyed their full measure of vengeance 
 in seeing those same nobles of the land trampled on in 
 
their turn. They thus disarmed the only hand which could 
 have best defended them against the insolence of power. 
 
 The administration of Wcntworth was so peculiarly ol>- 
 noxious, that his warmest friends in England remonstrated 
 with the imprudence of his zeal : his enemies, who were 
 numerous, triumphed in the folly of his violence, and 
 carefully noted down the unparalleled excesses of his go- 
 vernment. So confident was Wcntworth of the favor 
 of his royal master, that he went to London to confute the 
 complaints of his enemies. Charles was deaf to the cries 
 of the persecuted and insulted people of Ireland, and 
 warmly embraced the hand which had been so often the 
 instrument of their sufferings. Wcntworth boldly set 
 forth his services in the presence of the king and council, 
 and insisted upon the necessity of those measures of vi- 
 gor for which his enemies had reproached him. Charles 
 gratefully acknowledged the services which Wcntworth 
 had rendered him, and called on him to persevere in the 
 pious and profitable w^ork of plundering and insulting his 
 Irish subjects. It is peculiarly mortifying to read, that 
 the very acts for which Wcntworth should have lost his 
 head were those on the successful execution of which this 
 despotic monarch had the hardihood to praise him. The 
 banishment of entire families from the habitations of their 
 fathers is considered a judicious and fruitful measure of 
 finance ; for instance, the establishment of the king's title 
 to the ample possession of the O'Byrnes in Wicklow, 
 produced the large sum of fifteen thousand pounds, 
 and the persecution of the most exalted individuals in 
 the country was often suspended by the interposition of 
 a bribe, or the voluntary humiliation of the victim. 
 
 The catholics of Ireland, though subject to the same 
 capricious exercise of power as the protestants, found re- 
 fuge at this period in that very despotism which insult- 
 ed and plundered their protestant countrymen. Tiiey did 
 not now writhe under the lash of intolerance. Though 
 Wentworth was a tyrant, he was impartial in the ex- 
 
304 
 
 tfrciss of his power ; and the feehngs of the people fouiid 
 some consolation in the reflection, that they were no 
 longer the selected victims of the bigot, and that tlie ca- 
 lamity was at least as common as it was severe. Such a 
 system produced the effects that must naturally be ex- 
 pected. The discontents , produced by intolerance were 
 no longer convulsing the countr}-, and peace, order, and 
 industry, distinguished the present period from tli^t of any 
 former administration ; the value of lands was increased, 
 commerce extended, the customs amounted to almost four 
 times their former sum ; the commodities exported from 
 Ireland were tv/ice as much in value a» the foreign mer- 
 chandize imported, and shipping was fotv^d. . to have 
 increased one hundred fold. Such were the fruits .of 
 an administration at once distinguished by its politi- 
 cal power and its religious tolerance, v hile it chaiiaed to 
 the earth the proudest spirits of the land. It also re- 
 strained the destructive demon of fanaticism ; and, from 
 policy, not from principle, suifered every Irishman to 
 pray in the religion and in the language followed, and a- 
 flopted by his forefatliers. It was not the good fortune of 
 the people of Scotland to enjoy 4he same tolerant admini- 
 stration which a concurrence of circumstances procure^ 
 for 'the catholics of Ireland. The interests of Charles did 
 not allow him to make the experiments on the consci- 
 entious feelings of his Irish subjects which he was now 
 (1630,) practising on those of his subjects of Scotland. > 
 The fanaticism which urged the kmg to compel a con- 
 formity to the established religion, equally aniniated the 
 bosoms of the Scotch to repel the violence of his efforts ; 
 and his proclamation, promising pardon, while it acknow* 
 ledged wealaiess, onl}^ produced that celebrated covenant, 
 which bound together the hitherto discordant materials 
 of insurrection and rebellion. — The puritans of the north 
 of Ireland participated in the enthusiasm of their brethren 
 in Scotland ; and Wentv,'orth had recourse to all the ex- 
 pedients of oaths and obligations to secure their allegiance 
 
505 
 
 16 their soYereign. Tlie difficulties of Charles had so 
 rapidly thickened around him, and the hostility of his 
 Scotch subjects was so inveterate and deep-rooted, that he 
 was obliged to call to his council the only nir«n whom he 
 conceived best calculated to confront liis enemies. Sir 
 Thomas Wentworth was commanded to repair to Eng- 
 land, where he was immediat?ly advanced to the dignity 
 of an earl, by the title of ^StraflTord, and also created a 
 kniffht of the carter. Wentworth was thus raised to the 
 highest place in the administration of the country, and at 
 G period when the public mind ran into the extremes of 
 party spirit. It is not surprising, that the new earl of 
 Strafford should have incurred the most malignant and un- 
 appeasable vengeance of the king's enemies. Ke recom- 
 mended a vigorous prosecution of the war against the 
 Scotch, as he found they could not be conciliated. The 
 catholics of England contributed with ardour to strength- 
 en the arm of the king ,* and Strafford, with all that de- 
 cision which distinguished him, set off for Ireland, Mhere 
 he found the Irish parliament anxious to exceed even 
 the expectations of their sovereign, and pressing forward 
 with enthusiastic loyalty to defend him against his enemies. 
 They profusely poured forth the supplies, -and recorded, 
 as an ordinance of the Irish legislature, that, as tlie king- 
 dom had the happiness to be governed by the best of 
 kings, so they were desirous to be accounted tlie best of 
 subjects. Lords and commons joined in zealous expres- 
 sions of attachment to Charles, and in a sliort time au 
 army of eight thousand foot, and one thousand horse, 
 inarched to Carrickferg-us, from whence thev were to 
 proceed against the rebels of Scotland. This large ibrce 
 was officered by protestauts ; but as Mr. Lfeland observes, 
 the soldiers were necessarily catholics; a circuiftstance 
 highly injurious to Charles, who had to contend with the 
 inflexible bigotry of the puritans. A new spirit nuw 
 broke out in the Irish parliament. The puritanical party 
 of the assembly was not inconsiderable ; and the intrigue* 
 
 P p 
 
306 
 
 of the king's English enemies had succeeded in turning 
 the tide which flowed so strongly in favour of Charles. 
 They grew cold and suspicious and complaining ; they re- 
 monstrated against the weight of taxation, and repented 
 of their late precipitate kindness. They put forth their 
 grievances in all the strong and vigorous language of the 
 English parliament, and seemed anxious to walk in the 
 same path which had been marked out by that spirited 
 and able assembly. They remonstrated against the abuse 
 of the church, the corrupt trafiic of their duties, their 
 extortions for marriages, christenings and mortuaries; 
 they complained of the hardships they suffered by the 
 practice of levying the assessments, and insisted that a more 
 moderate and constitutional course shall hereafter be a- 
 dopted. So formidable and unexpected a spirit of resistance 
 to the wishes of the crown excited the alarms of Charles. 
 He selected Strafford as the man best qualified to restrain 
 it. He made him captain general of the Irish forces, 
 and vested him with full powers to march them into 
 Scotland. The death of the earl Nottingham interrupt- 
 ed this arrangement, and Strafford was detained to act 
 in conjunction with his sovereign* The Irish parliament 
 now emulated all the violence of the parliament of Eng- 
 land, and in their denunciations of Strafford, exhibited 
 the same disposition to thwart and defeat all the measures 
 of their sovereign. Those very laws for which posterity 
 are indebted to this unfortunate nobleman, were now yL 
 subject of public compJaint : such as the laws Avhicli for- 
 bade ploughing by the tail, burning corn in the straw, 
 or tearing wool from the living sheep. Confident in 
 their strength, the Irish commons proceeded to regulate 
 the rate of tl*3 assessments ; they resolved that no subject 
 should be taxed tor more than a tenth part of his estate, 
 real or personal. The supplies but a few months granted, 
 with such lavish liberality, were thus reduced by the more 
 severe and inflexible spirit of democracy, which directed 
 the house of commons ; and the king was so exasperated 
 
307 
 
 by the hollow professions of zeal which accompanied the 
 contracted aid, that it is said he ordered the leaf to ha 
 torn from their journal, which contained their hypo-^ 
 critical resolutions. 
 
 The Irish commons were not to he intimidated by this 
 thoughtless impatience of Charles. They were well 
 aware of the growing strength of his enemies, and they 
 ijow triumphed in the anticipation of sacrificing the haugh". 
 ty and imperious Strafford, to the wounded pride of the 
 Irish noblemen, whose consequence and weight in their 
 country he had succeeded so well in humiliating. They 
 co-operated with his English enemies to expose the vio- 
 lence of his Irish administration ; to exaggerate his errors, 
 and multiply his crimes. They furnished the materials of 
 a remonstrance, which was presented to the English par- 
 liament, in which accusations were made, that might have 
 easily been defended, and in which acts were denominated 
 crimes, for which Strafford obtained their unquahfied ap-* 
 probation. Those measures which the necessity of the 
 times might have palliated, were now termed acts of into- 
 lerable despotism ; and that very 'assembly which was so, 
 lately panegyrising the vigor of their governor, were now 
 calling him to the bar of his country, for a wanton viola-i 
 tion of public liberty, and a grievous exercise of royal au- 
 thoritj^ The Irish parliament appointed a committee to 
 repair to the king with their remonstrance against Straffoi'd. 
 Their arrival in London was hailed by the popular party ; 
 Mr. Prynn, and sir John Clotworthy, both members of 
 the English parliament, moved for a committee of the 
 commons, to take into consideration the grievances of 
 Ireland. The Irish deputies preferred laying their remon-? 
 strance before the committee, to submittincj their sriev- 
 ances to Charles. Strafford, contrary to the admonition of 
 his friends, confronted his enemies ; he was impeached, 
 sequestered from parhament, and committed to custody ; 
 he miscalpulated either the power or the sincerity of the 
 
308 
 
 king ; he now laj' at the mercy of his powerful and inve* 
 terate enemies. 
 
 Sir William Parsons and sir John Borlase, two puritan 
 lords justices, without abilities or character, were appoint- 
 ed 10 the government of Ireland. These men were not 
 more remarkable for their fanatical virulence, than they 
 were for the meanness of their understandings ; and we 
 ^hall hereafter find every act of their administration mark- 
 ed with those features which distfnguished the character 
 of the governors. 
 
 The English and Irish committees went on in their work 
 of reformation, and the spirit of Charles was at last ob- 
 liged to bow to the dictation of his subjects. They rose in 
 their demands as Charles conceded ; and the royal power, 
 which was accustomed to treat with contenjpt the respect- 
 ful petitions of the people, was now crouching to their 
 threats, and struggling to conciliate, by a liberal admission 
 of their demands. The Irish were not satisfied with the 
 mere grariting the prayer of their remonstrance; they as- 
 pired still higher, and like their neighbours, they seized 
 this oppoYtunity which the king's embarrassments afforded, 
 to extend their own power, and advance the public in- 
 terests. I'hey carefully examined into various instances 
 of illegal practices during the administration of Straf- 
 ford, and severely censured every deviation from the strict 
 line of constitutional liberty. They submitted to the judges 
 in 1640, a number of questions relative to the power and 
 authority of the chief governor and priAy council, in 
 hearing and determining civil causes ; the legality of mon- 
 opolies, and of the punishments inflicted on those who in- 
 fringed them; the legal force of proclamations or acts of 
 state; the execution of martial law in time of peace; the 
 jurisdiction of the exchequer, castle chamber, and other 
 courts ; the censures and severe punishments of jurors. 
 All those grievances were laid before the judges of the 
 land, to ascertain the legitimate powers of the government. 
 The spirit of reform which thus distinguished the com- 
 
809 
 
 nions, was not equally conspicuous in the lords, and the 
 friends of the royal prerogative adopted every expedient by 
 which tliey could blunt the keen edge of popular mtem- 
 perance. The earl of Onnond was attached to lord Straf- 
 tbrd, and he prevailed on the lords to delay the answers of 
 the judges to the queries of the commons for some months. 
 The commons were offended at the coldness of the lords, 
 and immediately transmitted their queries to their commit- 
 tee in England, ordering the latter to lay their grievances 
 before the English parliament, and to pray that parliament 
 to declare the law in several particulars contained in tliose 
 queries. 
 
 The Irish parliament then proceeded to the impeach- 
 ngient of the most distinguished partizans of Strafford ; 
 they impeached sir Richard Bolton, the chancellor ; 
 l)r. Bramhal, the bishop of Derry ; sir Gerard Low- 
 ther, chief justice of the common pleas; and sir George 
 Radcliffe. They charged them with exercising an illegal 
 and tyrannical government in Ireland, in conjunction 
 witli Strafford; that they assumed a regal power over 
 the properties, persons, and hberties of the subjects ; pro- 
 nounced unjust decrees and extrajudicial opinions ; that 
 they subverted the rights of parliament, and the ancient 
 course of parliamentary proceedings. The Irish lords 
 were little inclined to yield to the violence of the com- 
 mons; they started objections of delay and difficulty; 
 they denied the power of sequestrating, and comuiitting 
 the speaker of the lords ; they insisted tliat it was suffi- 
 cient that tlu'ir house was answerable for the forth-com- 
 ing of the chancellor, and that the latter could not be 
 committed as long as he was suffered bj^ the sovereign 
 to hold the seals. This contest between the two houses 
 was, after much discussion, suspended by a prorogation. 
 In the interim the enemies of Strafford h^rried on his 
 trial in England, and the act of attainder passed against this 
 unhappy lord. The consequences of these struggles be- 
 tween the Irish parliament and the king, were peculiarly 
 
visible in the purer administration of justice, and the ex- 
 tinction of the oppressive jurisdictions of the higli com- 
 mission courts, which sacrificed the rights and the proper- 
 ties of the subject. The judges in the law courts no longer 
 decided against the law of the land ; the people were 
 respected, and the powers of the crown restrained within 
 legal and constitutional limits. Charles beiftg hard pres- 
 sed by his present difficulties, unable to extend his protec- 
 tion even to the most zealous of his servants, sought refuge 
 in conceding to that prayer which he no longer had the 
 power to refuse. He agreed to redress the grievancest 
 contained in the remonstrance of the Irish parliament, 
 and to siUTcnder those powers which his predecessors had, 
 exercised with impunity. The concessions obtained on 
 this occasion, by the indefatigable spirit of parliament, 
 are worthy of record ; because in a brief and comprehen- 
 sive sentence, they exhibit the rapid strides made by pop- 
 ular spirit, and the low degree of humiliation to which- a 
 monarch, almost unlimited in power, was reduced in 
 the short space of a few months. Charles was obliged to 
 consent that the assessment of the nobiHty should be 
 moderated ; he agreed to confirm their rights and privi- 
 ]eoes by act of parliament; to deprive those peers of 
 their votes who should not purchase estates in Ireland ; 
 to allow all his Irish subjects to repair to any part of his 
 dominions without restraint ; to prohibit the chief gover- 
 nors aiid privy council from deciding property or avoid- 
 ing letters patent ; to revoke monopohes ; to suspend the 
 high commission court, and to regulate the claims and 
 the councils of the clergy. Thus are the hberties of tlie 
 people the offspring of royal embarrassment, and the same 
 power which tramples with insolence on the rights and 
 feelings of humanity, is always seen in every country to 
 yield, v.ith cowardly precipitance, to the well directed 
 resistance of the public mind. The administration of 
 lord Strafford strained the loyal prerogative to its utmost 
 limits. The times in which he lived gave birth to a new 
 
sii 
 
 spirit of reformation in religion as well as in politics, and 
 the oscillating disposition of Charles, gave confidence 
 to his enemies, while it discouraged the efforts of his 
 friends. Neither he nor his advisers possessed sufficient 
 judgment to direct the vessel of the state in so unprece- 
 dented a storm ; his religious bigotry inflamed the hos- 
 *^ility of the puritan, and his undecided, and sometimes in- 
 sincere protection, shook the confidence of the catholics. 
 
 Notwithstanding the spirit of conciliation manifested by 
 Charles towards his Irish parliament, the latter did not 
 merely rely on the promises of their sovereign for the pos- 
 session of those constitutional rights which they so firmly 
 asserted. Nothing less than a legislative declaration of 
 their right to the claims which they demanded, would sa- 
 tisfy those suspicious and stern defenders of public liberty. 
 They determined to be no longer depending on the will 
 of the king for the enjoyment of the equal and impartial 
 dispensation of justice, and proceeded to mark out and 
 prescribe the exact limits of his authority, out of which 
 eveii he could not legally travel. The session of the suc- 
 ceeding year (164^1) echoed the sjnrit of that which pre- 
 ceded it, and the celebrated queries which were put to 
 the judges, and by which the constitutional rights of the 
 subject could be clearly ascertained, were resumed, with 
 increased ardor, by the partizans of the people. The 
 judges for some time struggled to evade satisfactory an- 
 swers to the questions which were put ; and at length a 
 celebrated lawyer of the day, Patrick Darcy, who had 
 smarted under the severity of unrestricted power, was ap- 
 pointed prolocutor by the commons, to confer with the 
 lords, to explain the reasons of the several questions pro- 
 posed for the opinions of the judges, and the insufficiency 
 of the answers which the latter thought proper to return. 
 The discussion was closed by a solenni determination of 
 the house of commons, on every separate article ; in which 
 the rights of Irish subjects were stated and affirmed with 
 strength and precision, and all the powers assumed by the 
 
late administration, all irregular and illegal practices in- 
 troduced by public concessions, and sanctified by custom, 
 were condemned explicitly and severely. The proceed- 
 ings of this parliament, though they were distinguished 
 by a laudable and anxious zeal for the assertion of pop- 
 ular rights, yet in almost every instance, exhibited that 
 marked and decided hostility to the native Irish, which 
 contributed to produce the miserable vengeance that fol- 
 lowed. When the member of parliament declaimed on 
 the blessings of liberty, he was confining that blessing to 
 the little contracted circle of the pale, and estimated itss 
 security by the success with which he established its mo- 
 nopoly. Heated with all the puritanical fanaticism of 
 their neighbours, the majority of the Irish parliament 
 were more impelled by their anxiety to degrade the mon- 
 arch and the established church, than they were by the 
 more liberal and generous attachment to public liberty. 
 To posterity it is immaterial what causes may have com- 
 bined to produce that system of freedom under which it is 
 their good fortune to live. The zeal of the fanatic, the 
 0{>pression of power, the general passion for reformation, 
 which at this period ran through all ranks and classes of 
 the British empire, the errors of governors, and the wisdom 
 of the popular leaders, all contributed to the humiliation of 
 that formidable prerogative which arbitrarily disposed of 
 the lives and properties of the people. 
 
 ItMvould not be supposed that 1641, the year most dis- 
 tinguished by the extension of popular }>rivilegc, and the 
 restriction of regal authority, should be the year most re- 
 markable in Ireland for the magnitude of a conspiracy, to 
 effect the separation of the countries, and completely ex- 
 tirpate that power which, for five hundred years, had ex- 
 ercised a cruel and precarious dominion over the lives and 
 the liberties' of tlie native inhabitants of Ireland. The 
 reader of the insurrection of IGil, should always carry in 
 his mind that the native Irish had never yet enjoyed any 
 portion cf that liberty, for which the inhabitants of th« 
 
313 
 
 pale had so long strugglecl. They were tlie eternal vietiiris 
 of colonial prcjiulice and suspicion : whatever of power th'e 
 colony was suffered to exercise by the English government, 
 was exerted to goad and distract and plunder the devoted 
 native inhabitants of Ireland. To the latter, the unlimit- 
 ed authority of the sovereign was often their best and most 
 certain refuge from the persecution of their invaders. To 
 cirilize the Irish, and to plunder and confiscate their 
 properties, were often synonymous; and the insatiate fury 
 of avarice was often sharpened by the relentless sph'it 
 of fanaticism. The intolerance of the puritan represent- 
 ed extermination as an act of religious duty ; and the fide- 
 lity of the native Irish to the faith of their fathers, was 
 considered by the plunderers of their property, as a suffi- 
 cient ground for accusation against the people, and ample 
 justification of their own barbarity. We have witnessed 
 the merciles-s revolution of property in the successive plan- 
 tations of Elizabeth and James ; we have seen whole fa- 
 milies driven from their habitations, provinces depopula- 
 ted, and' the most revered and distinguished among tha 
 native Irish, reduced to the humblest and most degraded 
 stations in society. At the period which we are now writ- 
 ing, a nevi^ spirit arose, which threatened to increase the 
 sufferings, and to add to the persecutions of the Irish, 
 Tlieir loyalty to their king rendered them objects of hatred 
 to those who determined to destroy him. The puritan;? 
 ^f England, inflamed with an enthusiastic hatred of the 
 ratholic religion, determined to make Ireland, which was 
 'the scene of its triumphs, also the scene of its sufferings. 
 To humble their monarch, it was necessary they should de- 
 pnve him of that support, which the Irish catholics hac^ 
 ever given to the power to which thej^ had sworn allegiance. 
 They therefore, in all then- struggles with Charles, lost no 
 opportunity of diminisliing that power upon v\'liich the 
 unfortunate monarch might rely in the extremity of his 
 distress. The government of the colony, therefore, being 
 ii> the interest of Charles' enemies, endeavoured to couji*" 
 
teract the efforts of their monarch, whenever the hitter 
 jseemed inclined to yield to the wishes of his Irish subjects. 
 They disobeyed his orders, if those orders went to con- 
 ciiiute and allay the discontents which they were inter- 
 ested to provoke. Parsons and Borlase seemed to spe- 
 culate on the prospect of rebellion, and anxious only fov 
 the success of those measures which the English parliament 
 were struggling to carry against the king. Their study 
 seemed to be, to multiply his difficulties in Ireland, to 
 irritate the people to insurrection, and thus give full swing 
 to the sword ci the bigot, and the avarice of the confis- 
 pator. 
 
 It does not come within the limits of this compendium 
 to give a lengthened and systematic detail of all the va-r 
 rious and afiiicting transactions which occurred in Ireland, 
 durinjT 4.he fatal and disastrous insurrection of sixteen 
 hundred and forty-one. The heart or the understanding 
 can derive but little improvement from the contemplation, 
 of those scenes which exhibited the struggles of unprin- 
 cipled power' with vindictive suffering, which present ta 
 the reader the retaliations of cruelty, and leaves the mind 
 to balance the account between the comparative efforts of 
 rancorous and malignant bigotry. The Irishman of this 
 period, who flatters himself with the interesting vision of 
 national independence, anxiously follows the progress of 
 Roger O' Moore. Ke peruses the description with plea-, 
 sure \vhich represents this advocate of national rights aa 
 the object of every man's regard, the conciliator of every 
 heart, and favorite of evx^vy muse. He will not be per- 
 suaded by the labors of the corrupt historian, that the 
 hero who could coramand the affections of his country- 
 men, could be capable of giving countenance to the per- 
 petrations of those disgusting cruelties which are so pro- 
 fusely charged upon the Irish ; or that Roger O'Moore 
 could even have sought to accomplish the liberties of his 
 countrymen through the medium of all the misery that 
 e^f' owds the melancholy period of which we are now writing. 
 
315 
 
 Roger O' Moore was once the head of a powerful Irish 
 family of Leinster ; his ancestors had been expelled from 
 their princely possessions in the reign of Mary ; and Roger 
 O'Moore, animated with all the pride and spirit of liis 
 name and family, was doomed to witness the degradation 
 of his house, and the insolent triumphs of its enemies. 
 No Irishman possessed so many qualifications to command 
 the love and reverence of his countrymen ; his manners 
 were courteous and inspiring, his judgment acute, and 
 his courage invincible ; he could boast of the noblest al- 
 liances, a person remarkably graceful, a quick discern^ 
 jment of men's characters, and a pliancy in adapting him- 
 self to their sentiments and passions. The native Irish 
 looked up to such a man with enthusiastic ardor ; he was 
 the theme of their songs; the daughters of Ireland re- 
 garded him as their hero, and her sons followed him with 
 pride and with rapture. Every hill and every valley run^ 
 with the name of Roger O'Moore. The Irish standards 
 were wrought with his name, and the national signal 
 which passed through every province of Ireland was — 
 " God, our Lady, and Roger O'Moore." Such was the 
 character of the leader who organized the formidable insur- 
 rection of sixteen hundred and forty-one, an insuirectiou 
 into which the native Irish were driven by the denuncia- 
 tions of the bigot and the avarice of the consficator. Dr. 
 Curry, in his invaluable review of the civil wars of Ireland, 
 has satisfactorily vindicated the character of his country 
 against the vicious imputation, that the insu}Tfection of 
 which we are writing, was as unprovoked as it was bar- 
 barous; that it burst forth in the calm of public confi- 
 dence, when Ireland was about to enjoy the blessinos of 
 a limited, government, when the privileges of the people 
 Avere beginning to be respected, when national industrv, 
 the manufactures and agriculture of the country were rh'twr 
 from the ruins of civil war and anarchy. Dr. Curry has 
 protected his country against the malicious charo-es of 
 the impudent slanderer, and has proved bv a chain <i 
 
316 
 
 unanswerable evidence, that the native Irish had no refuge 
 but their courage and their arms against the threats of ^ 
 extermination and the rajiacity of fanaticism. 
 
 '^The unfortunate Charles himself, has borne testimony 
 to the provocations which were practised by the governors 
 of Ireland; Parsons and Borlase, to irritate the Irish to 
 insurrection. " If I," said Charles in his reply to a de- 
 claration of the English commons, "had been suffered tt> 
 perform my engagements to the Irish, there would have 
 been no rebellion in Ireland. Had the governors of Ire- 
 land passed the bills for securing the estates of the natives, 
 or for confirming the other promised graces, the Irish 
 would not have had recourse to violence for a redress of 
 their grievances." The extirpation of the catholics seems 
 to have been determined upoH by the same governors ; 
 Mr. Carte, in his life of Ormond, has the following 
 strong testimony to the intention of the anti-catholic part^ 
 of this period : " Some time before the rebellion broke 
 out, it was confidently reported, that sir John Clotwor- 
 thy, who well knew the designs of the faction that go- 
 verned the house* of commons of England, had declared 
 there in a speecii, that ' the conversion of the papists in 
 Ireland, was only to be effected by the bible in one hand 
 and the sword in the other ;' and Mr. Pym, another dis- 
 tinguished member, gave out, 'that they would not leave 
 a priest in Ireland :' to the hke effect, sir William Parsons 
 (one of the Irish governors) out of a strange weakness oi* 
 detestable policy, positively asserted before many witnesses, 
 ' that within a twelve month, no catholic should be seen 
 in Ireland.' He had sense enough to know the conse- 
 quences that would naturally arise from such a declaration, 
 which, however it might contribute to his own selfish 
 views, he would hardly have ventured to make so open- 
 ly and without disguise, if it had not been agreeable to the 
 politics and measure of the English faction, whose party 
 lie espoused, and whose directions were the general rule 
 of his conduct." — " It is evident," says Dr. Warner in his 
 
317 
 
 history of the Irish rebellion, " from the lord justices' let- 
 ter* to the carl of Leinster, then lieutenant, that they 
 hoped for an extirpation, not of the mere Irish only, but 
 of all the old English families also, that were Roman ca- 
 tholics." Dr. Curry says, that this dread of an extirpa- 
 tion, as appears from a multitude of depositions taken 
 before Dr. Henry Jones, and other commissioners appoint- 
 ed by the lords justices, prevailed universally among the 
 catholics of Ireland, and was insisted upon as one of their 
 reasons for taking up arms. The earl of Ormond, in his 
 letter of January the 27th, and February 26th, 1641, to 
 sh- WiUiam St. Leger, imputes the general revolt of the 
 nation, then far advanced, to the publishing of such a 
 design. The most illiberal historian who has presur.)ed 
 to blacken the fame of hi^ountry by the imputation of 
 principles it has a hundred times abjured, will not novr 
 persevere in the denial of the real object and views of those 
 malignant fanatics who drove the Irish to madness in the 
 
 • Mr. TaafFe has the foUowinjr observations on the causes of the 
 Irish insurrection of 1541. Their fidelity and truth are supported by- 
 all the protestaiit writers of this period vho did not feel an im- 
 mediate interest in calumny and misrepresentation. " The Irish 
 insurrection," says Mr. TaafFe " was but a part of ^the revolutionary 
 scheme, formed in England and Scdiand by the puritans. This is the 
 master-key to the proceedings of the party in both islands. The fu- 
 rious denuuriations against popfry contained in the solemn league and 
 covenant, in sundry acts of parlii'ment, and in fanatical petiiioris to par- 
 liament for the extermination of papists, encouraged, pompously re- 
 ceived and published ; torture and death inflicted on many profefsors of 
 that reiig'on — all v.-ere directed to that end. It is diflicuh to conceive," 
 continues Mr. TaafFe^ " that any person calling on the name of Christ 
 and not quite insane, would seriously intend the diabolical project of 
 exterminating a nation for religious opinions; but all those threats, a- 
 larms, and false rumours of fictitious plots, however ridiculous, weri 
 among the revolutionary schemes of working up the m.any headed 
 hydra to the utmost fury. It was deemed necessary to fAnaticize the 
 pLibiic to prepare for great changes in church and state, and the 
 hue atid cry against popery, involving the established prelacy, partly 
 through the afHnity of the two churches, p?.rt!y through the imprudence 
 of Charles and Laud, was a potent engine to work on minds. i_^norant 
 and credulous, especially to tales of malignity. The bible and the spirit 
 of canting hypocrisy and fanaticism, were to the English democrats of 
 the seventeenth century, what the age of reason and infidelity were 
 to the F'rench democrats of the eighteenth. The means different, for 
 X similar object, as a revolution of opinion must precede a revoluiioa 
 ja the states." 
 
S18 
 
 year 1641. The extirpation of the Irish catholic, and 
 the humiliation of the English sovereign, went hand in 
 hand ; and the hope of obtaining the properties of the 
 Irish became a new stimulus to a policy as sanguinary as it 
 was foohsli. 
 
 The catholic clergymen did not escape the tongue of 
 the slanderous ; and the missionaries of peace and patience 
 under unmerited sufferings, were at the same moment 
 represented as the instigators of rebellion, the dissemi- 
 nators of doctrines which would dissolve society, and 
 the sycophantic and spiritless defenders of the most ser- 
 vile doctrines. It is strange, that even at the period in 
 which Mr. Leland wrote, the mind of the historian 
 could have been so insensible to the suggestions of truth, 
 as to put on, record the follo^|'ing libellous effusion — the 
 progeny of falsehood and bigotry, and the labored attes- 
 tation of a corrupted, though able writer, to the calum-, 
 nies of fanaticism. Speaking of the catholic clergy of this 
 period, Mr. Leland says, " that they had the influence, 
 even over the gentry of their communion, with which they 
 were invested by the tenets of their own religion. The 
 ignorant herd of papists the}'^ governed at their pleasure. 
 They had received their education and imbibed their prin- 
 ciples in the foreign seminaries of France and Spain. 
 Hence they returned to Ireland, bound solemnly to the 
 pope in unlimited submission^ without profession or bond 
 of allegiance to the king. Full fraught with these ab- 
 surd and pestilent doctrines, which the moderate of their 
 ov/n communion profess to abominate: of the universal 
 monarchy of the pope, as well civil as spiritual ; of his 
 authority to excommunicate and depose princes ; to ab- 
 solve subjects from their oaths of allegiance, and to dis- 
 pense with every law of God and man; to sanctify re- 
 bellion and murder, and even to change the very na- 
 ture and essential difference of vice and virtue; and 
 with this and other impious trumpery of schools and 
 
319 
 
 eouncils, these ecclesiastics filled their superstitious vo- 
 taries." 
 
 The authority on which Mr. Leland has thought 
 proper to ground the preceding observations, is a dis- 
 graced and excommunicated catholic clergyman, who, 
 smarting under indignity, stops at no charge, however 
 monstrous, against the doctrine and principles of the 
 church which degraded him. Mr. Leland relies on 
 tlie authority ef Peter Walsh, against whom the pope 
 had denounced excommunication, as the unanswerable 
 evidence of the atrocity of these doctrines, which were 
 preached and disseminated by the Irish priesthood. 
 But Mr. Leland should have had the candour to ac- 
 knowledge, that even the excommunicated Peter Walsh 
 had not the hardihood to comprehend the entire of the 
 Irish cathohc clergy in his vindictive accusation, nor did 
 he refuse putting on record, that the principal catholic 
 seminaries of the continent, tliose of Paris, Rheims, 
 Caen, Thoulouse, Poicriers, Valance, Bourdeaux, and 
 Bruges, had on different occasions publicly condemned 
 the pope's deposing power, as false, contrary to the word 
 of God, seditious and detestable. 
 
 Mr. Leland might have seen that even his own au- 
 thority, Peter Walsh, bore testimony to the falsehood of 
 the accusations which the fanatics of the day were in the 
 practice of bringing against the catholic religion. Mr.- 
 Leland might also have learned from Mr. Caite, in his 
 life of Ormond, a writer who was no friend to the catho- 
 Hc clergy, and whose means of information were better 
 than that of any other man, either before or after his time, 
 tliat " although this conspiracy was imputed to Roman 
 catholic priests, yet not above two or three of them ap- 
 peared to know any thing about it." These are Mr. 
 Carte's own words ; but this candid historian goes farther ; 
 for he says, " if the catholic clergy had all, even to a man, 
 concurred in the insurrection, they would have been justifi- 
 gdby the cruel injiuictions juid orders issuedby the lords jus- 
 
S20 
 
 <iccs of Ireland, (Parsons and Borlase,) " to the soldiery, 
 to show no mercy to the catholic clergj%" 
 
 Mr. Carte continues that " the English house of com- 
 mons gave them reason to apprehend every thing that is 
 dreadful to human nature. They had c&used the laws 
 to be put in execution against recusants all over England. 
 Of eight Roman catholic priests who had been taken up 
 for the sole crime of saying mass, seven were condemned 
 and executed. The king struggled to defend them against 
 the fury of the puritan parliament, but in vain. The 
 parliament loudly remonstrated against the royal interpo- 
 sition, and the vengeance of fanaticism thirsted for the 
 shedding of human blood." Mr. Carte's reflections on 
 those facts, which Mr. Leland might have read, and 
 from which a mind like his .might have derived some 
 little portion of liberality, are peculiarly worthy the 
 serious reflection of the readers of Irish history. In a 
 short sentence he vindicates the huma : heart, goaded to 
 vengeance by the commission of barbicrous cruelty ; he * 
 shelters the persecuted and unprotected against the charge 
 of sanguinary and unpitying bigotry, and wisely accounts 
 for all that recriminatory warfare which shocks the sensi- 
 bility of every reader of our miserable records. " When 
 men," writes Mr. Carte, " have every thing to dread in 
 peace, and much to hope from a war, it is natural for 
 them to choose the latter, and use their utmost endeavours 
 to make it successful ; nor is it any wonder that the catho- 
 lic priests in such a situation of affairs, should have re- 
 course to arms, for the safety of their lives ; and despair- 
 ing of indulgence in quiet times, should seek in troublesome 
 ones for an establishment never to be obtained but by the 
 prevailing force of an insurrection." These are the re- 
 iiections of a protestant writer, possessed of the best sources 
 of information, living at a period when it would be sup- 
 posed the understanding could have scarcely recovered its 
 strength after the shock of conflicting sects, in which the 
 most enlightened are apt to be bornfc dowji by the artifice 
 
321 
 
 of fulseliootl, or the exaggeration of calumny, against .snch 
 an authority. — With Mr. Carte may be adduced sir John 
 Temple, who lived at this disastrous period of Irish suf- 
 fering, and who has left to posterity the accumulated pre- 
 judices of the men with whom he acted, during the insur- 
 rection of 1641. Sir John Temple was one of the privy 
 council with Borlase and Parsons ; and naturally iiiterest- 
 ed in the circulation of every slander which might justify 
 tlie violence of this period in the government of the coun- 
 try. We therefore find him exaggerating every act of the 
 Irish, and representing the insurrection in which the}' had 
 engaged, as the offspring of the most sanguinary bigotry, 
 unprovoked by the violence of their government, and not 
 even to be palliated by the suspicion of danger to their 
 religion or their liberties : but as Dr. Nelson, another 
 protestant writer, in his introduction to the second voluui© 
 of his historical collections, very sensibly and truly ob- 
 serves, " it is notorious, that sir John Temple, in writ- 
 ing his history of the rebellion in 1611, was bound by 
 confederacy to assert the proceedings of the lords justices, 
 who were highly in reputation with the usurpers of the 
 parliamentary faction, and by them impowered as com- 
 missioners, to impose upon the protestant subjects of Ire- 
 land that traiterouss and disloyal solemn league and cove- 
 nant, which was a direct oath ql confederacy, not only* 
 against, but purposely to ruin and destroy the king, the 
 church, and the loyal party ; I cannot observe the book to 
 be printed in London, in 1646, by public allowance, (a time 
 when no books were licensed but such as made court to 
 the prevailing faction of the usurpers, or which might be 
 useful to support t^eir calumnies against his majesty, es- 
 pecially as to the Irish rebellion,) without too just a sus- 
 picion of its integrity." Yet, such is the light by which 
 JMr. Hume suffered his mind to be directed, when treat-- 
 ing of the Irish rebellion ; and Mr. Lcland gravely quotes 
 his authorit}', as the unanswe>able evidence of those bar- 
 barities, which sir John Temple charges on our insujted 
 
«ountry. To wliat we have already said in support of our 
 opinion, that sir John Temple's charges against the Irish 
 character were undeserving the attention of any impartial 
 mind, and that the accusations with which his book is 
 crowded against the religion and conduct of the catholics, 
 in 1 61 1 , are the mere effusions of a corrupt and interested 
 calumniator, we shall add the authority and opinion of 
 Dr. Curry. Speaking of sir John Temple, he observes, 
 " This gentleman published his history of the Irish rebel- 
 lion, in the year 1646, by the direction of the parliament 
 party, which then prevailed ; and to which, though long 
 before in actual rebellion, he was always attached. The 
 falsehoods it contains are so numerous and glaring, that 
 even the government, in 1674, seem to have been offended, 
 a7idJiiin$('If ashamed of the rcjniblicatiojiofit. This we gather 
 from a letter of Capel, earl of Essex, then lord lieuten- 
 ant of Ireland, to Mr. secretary Coventry, of that date, 
 wherein we find those words, 'I am to acknowledge yours 
 of the 22d of December, in which you mention a book 
 that was newly published, concerning the cruelties com- 
 mitted in Ireland at the beginning of the late war. Upon 
 further inquiry, I find, that sir John Temple, (master of 
 the rolls of Ireland) author of that book, was sent to by 
 several stationers of London, to have his consent to the 
 printing thereof; but he assures me, that he utterly de- 
 nied it, and whoever printed it, did it without his know- 
 ledge^ Thus much 1 thought fit to add to what I' former- 
 ly said upon this occasion, that I might do this gentleman 
 right, in case it were suspected he had any share in pub- 
 lishing this new edition.' " We felt it a duty to our coun- 
 try to expose the character of that author, who is quoted 
 by her enemies against her moral and religious principles ; 
 who has laboured to present the religion of the catholic as 
 the source of every crime; and the character of the native 
 Irishman, deserving the contempt and abhorrence of everj 
 friend to humanity. The calumnies which sir John Tem- 
 ple has propagated, have been echoed by the thousand sy- 
 
325 
 
 eophants and slaves of British injustice who have suc- 
 ceeded him ; they have been so often repeated, that cre- 
 dulity has become conviction, and the minds which had 
 the firmness to repel the exaggerations of malignant false- 
 hood, have been seen to sink under the indefatigable in- 
 dustry of the hired libeller. 
 
 The insurrection of IS^l was the natural effect of per- 
 secution ; it was the vindictive ebullition of great publijc 
 spirit, driven to madness by the goadings of religious into- 
 lerance. The cruelties committed during this moral 
 convulsion, were provoked by a series of unrelenting op- 
 pressions, never to be satiated with the misery of the 
 Irish ; and the terrible vengeance which the latter inflicted 
 on their enemies, should teach the future governors of 
 Ireland that the people are always barbarized by intoler- 
 ance, and rendered savage by injustice. We shall not, in 
 this compendium, follow the various fluctuations of the 
 different parties which acted in the insurrection of 
 164?1 ; we shall not pursue the course of the rebel or the 
 loyalist ; we shall not follow Roger O' Moore and his com- 
 panions through the multiplicity of dangers and enter'* 
 prizes in which they were engaged ; such a relation would 
 be little more than a picture of barbarous cruelty and re- 
 criminatory vengeance, — a revival of all those afflicting de- 
 tails which the friend of Ireland and humanity would 
 anxiously bury in everlasting oblivion. We shall not in 
 this volume disgust the reader by a recital of the atrocious 
 massacre at island Magee by the English ; nor shall we 
 set down the terrible vengeance which the Irish, soon afterj 
 at Portnadown, inflicted on their sanguinary enemies,* 
 
 •*The unaccountable credulity which could for a moment countenance 
 the circulation of the fables to which the terrified imaginations, orperhaps 
 the corrupt poiicv of the writers, gave birth, is not easily reconcileable with 
 the comijion sense which regulates the judgment and religious opinions nf 
 modern days. What man can refrain from smiling at the solemn gravity 
 with which an historian will record the following absurdities: — "hun- 
 dreds of the ghosts of protestants" say* s'f John Temple, " that were 
 drowned at Portnadown bridge, were seen in the river bolt upright, and 
 wcr« heard to cry out for revenge on those rtbeis. One of these ghosts 
 
324 
 
 Could we, in passing through the scene of blood and 
 desolation which our country exhibited at this period, dis- 
 cover a single gleaming of humanity, or a single effort of 
 justice, we should feel it our duty to put it on record ; but 
 the Irish heart was so brutalized by opjn'ession, that to 
 destroy and to extirpate seemed to be considered as the 
 summit of patriotism, and the generous emotions of the 
 human bosom to be swallowed up in the barbarous de- 
 nunciations of mutual cruelty and hatred. 
 
 It is to be lamented, that Mr. Leland should have set 
 down, with such peculiar accuracy, the numerous atroci- 
 ties which the insurrection of 1641 furnished to his pen ; 
 and it is a siib:?ct of still greater rcrret, that the elo- 
 
 ■was seen with hands lifted up, and standing in that posture, from the 
 29th of Dectmbi^ to the latter end of the foliowino^ lent." — 
 
 A modern historian (Air. Taaffe) has the following sensible observa- 
 tions on those miserable records •of murderers, and ghosts, and goblins, 
 which haunted the imaginations of every fool, and were the favorite 
 theme of every knave, long after the period when it was supposed such 
 events occurred. 
 
 " At this day (1810) it is not so material to know how many were mas- 
 sacred J>y either side, as to discover the motives that prompted the par^ 
 ties to those atrocities, and the prime movers of the rebellion, at wliose 
 door all the cruelties are to be laid ; first, it is notorious, as already 
 proved from the Scots covenant, (that canting, fanatical, intolerart libel 
 on religion and conmion sense) and the denunciations of the English com- 
 mons, as well as the sanguinary petitions received and encouraged by 
 them, that tbey kindled a fanatical enthusiasm for the extermination of 
 popery and papists; a furious zeal for such infernal projects being dili- 
 gently propagated among the ignorant multitude. Nor were men of 
 education exempt from the contagion ; witness the anathema pronounced 
 by Dr. Usher against any toleration of popery, declaring, (on the catho- 
 lics offering a considerable composition for the relaxation of the penal 
 Jaws,) 'that it was sacrilege to compound with idolatry for money.' 
 Armed fanatics thus tutored to blood, would think it m.eritorious to slay 
 the reputed idolaters. But there was also another obvious motive, 
 besides difference of religion, that much more exasperated tJie northern 
 Irish against the British piarters. These men were, by violence and 
 fraud, possessed of the estates c f the native Irish about thirty years before, 
 and were now living in opulence; while the descend-ints of the most an- 
 tient proprietors in Euf'ipe, or perhaps in the world, were pining in in- 
 digence, or emigrating fc r bread to fore gn countr.es ; than which no 
 cause is more capable of exci;ing enmity. The myHlrobhers, James and 
 Charles, prepared the con>bu.stibIe of very extensive discontent, and the 
 puritans kindied the wisp 1 his will satisfactorily appear from tlie places 
 ■where the insurrection /.'Timenced ; counties where ancient proprietor* 
 were unjustly difposscs;tJ of their est;^tes, which were partly bestowed, 
 aud partly soid, to Er.gliih adventurers," 
 
325 
 
 quence of the historian always assumes a bolder tone, and 
 the coloring of his picture always becomes more glowing, 
 ■whenever the vindictive barbarities of his countrymen are 
 about to be described. There is no allowance for an unof- 
 fending people driven to madness by the persecutions of an 
 insatiable avarice. The historian has no commiseration for 
 the thousand families of the native Irish, whom the agents 
 of England expelled from their homes; whose properties 
 they confiscated, and whose children they ^beggared: if 
 the English suffer, the indignation of Mr. Leland is rous- 
 ed, and his eloquence flows in a strong and irresistible 
 cuiTent. The following is a good sample of the modera- 
 tion with which this impartial historian records the acts 
 and proceedings of his countrymen. 
 
 " They who escaped the utmost fury of the rebels, lan- 
 suished in miseries horrible to be described. Their ima- 
 gmations were overpowered and disordered by the recol- 
 lection of tortures and butchery. In their distraction, 
 every tale of horror was eagerly received, and every sug- 
 gestion of frenzy and melancholy believed implicitly. 
 Miraculous escapes from death ; miraculous judgments en 
 murderers ; lakes and rivers of blood ; marks of slaughter 
 kidelible by every Jium an effort; visions of spirits chant- 
 ing hymns ; ghosts rising from rivers and shrieking out re- 
 venge; these and such like fancies were propagated and 
 received as incontestible." When Mr. Leland is, in the 
 next page, describing the merciless slaughter of the Irish 
 in island Magee, a district bordering on Carrickfergus, 
 where three thousand unoffending innocent persons, men, 
 women, and children, according to Mr. Carte, in his 
 life of Ormond, were barbarously sacrificed to the fury of 
 a remorseless soldiery, we cannot hear a single sigh of 
 compassion ; not a breathing of pity, nor a single reflec- 
 tion of reprobation or condolence with the reader. The 
 duty of the historian should rather be directed to heal 
 than to irritate ; to account for the cause, rather than ex- 
 aggerate the cruelties, which persecution often provoked. 
 
and wliicli justice to the devoted Irish would always have 
 prevented. The parliament of Ireland, and the lords jus- 
 tices Borlase and Parsons, interested in the protraction of 
 that insurrection to which their cruelties had given birth, 
 discouraoed every effort which was made by their most 
 efficient generals to put an end to the power of the in- 
 suro-ents. " Whatever were the professions of the chief 
 governors," says Mr. Leland, " the only danger they 
 really apprehended, was that of a too speedy suppression 
 of the rebels." The earl of Ormond was, in numerous 
 instances, Hmited in his resources, restrained in his pro^ 
 gress, and absolutely prohibited in the adoption of those 
 plans which would have speedily extinguished the flame 
 of insurrection. 
 
 Confiscation and plunder was the great object of the 
 puritan governors of the pale ; and, as Mr. Leland has 
 the candor to acknowledge, " the favorite and anxious 
 wish of the Irish governors, and their friends, the Eng- 
 lish parliament, was the utter extermination of all the ca- 
 tholics of Ireland. Their estates," continues the same 
 historian, " were already marked out and allotted to their 
 conquerors; so that they and their posterity were con- 
 signed to inevitable ruin." Mr. Carte, in his life of the 
 carl of Ormond, gives the same opinion on the designs, 
 of the government of Ireland at this period, and attri- 
 butes almost all the calamity with which the English inha- 
 bitants of Ireland were visited, to the unprincipled and 
 avaricious policy of its government. The insurrection 
 was caiTied on in the diflerent provinces with various suc- 
 cess ; those of the south exhibited more ord .r and system 
 in their operations than the north. Their conflicts, though 
 not important in their results, were marked with circum- 
 stances of cruelty and barbarity equally disgraceful to the 
 contending parties. There seemed to be little more than 
 a rivalship of vengeance between the Irish and the Eng- 
 lish, in which the innocent and unoffending were almost 
 always the victims j and the total oblivion of which maj 
 
327 
 
 perhaps be now considered as the first duty of the his- 
 torian as well as the reader.* 
 
 The struffirles of the Irish were hitherto so unsuccess- 
 ful, that the boldest and most confident of tlieir leaders be- 
 gan to despond. On the other hand, the English parlia- 
 ment determined to put forth all their strength, and to 
 
 • In addition to the authorities wc have already adduced, in justitiL-a- 
 tion of the resistance oi' the Irish to the threats of extermination, and the 
 actual infliction of great suffering, we shall subjoin the enlightened, com- 
 prehensive, and unanswerable observations of Doctor Curry, who iiia 
 devoted so much labor to the establishment of truth, the refutation of ca- 
 lumny, and the confusion of all the hired libellers of the Irish people. 
 These observations are to be found in his introduction to the Review of 
 the Civil Wars of Ireland; and perhaps there could not be gleaned from 
 the hundred volumes which have been written on the disastrous subject 
 of the Irish insurrection, so satisfactory a consolidation of all those rea- 
 •ons which the most enthusiastic defenders of the Irish nation would wish 
 to see advanced. 
 
 *' At the period," says Doctor Curry, " from which I have commeiiced 
 the revievr of the civil wars in Ireland, it will be found, that spiritual 
 hatred mixed itself with our former seeds of dissention. The perversc- 
 ness so long imputed to the Irish, as a people, was no longer charged oa 
 their nature, but on their religion. Almost every moral and civil duty 
 was then confined within the pale of an ecclesiastical party ; every spe- 
 cies of treachery was placed beyond it; real crimes were disowned by 
 one faction; imaginary crimes were imputed to anotiier ; and this state of 
 things occasioned guilt on both sides, which, in a different state, would 
 undoubtedly be avoided. High as most of those crimes were, yet most 
 were exaggerated, and the innocent suffered withi the guilty. To com- 
 plete the misery of the times, the gospel of peace was tortured to defend 
 the measures and sanctify the drunkenness of every governing, as well 
 as every resisting set of men ; and thus it fared in Ireland, in some time 
 after the accession of queen Elizabeth to the throne. 
 
 " Queen Elizabeth, whose reign began in the height of ecclesiastical 
 rage, had admirable talents for government. To plant civil order in the 
 place of that misrule, which disgraced the three preceding reigns, wm 
 difhcult. Her interest led her, and the success of her father and brother 
 encouraged her, to change the religion then tstablished in England. This she 
 effected ; but truth must olilige us to confess, that the new church was 
 reared on the foundations of persecution, and that the violence so justly 
 censured in queen Mary's reign, was adopted as a justifiable measure in 
 the present. The change vi'as made by a quick act of legislative power, 
 but without that moderation which sound poiicv should direct in estab- 
 lishments of this nature. By the change, one party in the nation was 
 ruined, another was provoked ; papists were occasionally punished 
 without discrimination ; and, in the idea «f party justice, this procedure 
 appeared equitable; but the puritan jirotestant was punished also ; and 
 the clamor ran high among dissenters, that the old beast returned, with a 
 change only of the rider and the habiliments. The party for a compre- 
 hensive reformation grew popular, and increased in stre-igth and in num- 
 bers every day, as it increased in faction and enthusiasm. I'he new 
 ohurch, evsQ iu the «ct of CKtirpaliiig the old, created to itself euemie* 
 
S2S 
 
 prosecute the war in Ireland with increased vigor and re- 
 sources. They entered into a treaty with Scotland, in 
 1642, for sending her army into Ireland. Robert Mon- 
 roe, at the head of three thousand men, embarked for Car- 
 rickfergus. He marched against sir Phelim O'Neal, who 
 retired to Armagh, full of rage and disappointment at the 
 
 on all sides; and thus it happened, tliat the system wove by civil policy, 
 was in a great degree unravelled by tiie ecc'esiasticaL The natives of 
 Ireland, ready at all time to recognize t!ie temporal supremacy of their 
 sovereign, and reject every foreign claimant, lay or ecclesiastical, o( 
 such supremacy, merited being received into the society of constitutional 
 subjects ; and that they should be so received, had been the labor of sir 
 Henry Sydney, one of the wisest, ^.blest, and best governors ever sent 
 into that kingdom — but in vain. The reformation, it is true, made no 
 progress for a long time without the pale, and extraordinary eltorts to 
 enforce it by arms, would certainly be dangerous, as it might put an end 
 to intestine divisions among the people, which hitherto proved so useful 
 towards their reduction. To favor those divisions was previously the 
 more politic alternative; and the queen received the submissions of many 
 Irish chieftains at her court very graciously; dismissed them witk honors 
 and presents, and left them free as to the concerns of their spiritual con- 
 fcience. It was otherwise within the pale and its environs ; here even the 
 seneschals of counties exercised plain tyranny over the people, and such 
 particular severities were then inflicted, even in the opinion of the lord 
 deputy himself (lord 'Mountjoy) as were sufiicient to drive the best and 
 quietest states into a sudden confusion. The evils of persecution were se- 
 verely felt in England particularly, and in several districts of Ireland, during 
 the greater part of queen Elizabeth's reign. One party was puuished without 
 discrimination, and the other (and indeed botii) without sound policy. Those 
 evils increased in the two succeeding reigns, when those three kin^'loma, 
 for the first time, had been united under one sovereign. James I., whom 
 the trumpeters of faction charged with favoring popery, was a great 
 and deternn'ned enemy to his popish subjects. His administration in Ire- 
 land, with little exceptijin, is a lull proof of this. His trimming con- 
 duct towards the papists of England, antecedently to his accession, is no 
 proof to the contrary ; for they gained nothing and he intended they should 
 gain notiiing) by the laws he held out to them. Learned wit!ui"t^<now- 
 K'dge, cunning without wisdom — one of his first gracious proclamatiiins 
 imputed a general gaol delivery to all his subjects, excepting inura'enrs 
 end piipisii — and this coupling of the latter with such crim.inals, produced 
 a resentment which, degenerating iiuo mad revenge, contributed in a 
 «:onsiderabie degree to the detestable powder plot, entered into soon after 
 by a lew desperate men, to get rid of iheir persecutors. Charles, the suc- 
 cessor of James, trod, and trod ruinously, in his father's footsteps. He 
 wanted to impose the Eiiglish religion on his Scotch subjects. The 
 covenanters would not bear the introduction of what they deemed a 
 superstitious liturgy among them. They defended themselves against it 
 hy insurrection, tnd the parliament sitting at Westmintttr approved of 
 thtir conduct. The norther^ Irish, finding affairs embroiled in Great 
 Britain, and dreading fatal consequences from the resolutions denounced 
 against papists in the English house of commons, entertained the thought 
 mi availing theivisdves cl' the pre*ent opportunity of frustrating the ia- 
 
329 
 
 misfortunes of his army. The secret instructions of the 
 Scottish general prevented his folUnving up the blow, 
 which would have conchided the insurrection in the north. 
 His friends and partizans in the English parliament had 
 their particular views in the protraction of the war ; and 
 the English army was left to contend alone with the re- 
 tentions cf their enemies, and shaking ofF the bondage they groaned un- 
 der from tlie time of tlie queen's denial; Init they meant to compass this 
 end by means equally justiriible with tho-se employed by the Scotch cov- 
 enanters, and still without an impeachment of their loyalty. The memory 
 of past grievances, the dread of present destruction, made those, men des- 
 perate, 
 
 " For forty years before the period we mention, the whole body of the 
 Irish papists bore ministerial invasions of the most distressing nature to 
 the human mind. 'Ihe lands possessed by their families for several ages, 
 were, in tiie court casuistry of that age, pronounced invalid and resum- 
 able tenures, though no charge of treason or rebellion could be made to 
 the heirs in actual possession. TTpon this pretence of defective titles 
 some have been ruined, others threatened with ruin ; and this was not all. 
 The court harpies, grown impatien*: at the passive conduct of the pro- 
 prietors, attempted to provoke them to open rebe linn, by exercising 
 the most galling tyranny over their consciences, bv finia?, imprison- 
 ing, and punishing in various shapes, such papists as refused to 
 join in the established form of worship. Hsre, then, see how the 
 natives have been alarmed with regard to prooerty and spiritual lib- 
 erty, and how they were tortured by state inquisitors, for not submitting 
 to religious doctrines which spiritual directors may preach, but which 
 no civil power on earth has a riglu to impose. They, surely, who vindi- 
 cate the right of the Scots to insurrection in 1640, can, with no good 
 grace, condemn that of the Irish in 1641 ; we do not defend either, but 
 we may safely assert, that he who sSould, at this time of dav, advance 
 with my lord Clarendon, that ' the Irish had no civil or religious griev- 
 ances to complain of, during the forty years antecedent to the Uhonian 
 rebellion in 1641,' has but a wretched alternative in opin'on between 
 wilful ignorance and barefaced dishonesty." 
 
 The malignint prejudice with which Mr. Hume exaggerates the errors, 
 or the crimes of tl.e Irish, and the furious prepossessions which he dis- 
 covers through every p.ige of his history against this unolTendiDo- and a- 
 bused people, is well remarked upon by our able and honest countryman. 
 Dr. Curry. When Mr. Hume was living, he and his friends were 
 challenged by Dr. Curry to an examination of the charges against the 
 Irish people. Mr. Hume was unwilling to correct those errors against 
 the Irish character, and those insults against their feelings, which he well 
 knew were so palatable to the insatiable monopoly of his English read- 
 er. Dr. Curry, speaking of Mr. Hume, observes, " It is indeed to 
 be lamented that Mr. Hume, one of the ablest writers of the {)resent age, 
 should, as an historian, suffer himself to be so far led astray by such co- 
 temporaries as we have hinted at, as to transfer all, or nics: of the mis- 
 chief* of the year 1641, in Ireland, from the original authors to the un- 
 fortunate Irish alone. Parties less aggrieved, in Scotland, were up be- 
 fore them, and drew the sword, not only with impunity, but witli ad- 
 vantage. The Irish in Ulster, who wanted to re;;ain the lands they had 
 lost, followed the example. We do not justify th.e act in either kingdo.n ; 
 
 s s 
 
S30 
 
 eruited army of sir Phelim O'Neal. T]ie latter were 
 now further animated by the presence of a general in 
 whose experience gnd military talents they confided. 
 Owen O'Neal, whose arrival had been so long and so 
 anxiously expected, landed in the county Donegal, with 
 one hundred officers, and a considerable supply of arms 
 and ammunition. He came from Dunkirk, and had serv- 
 ed in 1640, in the Spanisli and imperial armies, with great 
 reputation. Mr. Garte says, that he was an able and ex- 
 perienced general, quick in discerning, and diligent in im- 
 proving any advantage offered by the enemy ; more cir- 
 cumspect than enterprizing ; of a genius peculiarly"Suited 
 to defence, and excellent at protracting a war ; qualities 
 of especial use in the service which he was now to under- 
 take. His knowledge of the world, his prudence, his so- 
 briety and caution, appeared to greater advantage, as 
 they were contrasted vvitli the intemperance and levity of 
 sir Phelim. Owen O'Neal was declared by the northern 
 Irish, head and leader of their confederacy. The instant 
 he assumed the command of the Irish army, he issued 
 orders that ever}-^ act of inhumanity committed by his 
 troops, should be punished in the most exemplary manner. 
 He deprecated every expedient not recognized by the most 
 honorable warilire : he discouraged the cruel and vindic- 
 tive, and circulated among his troops principles of mercy 
 and humanity, even to their enemies. 
 
 Notwithstanding the formidable force wliicli the Scot- 
 tish general, Monroe, could now bring into the field, 
 amounting to twenty thousand foot, and one thousand 
 
 we on'y advance in aUeviation of the Irish crime, that the majority of the 
 Irifh tiation had, in the two reigns of James and Charle?, suffered a 
 cruel bondage of thirty-eight years, with little intermission, and had now 
 the most alarming prospect uf extirpation before them. 1 hey did not 
 me<>n to withdraw their a'isgiance from the king; even the weak leaders 
 «t the northern rabble had no such intention. The latter began and act- 
 ed singly; most of the innocent protesrants, in the neighbouring districts, 
 fiad tui.e to escape into places of security before many murders were com- 
 mitted. The p:ipists ill the other provinces had no share in their guilt; 
 they iitimtdiately published their detestation of it." 
 
531 
 
 horse, he suffered Owen O'Neal to collect and discipline 
 his army, to fortify his strong posts, and assume an atti- 
 tude of strength hitherto unenjoyed by the Irish insurgents. 
 Nor were the foreign friends of the Irish inactive in fur- 
 nishing them with supplies of every description, with 
 money and amnmnition, and the most experienced and en- 
 terprizing officers. Cardinal Riclielieu, wlio at this period 
 admmistered the government of France, warmly co-op- 
 erated with the Irish insurgents. He permitted those 
 Irish officers who had distinguished themselves in the 
 service of France, to repair to their own country, in de- 
 fence of its liberties and its religion. 
 
 The war in Ireland had now assumed a formidable as- 
 pect; it was conducted with as much system as spirit, and 
 every expedient which the most judicious pohcy could 
 suggest, was adopted with alacrity and decision. The 
 clergy were summoned to make their appeal to the reli- 
 gious feelings of their countrymen; to rouse their enthu- 
 siasm for the security of religious liberty ; and to inflame 
 the spirit of the patriot, by representing the cause in whicli 
 he was embarked, as the cause of truth and of his country, 
 A general synod assembled at Kilkenny, in the month of 
 May, 164r2. In this assembly we may for the first time 
 discern. a rational and efficient effort to bring into action 
 the spirit and resources of the Irish nation. Here may 
 be seen the centre of the great public mind, and the pow- 
 erful engine by which its energies might be advantageous- 
 ly directed to the public liberty. The influence M^hich so 
 venerable a body could exercise in Ireland, was as natu- 
 ral as it was extensive. The Irish clergy had adhered to 
 their religion and to their countrymen with a fidelity which 
 the annals- of 4:he world cannot surpass. They passed 
 through the furnace of the hottest persecution with a for- 
 titude which no despotism, however malignant, could 
 shake. That their voice and their decision, therefore, 
 should be heard and followed with respect and with devo-. 
 tion by Irishmen, will not be wondered at by those who 
 
S3t 
 
 will call to tlieir recollection the patience of the Irish priest 
 under centuries of intolerance and of suffering. The acti 
 of the synod were most important. Like the clergy of 
 all other sects of Christianity, they commenced with a de- 
 claration in support of the religion which they professed, 
 asserting its superior claims to purity and truth, and 
 that it was perfectly consistent with- the duties of their 
 station, to call upon their countrymen to defend the re- 
 ligion of their forefathers against the rude and barbarous 
 invasions of intolerance. They proclaimed their anxiety 
 that no distinction should hereafter exist between the old 
 and the new Irish; that the Irish protestant who v/a» 
 friendly to his catholic countryman, should enjoy equal pro- 
 tection with the catholic ; that there should be no distinction 
 but between those who were enemies and those who were 
 friends; that no man should be the victim of his peculiar and fa- 
 vorite faith ; andabove all, they threatened theperpetrators of 
 cruel and inhuman acts with the severest denunciations of 
 the catholic church. They recommended provincial 
 councils, composed of clergy and laity, and a general na- 
 tional council, to which the provincial councils should be 
 subordinate ; and tT^at foreign powers should be applied 
 to — the emperor, the king of France, and the pope. Such 
 were the acts of the clergy ; to which the catholic no- 
 bility and gentry then residing in Kilkenny, immediately 
 subscribed. To those who are in the practice of depre- 
 cating the interference of the Irish catholic priest in po- 
 litical considerations, we may reply, that he is justified by 
 the example of every couRlry in Europe. The minister 
 of the protestant church tliinks it no departure from his 
 duty even to unsheath his sword in defence of his estab- 
 iisbnient in church and state. The minister of Christi- 
 anity, the herald of peace, feels no compunctious visiting* 
 when standing in the ranks of his countrymen, associated 
 for the purpose of defending the liberties and the religion 
 of liis country. The same feeling actuated the bosoms of 
 the Irish priests, when in solemn synod they appealed 
 
S3S 
 
 to the pride and spirit of their coiintrxmien, to defend 
 themselves against the cruel persecutions with which their 
 cQuntry was threatened by an intolerant and sanguinaiy 
 government. The Irish catholic priest, liowevcr, will of- 
 ten be found adininisterino- consolation to his bitterest ene- 
 my, blunting the sword which he could not sheath, and 
 softening the spirit of vengeance which he could not en- 
 tirely extinguish. 
 
 A supreme council, composed of the chief nobility and 
 gentry, assembled, and lord Mountgarret was named as 
 their president. A general assembly of the whole nation 
 was then determined upon, whose first sittings were to take 
 place in thei ensuing month of October. It is impossible 
 for an Irishman to contemplate this great and glorious 
 scene, which elevates the humblest mind, and animates the 
 coldest bosom, without indulging in those reflections which 
 must embitter the days that Ireland is doomed to experi- 
 ence, stripped as she is of her purest robe of honor, thrown 
 down from that station which she once occupied, and re- 
 duced, as she now is, to the humiliating and insulting vas- 
 salage of a tributary to the pride and strength and riches 
 of another country. Fancy may in vain delineate the pic- 
 ture of an independent nation, making her own laws, com- 
 manding her own armies and navies, and brino-iu.r into 
 action, at once honorable and productive to her people, 
 her boundless resources in genius, industry, and strenoth. 
 In vain, we fear, may Ireland anticipate the blessino-« 
 which flow to a nation from the enjoyment of equal ri'dits ; 
 whose laws are administered by those who are interested 
 in the impartial dispensation of justice ; whose elevation 
 and whose fortune go hand in hand with the honor and 
 character of their country. No doubt, the convention 
 which assembled in Kilkenny, in October 1642, and which 
 comprised all that was dignified and spirited in the land, 
 frequently flattered itself with the reahzation of so o-lo- 
 nous a scene. Where the genius of Ireland stood untram- 
 melled and uurestrained by the quibble of the placemaa 
 
534 
 
 and the pensioner ; where the Irish mind was buoj^ed up 
 on the iiwelling sea of piibhc freedom, and every heart 
 and every hand were devoted to the estabhshment of equal 
 laws and equal rights ; where the eloquent found a sub- 
 ject commensurate with their powers, and the poet and 
 orator enjoyed a perpetual theme of panegyric and glory 
 — in such an assembly the Irishman might indulge in all 
 the visions of independence. Such contemplations made 
 Iiim equal to great and glorious enterprizes ; they ren- 
 dered the dangers of the struggle in which he was en- 
 gaged as trifling, when compared with the ol>iect for which 
 he was contending ; and, like the armor of the warrior, 
 covered and protected him against the power of his enemy. 
 Tliis celebrated convention, which gave so much hope to 
 Ireland, and excited so much fear among her enemies, con- 
 asted of two houses, the one composed of temporal peers 
 and prelates, the other of representatives deputed by the 
 counties and cities. 
 
 The views of this assembly were strictly regulated by 
 principles of the most unshaken attachment to the house 
 of Stewart. Their declaration was candid, clear, and un- 
 equivocal; they claimed protection against injustice, and 
 toleration for their religion ; they took up arms as much 
 in til e defence of the royal prerogative as of their own 
 liberties, and vindicated the constitutional claims of their 
 sovereign, with as much zeal as they pleaded for their own 
 Eglits. Though they thus adhered to the king, they dc- 
 nocnced his Irish representatives. The direction of the 
 confederacy was entrusted to a council composed of twen- 
 ty-four persons, selected from the general convention. 
 They were denominated, the supreme council of the con- 
 federate catholics of Ireland. They had the uncontrouled 
 tiii'ection of the civil and military power of the country; 
 \and for their honor and security, a guard was assigned, 
 consistinfT of five hundred foot and two hundred horse. 
 Tlie Irish convention then proceeded to the appointment 
 ©f their generals, and to the distribution of theii' powers. 
 
J35 
 
 Owen O'Neal was appointed to the command of the 111- 
 ster army, Preston to Leinster, Garret Barry to Minister, 
 and colonel Joljn Burke to Connaught; they dispatched 
 ambassadors to all the foreign counties, soliciting their aid 
 and co-operation. Having thus prepared for war, they 
 determined to demonstrate their anxiety for peace, by a 
 a respectful representation of the grievances by which -they 
 were oppressed, and which they alledged were the ground- 
 work of the formidable confederacy which they had no\r 
 effected. 
 
 About this period, the differences between Charles and 
 his parliament had increased to the utmost extent, and the 
 Irish of the pale were divided into a royal and parliamen- 
 tary faction. The earl of Ormond and the army declared 
 for the king; and the lords justices and their friends, who 
 had imbibed all the prejudice, the malignity, and puritan- 
 nical bigotry of the English parliament, co-operated 
 in all the views of Charles' enemies. The civil war of 
 England was now declared, and the animosity of the jus- 
 tices and the king's Irish general, the earl of Onuoncl, 
 promised an easy victory to the Irish confederacy. The 
 present distresses of the sovereign pointed out the policy 
 and expediency of paying immediate and respectful atten- 
 tion to the prayers of his Irish subjects. Pressed by an 
 inveterate bigotry in his own country, which no concession 
 could conciliate, he was advised by his friends to repose 
 confidence in the fidelity of Ireland, to listen to her com- , 
 plaints, and protect her feelings. When we consider tli» 
 formidable attitude of the Irish at this moment, we cannot 
 but admire the kind forbearance which r.ould sheath the 
 Irish sword, and court a termination of hostilities. Bal- 
 ancing the rising power of English enemies against the 
 possible aid which he might receive from his Irish subjects, 
 and taking into consideration the awful consequences of 
 driving a whole people to the desperate extremity of re- 
 nouncing their allegiance to their sovereign, he issued a 
 commission to the marquis of Ormond, and five Irish 
 
536 
 
 noblemen of the pale, to hold an immediate commuliicis- 
 tion with the Irish confederacy, to receive and transmit 
 their propositions of conciliation and peace. The lords 
 justices left no expedient untried, to defeat the royal views, 
 and perpetuate a conflict, which mifrht terminate in the 
 submission of the king to the wishes of his enemies. 
 
 The English parliament, under the controul of the most 
 furious fanaticism, thirsting for the annihilation of every 
 adlierent to the catholic faith, armed the lords justices. 
 Parsons and Borlase, with unlimited powers. The latter 
 implicitly followed up the wishes of their patrons, and 
 issued fortl^ their orders of extermination. " It was re- 
 solved," says Borlase in his history of the Irish rebellion, 
 *' upon solemn debate, on the 8th of December, 1641, 
 by the lords and commons of England, that they would 
 never give consent to any toleration to the popish religion 
 in Ireland, or any other of his majesty's dominions, which 
 vote hath been since adjudged a main motive by the Irish, 
 for making the war a cause of rebellion." This dreadful 
 denunciation of the English parliament, was faithfully 
 followed up by the lords justices. With such rancorous 
 enemies ; the unfortunate Charles had to contend in all 
 his difficulties. The negociations between his majesty^s 
 commissioners and the deputies of the confederacy, were 
 frequently interrupted by the malignant suggestions of 
 the lords justices. The King, under his peculiar circum- 
 stances, could not yield to his disposition to conciliate the 
 Irish. When he negociated with their leaders, he was 
 compelled to the adoption of such language as was calcu- 
 lated to wound die pride and spirit of the Irish. The 
 latter were reproached with tlie title of rebels; and the 
 moment which was selected to heal the wounds of the 
 country, was also chosen to induce the acknowledgment 
 of a crime which the Irish leaders always repelled with 
 iixlignation. They 'pertinaciously refused to negociate 
 in any other character than that of men constitutionally 
 demanding their rights ; and such were the embarrass- 
 
^S37 
 
 ments of the king that he was obliged to accede to the 
 pretensions of his Irish subjects. Four of tlie king's com- 
 missioners met the agents of the Irish at Trim. Here 
 the latter presented their remonstrance of grievances and 
 their petition for redress. They strongly pleaded their 
 loyalty and their services ; the intolerance of the present 
 governors, Parsons and Borlase ; and their sufferings 
 under the most torturing oppression. They set forth the 
 denunciations of their malignant and fanatical enemy, the 
 English parliament ; and their apprehensions that nothing 
 short of the extermination of their religion, its professors 
 and followers, would appease the vengeance of its bigotry. 
 They prayed their sovereign to convene a new parlia- 
 ment, in which the Irish might enjoy a lair and impartial 
 representation ; where they might deliberate without con- 
 troul, and from which those who professed the religion of 
 the country shoul(^ not be excluded. It is remarkable 
 that the Irish agents also prayed his majesty to suspend 
 the law of Poynings, by which the deliberations of the 
 Irish legislature were directed and restrained. Such 
 claims could not be acceded to by the royal commission- 
 ers ; but the pressure of the king's difficulties were now 
 so severe, that it became a question of prudence to yield 
 to the pretensions of the Irish. A cessation of hostilities 
 was secretly proposed by the marquis of Ormond, and 
 candidly and honorably accepted by the Irish. They 
 wanted no more than a redress of that injustice under 
 which they suffered ; and the increasing embarrassments 
 of their sovereign did not raise their tone of complaint 
 or remonstrance. They agreed to a cessation for twelve 
 months, on such conditions as their agents and the mar- 
 quis of Ormond might hereafter agree upon. The mis- 
 fortunes of the king continued to press tlie necessity of 
 adopting the most expeditious plan of conciliation in Ire- 
 land. He gave orders to Ormond to accede to the wishes 
 of the Irish confederacy, and he manifested his sincerity 
 in the negociation by committing to close custody the 
 
 T t 
 
sss 
 
 most virulent and odious enemies of the Irish — Parsons, 
 Temple, Loftus and JNIeredith. The Irish arms were 
 triump]>ant ahnost in every part of the country, and the 
 Irish convention assembled at Kilkenny, partook of the 
 general spirit which pervaded all ranks of their country- 
 men. 
 
 The present imposing attitude of the Irish attracted the 
 attention of foreign courts; and all the expedients drawn 
 from policy and religion were employed to extend the 
 flame of national independence. Peter Scramj), a minis- 
 ter from the pope, brought supplies of money and amnni- 
 nition to the confederate Irish. He boldly animated 
 them to an assertion of their country's freedom; that the 
 king of England was no longer formidable to his English 
 subjects, and much less to Ireland; that the partisans of 
 the English parliament were now at their mercy ; and that 
 a most disgraceful spirit of slavery alone would suggest any 
 measure short of national independence; that they would 
 command the respect and the co-operation of foreign pow- 
 ers ; and that a nation who would not seize the o}iportunity 
 V. hich providence had offered her to assert her rights, de- 
 served to remain in everlasting bondage. The suggestions 
 of tlie pope's envoy were not attended to by the more mo- 
 derate among the leaders of the Iribh, and a simple re- 
 dress of the grievances of vvhich they complained was the 
 extent of their demands- — the object for which they took 
 up arms, and the sole condition on which they would agree 
 to lay them down. , The earl of Clanrickard and lord Cas- 
 tlehaven were most prominent in moderating the spirit of 
 their coyntrpncn, A cessation was finally concluded on 
 the 15th of September, agreeable to both parties, and 
 ccnfirmed by the lords justices with all due solemnities. 
 Thus was the cinrcnt of Irish victory checked by a judi- 
 cious ccncejisicn on the part of the marquis of Ormond; 
 and the connection betAveen the two countries preserved, 
 wliich at this moment trembled on the feeble support of a 
 ilnele act of conciliation. The success of Ormond's trea- 
 
330 
 
 ty with the Irish, was a serious counterpoise to the rising 
 strength of the enemies of Charles; or as they were ac- 
 customctl to observe, the Irish forces would now unite 
 with the popish party in England. The immediate effect 
 of this cessation, was the sending forward a considerable 
 Irish army to the assistance of Charles. They were met 
 by sir Thomas Fairfax, who gave them a complete defeat. 
 Ormond was created lord lieutenant of Ireland, in 
 which station he displayed that sound and penetrating 
 judgment which so successfully combated with the great- 
 est difiicultics. The fanaticism of the Scotch, headed bv 
 Monroe, in the north; the patriotic enthusiasm of the 
 irish confederacy ; and the loyal zeal of the king's party, 
 were difficult of manag-ement ajid direction, unless under 
 the hands of so accomplislied a politician as Ormond. 
 •So ably did he now conduct himself between the friends of 
 the king and the Confederacy, that the Irish made over- 
 tures to him to accept the command of their ai-mies; to 
 consolidate the royal and the Irish force, and make com- 
 mon cause against tlie Scotch, who seemed to have deter- 
 mined on the extinction of the Irish name and religion. 
 Tb.e peculiar situation of Ormond protested ag:iiinst tlie 
 adoption of such a measure. Flis anxiety for his jo3'aI 
 master dictated the policy of rejecting a proposal which 
 might strengthen the armaixl the arguments of his enemies, 
 the parliament of England ; and on the other hand, the 
 present formidable power of the Irisli, made it necessary 
 to avqjil ail causes of irritation and insult. In the meau 
 time the agents of the Irish confederacy negociated with 
 their sovereign at Oxford, according to the articles of 
 cessation, and the condition of a final peace between 
 Cliarles and his Irish subjects were here proposed, which 
 would forever secure the loyalty and tranquiJlity of Ireland^ 
 The best evidence of the humiliation of the king, and th^- 
 proud and imposing attitude of Ireland in IG^i, is to b^ 
 found in the spirited and independent chara(;tcr which dis- 
 thiguibhes the demaads of the liish agents. 
 
340 
 
 They claimed from Charles the freedom of their reli- 
 gion; a repeal of all penal statutes ; a free parliament; a 
 sus] .ciision of Poynings' law, during its session ; the an- 
 nuilino- of all acts and ordinances since the first of Au- 
 gust, 1641; a general act of oblivion ; a free and indif- 
 ferent appointment of all Irish natives, without exception, 
 to places of trust and honor. They also insist upon the 
 formal declaration of the independency of an Irish par- 
 liamenl on that of England. They propose an inquiry to 
 be instituted into all the cruelties and barbarities which 
 have been committed on either side in the late unfortunate 
 struggles ; and that the perpetrators should be brought to 
 condign punishment. In the spirit of truth and candor, 
 the Irish agents declared, that the granting of such de- 
 mands as have been here set forth, ivould insure the steady 
 and ardent loyalty of the people of Ireland ; that the lat- 
 ter sought no more than that protection which a free and 
 impartial constitution w'ould give them; and that they 
 were ready to sacrifice in return for its blessings, their lives 
 and their properties. On these conditions, ten thousand 
 Irish soldiers were ready to draw their swords in defence 
 of their monarch, against the insatiable and fanatical li- 
 centiousness of English enemies. 
 
 Tlie protestants of the pale were not inattentive to those 
 important transactions at Oxford. They sent forward 
 their delegates to plead their cause, to repel misrepre- 
 sentation, and defend the ascendancy of their party. It is 
 distressinjT to be obliged to record the furious denunciations 
 of the protestant Irishman against his catholic fellow sub- 
 ject, who was seeking nothing more than a participation 
 in thiit constitution which the protestant would monopo- 
 lize : and it is afflicting to remark the impotent vanity 
 with vvliich monopoly asserts its pretensions to royal par- 
 tiality. Mr. Lekmd says, " the extravagance of intoler- 
 i.uce exhibited by the deputies of the protestants, as- 
 J:o!u>,he(! the king and his ministers ; for what did they re- 
 tjuiiCj in UiC lace of those events wliicli had so lately de- 
 
341 
 
 luged their country M'itli blood ? They prayed his majes- 
 ty to perpetuate the causes of public irritation. Thej 
 proposed the banishment ot" the catholic clergy ; that the 
 confederacy should be disarmed ; that the utmost ven- 
 geance should be taken on those who carried arms; 
 that the oath of supremacy should be enforced, and the 
 law of Poynings (which degraded our Irish parliament) 
 piously maintained ; and that all forfeited estates should 
 be vested in English planters. In a word, they proposed 
 that the catholic religion and all its followers should be 
 proscribed, and if possible exterminated. The historians 
 of these times attribute the malignity of such proposals 
 to the influence of the parliamentary fanatics of England, 
 who speculated on the multiplication of the royal embar- 
 rassments. Indeed it is impossible to conceive that such 
 sentiments could flow from the bosoms of the Irish pro- 
 testants, however provoked by the excesses of ignorance, 
 or the barbarities of fanaticism. The suggestions of the 
 most vulgar policy would restrain the human mind from 
 thus volunteering in its own degradation. Though the 
 catholic might be humiliated to the level of the brute, the 
 Irish protestant must have seen that such a punishment 
 would recoil on him who inflicted it ; and that the oppress- 
 ed and degraded Irish would find their veno-eance in the 
 poverty and degradation of their masters. The fanatic* 
 of the English parliament, however, who dictated such 
 principles, could not be influenced by considerations like 
 these : and it is therefore reasonable to suppose them to 
 be the principal prom9ters of such an infernal policy as 
 we have described. The increasing difficulties of Charles 
 obliged him to pay the most respectful attention to the 
 Irish confederacy, whose claims were as reasonable and 
 just, as their power to enforce them was formidable and 
 commanding. They sought the rights of man, and were 
 superior to their English fellow subjects in kind and bene- 
 volent sentiments, because they did not seek to establish 
 their freedom on the ruin of that of others. Taking int# 
 
342 
 
 consideration the difficulties of Charles, the demands of 
 the Irish should be considered as moderate ; yet such was 
 the situation of parties in England, that the king could 
 not make such concessions to his Irish subjects as would 
 silence all future complaint. To the marquis of Ormond 
 was left tlie ungracious and difficult task of concluding 
 such an ai*rangement as would give satisfaction to all par- 
 tics in Ireland. He met the deputies of tlie Irish confeder- 
 acy in Dublin, on the sixth of September, 164'4'. At 
 this interview the cessation was prolonged : but the con- 
 ditions of peace proposed by the Irish, being an echo of 
 those proposed in the former year at Oxford, could not 
 be conceded to by Ormond. The treaty was adjourned 
 until April, 1645; during which interval Ormond promis- 
 ed to communicate with his sovereign on the proposed con- 
 ditions of the Irish confederacy. Those who have 
 doubted the wisdom of that policy which desires Ireland 
 to estimate her hopes of prosperity by the depression of 
 England ; those who refuse to take advantage of the 
 difficulties of the English government, or who will not 
 measure their chances of redress by the multiplication of 
 Eno-lish embaiTassment, let them read with attention the 
 letter of Charles to the marquis of Ormond, in 1615. 
 " Whatever it cost," says Charles, *' j/oji are to make me the 
 best bargain you can, and not to discover your enlargement 
 of 'power till you needs must;^ and though I leave themanage- 
 jnent of this great and necessary work to you cntirel}'^, yet 
 I cannot but tell you, that if the susjiension of Poynings' 
 act for such bills as should be agreed on, these and the 
 ■present taking off the penal laws against papists by a law, 
 will do it, I shall not think it a hard bargain, so that free- 
 ly and vigorously they engage themselves in my assistance, 
 against my rebels in England and Scotland; for which 
 no conditions can be too hard, not being against conscience 
 or honor." Here the Irish reader will see justice going 
 hand in hand with royal adversity ; he will see the tears of 
 the sovereign washing out the foulness of the penal codej 
 
3i3 
 
 and the Irish heart relieved from the pressure of iiitokr- 
 ance, in proportion to the humiliation of English power. 
 To take the oath of supremacy is dispensed with, as a ne- 
 cessary quahfication in a member of parhamcnt ; and evc- 
 xy disposition consistent witli sound practical poh'cy was 
 manifested, to conciliate the Irish aifections/ The councils 
 of the Irish^confederacy were now conducted with talent, 
 spirit, and integrity. They stood on high ground, and 
 maintained their station with true patriotic firmness; neither 
 to be divided by the subtleties of negociation, nor weakened 
 by the influence of corruption. They multiplied their ap- 
 plications to foreign courts, and guarded against the capri- 
 cious revolutions of- fortune. They displayed their strength 
 and their zeal, by sending forward fourteen hundred of 
 their most distinguished troops to the service of France ; 
 and when Ormond soHcited them to supply Charles with two 
 thousand men to support INIontrose in Scotland, the an- 
 swer of the Irish confederacy was worthy of the cause in 
 which they vrere embarked. It speaks a volume in sup- 
 port of that manly and decided understanding, which 
 could not be shaken by the chivalrous weakness that sym- 
 pathized with royalty in distress, while it foi'got the duty 
 which it owed to the liberties of its country. It Is as 
 follows : " We never shall send men to the assistance of 
 the king, until such a peace shall be settled as will demon- 
 strate that we had really taken up arms for the sake of 
 our religion and our country, and to establish both in their 
 full splendor and their ancient grandeur." 
 
 Mr. Leland is indignant at the Irish priest, for the zeal 
 he displayed in animating his countrymen to a firm and 
 fearless assertion of the rights due to their religion and 
 their liberties. His words are as follows : " The clergy, 
 who had the whole commonalty at their devotion, labour- 
 ed to obstruct all measures of accom.mcdation which might 
 not gratify the utmost extravagance of their wishes. Too 
 ignorant to discern, and too selfish to regard the real in- 
 terests of their party, they entertained their imaginatiQas 
 
with gay prospects of riches, power, and magnificence, 
 and intoxicated their partizans with declamations on the 
 splendor of their religion." This is a sweeping judg- 
 ment on the talents, the spirit, the fidelity, and the forti- 
 tude, with which the Irish clergy have adhered to the re- 
 ligion and the liberties of their country, unwortiiy of the 
 veracity of an honest historian, and disgraceful to the 
 character of an Irishman, Avho ought not to be insensible 
 to the claims which the Irish priest has on the veneration 
 of posterity, when he reads the struggles with which he 
 combated, the seduction he resisted, and the despotism 
 which he conquered. The clergy of the estabhshed church 
 would justly consider that accusation illiberal, which M'ould 
 represent their attachment to the creed of their fathers 
 as the offspring of ignorant zeal and barbarous fana- 
 ticism. 
 
 The modern historiap should endeavour to inculcate in 
 the heart and understanding of his reader, a becoming 
 respect for the various and often unintelligible opinions 
 of his fellow creatures. He should recommend the tolera- 
 tion of all. He should discourage that insolent pride 
 which v/ould dictate on subjects incomprehensible by 
 man ; and he should demonstrate from his reading and 
 his experience, that he who conscientiously adheres to 
 the faith of his fathers, without turning to the right or 
 to the left to question the purit}^ of another's creed, will 
 be the best member of society, as well as the best subject 
 of the king. Toleration is the great secret which promis- 
 es to harmonize mankind. Under its government the 
 fanatic loses all his importance, and bigotry all its malig- 
 nity. The human mind ranges at large in search of 
 truth, and no longer adheres to a doctrine which can- 
 not bear the crucible of examination. Mr. Leland was 
 a distinguished member of the established church. This 
 divine, who boasts of professing a religion which preaches 
 resistance to oppression, should have been one of the 
 first to tolerate those principles which the great majority 
 
545 
 
 of the cliristian world have adopted, as christians, and 
 which the penal laws against Ireland have contributed to 
 circulate. 
 
 The impatience manifested by Charles to come to a final 
 accommodation with the Irish, contributed to raise the ex- 
 pectations and pretensions of the confederacy. He grant- 
 ed a commission to a zealous partizan of the royal cause, 
 the earl of Glamorgan, empowering this nobleman, (who 
 being married to the sister of the earl of Thomond, was al- 
 lied to the most powerful families in Ireland,) to adopt such 
 arrangements as he thought best calculated to bring his 
 differences with his Irish subjects to a speedy termination. 
 The earl of Glamorgan impressed Charles with the opi- 
 nion, that so extensive was his influence among the Irish, 
 that he would be shortly able to lead ten thousand n)eri 
 from Ireland to the assistance of his sovereign. Charle^i 
 armed the earl of Glamorgan with full powers, and the 
 latter proceeded to negociate with the Irish confederacy.- 
 This important assembly had now occupied the serious 
 attention, and excited the interest, of all the crowned 
 heads of Europe. The sufferers in the cause of the catho- 
 lic religion naturally attracted the sympathy and com- 
 manded the regard of the Roman pontiff, Innocent X. 
 He received the sacred ambassador of the Irish confeder- 
 acy, with all the respect due to the spirit and fidelity with 
 wliich the people who sent him adhered to the relipion 
 of the catholic church.' He sent forward his envoy, John 
 Baptista Rinuccini, a noble Florentine, to the Irish con- 
 federacy ; who was eminently gifted with all those quali- 
 ties best calculated to command and to conciliate. EJo- 
 quent, graceful, and ambitious ; zealously anxious for the 
 unlimited independence of the people to whom he was 
 delegated, he attached to his interests every Irish heart 
 which honestly glowed with the love of country. Mr. 
 Leland charges the ambassador from Rome with an ex- 
 travagance of spiritual pride. Perhaps it would be more 
 just to attribute to Rinuccini the same enthusiastic zesd 
 
 U u 
 
346 
 
 for tlie ascendancy of his religion, which so peculiarFy 
 cHstintiuishcs Mr. Leland himself"; and that in all his 
 efforts to procure for the Irish the splendid and perma- 
 nent establishment of the catholic church in Ireland, he 
 was only performing those duties which every sincere and 
 honest S^ectarian feels it incumbent on him to perform. 
 Whatever were the errors in point of prudence and ex-* 
 pediency committed by the pope's nuncio, in his various 
 neqociations between the Irish and the marquis of Ormond, 
 it must not be forgotten, that he always made the oath of 
 association by which the Irish confederate assembly of 
 Kilkenny were bound to each other the perpetual rule of 
 his conduct, without ever bending to the suggestions of 
 fficpediency, or yielding to the dictates of a temporarj 
 policy. The oath of association, taken by the conven- 
 tion of Kilkenny, particularly declared " that those who 
 subscribed it would not consent to lay down their arms 
 until all the laws and statutes made since the time of king- 
 Henry VIII. whereby any restraint, penalty, mulct, or 
 ii'capacity, or any other restriction whatsoever, is or may be 
 laid on any of the Roman catholic religion, within this 
 kinjidom, and of their several functions, should be re- 
 pealed, revoked, and declared void in the next parlia- 
 ment, by one or more acts of parliament to be passed 
 therein." This was the oath by which the Irish confe- 
 derates w^ere bound to each other ; and it remains to the 
 impartial observer of those times, to decide whether tlie 
 Irish party, who insisted upon the performance of the 
 conditions for which they first took up arms, are deserving 
 of those severe animadversions in wliicU every Anglo-Irish 
 writer has thoughtproper to indulge. There is no doubt 
 that if the spirit . which actuated Rinuccini and Owen 
 O'Kcal, had not been opposed by the artful machinati- 
 on;> of Ormon.d, and the wretched compromising policy of 
 s(;i!i-j of the members of the council of Kilkenny, the 
 lair and honest claims of Ireland would have been con- 
 ceded, and religious and civil liberty completely estab-* 
 
347 
 
 lished. The double dealing conduct of Ormond towards 
 the Irit^h, is demonstrated by the necessity he imposed 
 on the kinfv to set on foot a secret negociation with the 
 Irish confederacy through the medium o f the earl of Gla- 
 morgan. From this effort on the part of Charles, it ii» 
 Bjanifest either that he suspected tlie truth and sincerity 
 of Ormond with regard to his Irish subjects, or tliat he 
 contemplated the possibility of obtaining a large force 
 from Ireland on the faith of a mock treaty, which he 
 could disclaim whenever it might be his convenience; tlius 
 balancing his Irish against his English subjects, making 
 Ormond the instrument of his purposes against the latter, 
 vhile the credulous Glamorgan would be struggling to 
 concihate the Irish confederacy. The dissinmlation and 
 insincerity of Ormond, however, are most obvious through 
 eveiy stage of this miserable struggle ; and tlie unfortunate 
 liing seems to be the victim which this hypocritical 
 servant willingly offers up to the fury of English de^- 
 onocracy. The battle of Naseby, in which the royal forces 
 were defeated, developed the true chaj-acter of Ormond ; 
 for it appears that the private instructions of Charles, 
 •which were discovered in the king's cabinet at Naseby, 
 empowered Ormond to conclude a peace with the Irish 
 on whatever terms the Irish might please to dictate, con- 
 sistent vA'ith their allegiance to his majesty. Tlie letter of 
 instructions w'as published, with such observations as laid 
 open the deep and designing plans of Ormond. 
 
 The state of parties in Ireland and England at this pe- 
 riod is well described by Mr. Taafl'e; a description which 
 satisfactorily accounts for that duplicity which Ormond so 
 successfully practised for his friends in the English pariia- 
 nient, to the ruin of the Irish and his unfortunate sovereign, 
 to whom lie affected such incorruptible fidelity. It also 
 vindicates those Irishmen who had the sagacity to sound thtf 
 real objects of Ormond, and the spirit to resist them. 
 Unfortunately for Ireland, the owners of the estates foifeiu 
 ed from the ancient Irish, sat in the assembly of Kilkenny^ 
 who clung to English counection on any term'* of huniili- 
 
548 
 
 ation and bondage, as their fancied security for retaining 
 possession ; little foreseeing that they were only keepers 
 on them, until sAvarnis of Irish would come to demand and 
 seize them. It was the misfortune of the Irish, that the 
 liberties of their country depended upon the firmness of 
 those, whose immediate interests were entwined with the 
 security of that government which had so long oppressed 
 tliera. The gold of England effected what its physical 
 power had in vain attempted ; and in the assembly of Kil- 
 kenny, the richest and the most ennobled catholics were 
 to be found, who basely ministered to the designs of the 
 common enemy. Their servility and want of spirit as- 
 sumed the titles of prudence and expediency, and the men 
 who had the integrity and the courage to insist upon the 
 unqualified emancipation of their countrymen, were brand- 
 ed by the degraded supporters of Ormond, with an un- 
 thinking violence, and an unreflecting intemperance. 
 Ormond, artful and corrupt, well knew the nature and 
 quality of the materials he had to work upon. He flat- 
 tered the vain, he bullied the timid, and deceived the ho- 
 nest and undesigning. The artifices of Ormond, his os- 
 cillations between his sovereign and the English pai^lia- 
 ment ; his insincerity to the Irish, and his studied watch- 
 fulness for his own immediate aggrandizement, are well 
 remarked upon by Mr. Taalfe. " Before we pursue Or- 
 mond" (says this writer) "through all the labyrinth of 
 his tortuous politics, now negcciating with the Irish, then 
 with the covenanters of Ulster ; actijig ostensibly as the 
 king's deputy, but in true earnest as the cringing slave of 
 Ills enemies, until he surrendered Ireland naked and di- 
 %^ided into their hands; we must review the conduct of the 
 loyalists, and how far they contributed by their divisions, 
 their consequent tai'diness, and half measures, to their own 
 country's ruin. To have a conception of their proceed- 
 ings and, their efl'ects, it will be necessary to take a concise 
 y\cvf of the different parties in the two islands, their 
 ifjcws and cxpcctutions. wlieu the rupture about the peace 
 
549 
 
 took place. The royal party in the neighbourhig island 
 tvas crushed, and the rebels triumphed. The king, re- 
 duced to despondency, and deluded by the flattering in- 
 vitations and jiromiscs of the Scotch rebels, surrendered 
 himself into their hands, who kept him a close prisoner, 
 with a view of malcing the most of their jirey. These were 
 averse to either cessation of arms or peace in Ireland, for 
 two reasons. First, it was only in times of trouble that 
 they could turn possession of the king's person to account ; 
 and an Irish peace, accompanied with the utter overthrow 
 of the royalists in England, by putting a period to the war, 
 and indeed removing all pretences for its continuance, 
 might lead to a settlement in both islands. Further, they 
 had been promised the plunder and forfeitures of Ireland 
 by the English parliament; of both which lucrative ob- 
 jects an Irish peace threatened to deprive them. The Eng- 
 lish parliament was an enemy to the settlement of Ireland, 
 until they should settle it on a model of their own fashion. 
 The king had left heirs, who would of course set up their 
 claims to the throne. Their pretensions might be sup- 
 ported by foreign powers, and (Ireland in its })resent state) 
 a dangerous nest of royalists lay as a convenient back door 
 to receive them, and furnish them with great resources, 
 and opportunities for invading England and Scotland. A 
 great revolution in landed property appeared to them ne- 
 cessary ; vast forfeitures ; the erection of a new landed in- 
 terest ; fresh plantations of colonists, armed, and covenan- 
 ters. To bridle a disarmed and oppressed people, a|)pear- 
 ed the best and only means of obviating the danger from 
 that quarter ; hence it is plain, that though they disliked 
 not a temporary truce with the Irish, especially such as 
 Ormond contrived, of a nature to divide them, they would 
 never ratify a peace advantageous or satistlictory to the 
 Irish; any that left things there in their actual state. 
 Charles, since the battle of Naseby, looked on his case as 
 extremely doubtful, and countermanded the sending aux- 
 iliary troops from Ireland a ^ood while befoi-ehis captivity j 
 
350 
 
 ordering Ormoncl nevertheless to conclude the peace with 
 the Irish. His Scotch subjects having deceived him by their 
 fallacious promises of restoring to him his rightSj^ either 
 by treaty or by force, he saw no asylum for himself or his 
 family but in the loyalty of the Irish. There he might 
 expect such succour from foreign powers, interested to 
 support the cause of royalty and chastise every example 
 of rebellion in subjects, as might enable him to reconquer 
 l)is other kingdoms, or at worst, protect his throne in one. 
 He found some means of conveying his wishes to the nun- 
 cio and Glamorgan, who were plotting to devise some 
 means of effecting his escape from the Scotch to the Irish ; 
 but they >vere frustrated. From this brief statement of par- 
 ties, a statement which all authorities of all parties justify, 
 the reader will perceive that the opposers of the so called 
 peace of 1643 are not dealt fairly with in any writings 
 that I could see." 
 
 The inflexible temper of Ormond towards the /Irish 
 confederacy, which would yield to no terms but those 
 which left the religion of the Irish at the mercy of 
 tlie fanatic, obliged Charles to have recourse to the 
 demi-official agency of the earl of Glamorgan. We 
 say demi-official, because Charles, the perpetual victim 
 of expedients, was so unprincipled as to disclaim publicly 
 having given any powers to Glamorgan to guaranty the 
 toleration of their religion. The pope's nuncio remons- 
 trated against the idea of a separate negociation with 
 Glamorgan, foretold its future futility, and deprecated its 
 present folly. He recommended the Irish to insist on the 
 establishment of their civil and religious liberty openly, 
 candidly, and through the only accredited agent of the 
 king, the marquis of Ormond. The treaty with Glamor- 
 gan, however, went on, and was quickly concluded. The 
 council of Killvenny trusted to the royal promises, and ia 
 the generous effervescence of an honorable credulity, pledg- 
 ed their lives and fortunes in support of the royal cause. 
 On the part of Charles, it was agreed jby Glamorgan, 
 
351 
 
 that all Roman catholics should enjoy the public exercise 
 of their religion, possess all the churches not actually en- 
 joyed by protestants, exercise their own jurisdiction, and 
 • be exempted from that of the protestant clergy ; that an 
 act of parliament should be made to confirm these conces- 
 sions, and to render catholics capable of all offices of trust 
 or emolument ; that the marquis of Ormond should not 
 disturb the catholics in these or other articles to which 
 the earl of Glamorgan had consented ; — for the due per- 
 formance of all those articles Glamorgan enffafred the rov- 
 al word. The Irish council met their sovereign with 
 corresponding sentiments of generous and enthusiastic 
 gratitude; the bravest and best blood of their country 
 was ready to stand forward in his defence : ten thousand 
 men were ordered to attend the king in any part of his do- 
 minions ; and the clergy offered two thirds of their revenue 
 to maintain this formidable army. This private treaty, 
 (disgraceful to the Irish, because it was private) Avas enter- 
 ed upon on the 25th day of August, 1 64^5. The public 
 treaty by which the king was bound in the presence of Eu- 
 rope, went on with as much austerity on the part of 
 Ormond, as if he was unconscious of the royal disposition 
 towards the Irish. The fact was, Ormond wished to de-« 
 ceive the parliament of England and his sovereign ; and 
 Charles and his credulous agent, Glamorgan, wished to 
 deceive the Irish nation. The consequence was, what it 
 will ever be, the confusion and destruction of those who 
 surrender the plain honest principles of candor and lair 
 dealing to trick, finesse, and duplicity. jNIr. Leiand is 
 angry with the Irish for daring to insist, in their public 
 treaty vjith Ormond, on the restoration of their religious 
 establishment. "The propositions of the Irish council 
 were extravagant and insidious, amounting to nothing less 
 than a legal establishment not only of the Roman worship, 
 but the papal jurisdiction." Mr. Leiand should have con- 
 iidered that at this period the property as well as the num- 
 bers in Ireland were catliolic ; and tiiat if England had a 
 
3B2 
 
 riglit to setup a religion of its own manufacture, and after 
 its o"\vn taste, the Irish had as good a riglit to insist on 
 the restoration of that religion in all its splendor, which 
 Ireland had professed for 1200 years. Will it be urged 
 that the Irish catholics, who, in property as well as in 
 r.umber, were as nineteen to twenty, had not as much right 
 to preserve their religion, or that they had not as equitable 
 a claim to its establishment as episcopalian and presbyte- 
 rian protestantism had in England ? The enlightened 
 sectarian must smile at the little spirit of ascendancy 
 which so often breaks out in the pages of this historical 
 protestant divine. If ever any people had the right to 
 lay down for posterity a religious establislnnent by v,?hich 
 to regulate their conscience, the Irish peo])le had that 
 right ; and their representatives in the assembly of Kil- 
 kenny were only performing their duty when they insisted 
 on the free exercise of then* rehgion, and the re-establish- 
 ment of their religious houses in all their former splen- 
 dor and mamiificence. It was the exercise of this rio-ht 
 that save to Mr. Leland the form of religion which he so 
 much admires. It- was the parent of the reformation, 
 and should not be denied to the venerated descendant 
 of Christianity. 
 
 This patched up and garbled peace, publicly bad, and 
 privately good, v/as strongly objected to by the best friends 
 of Ireland. They sav»' no security for the fuliilment of 
 the conditions for which they took up arms ; their religion 
 ■v\%as as much under the yoke as ever ; the penal statutes 
 were still unrepealed, and the sword was drawn in vain for 
 the liberty of Ireland. Tlie miserable insincerity of 
 Charles is prominent throughout all his ncgociations with 
 the Irish through the medium of Ormond and Glamorgan. 
 He laboured to keep well with both parties, the English 
 jiarliament and the people of Ireland. He would have 
 inade Ormond his instrument of deception against the 
 English ; and he could willingly sacrifice Glamorgan to 
 the chance of conciliating his Irish subjects. When the 
 
353 
 
 commission given by Charles to Glamorgan to ncj^ociate 
 with the Irish for the toleration of their religion, and the 
 restoration of its establishments, was discovered, we find 
 the earl of Glamorgan thrown into prison, in order to 
 protect the king against the suspicions of his enemies, 
 thouoh Ormond was well aware that Glamorijan did not 
 exceed the powers he received from his sovereign. But 
 Glamorgan is not only thrown into prison to expiate his 
 offence against the king, but Charles himself has the con- 
 fidence to disavow, in his declaration to the English parlia- 
 ment, the very powers with which he agreed a short time 
 before to invest him. In the true Jesuitical spirit he writes to 
 Ormond, " It is possible we might have thought fit to 
 give the earl of Glamorgan such credentials as might give 
 him credit with the Roman catholics, in case you, the lieu- 
 tenant, should find occasion to make use of liim as a fur- 
 ther assurance to them of what you should privately pro- 
 mise, or in case you should judge it necessary for their 
 greater confidence to manage those matters apart by him.'* 
 Charles not only humiliates Glamorgan into the humble in- 
 strument of his duplicity, but consents to sacrifice his clia- 
 racter to the rancor of his most inveterate enemies. " He 
 regrets that he had not employed a wiser man; repeats liis 
 assurances, that as he had not much regard to the abilities 
 of Glamorgan, he had bound him to take directions from 
 the lieutenant both in the matter and maniier of his iiego- 
 ciation; and commands the inquiry into his instructions to 
 Glamorgan to be rigidly jirosecuted." Ihe moment 
 Charles was thus writing to Ormond, anH his council in 
 Ireland, he was secretlv mvino^ instructions to Ormond to 
 protect Glamorgan; and to the latter he was conm;iunicat- 
 ing the strongest professions of friendship and regard. 
 This perpetual course of hypocrisy which distinguished 
 the councils of the unhappy Charles, were the chief cause 
 of his ruin, and the ruin of his liiends. It is an unan- 
 swerable vindication of thote amon<:j the Irish who would 
 not surrender to any terms short of the unequivocal con- 
 
 w vv 
 
354 
 
 cession of religious and civil liberty, not secured by the 
 word of a king who had so often deceived, but by an act 
 of the legislature which could not be misinterpreted nor 
 retracted. However honorable the anxiety of that party 
 was, who did not Avish to press Charles for those condi- 
 tions which the oath of association bopnd the Irish nation 
 to demand, it is impossible not to a^mit, that with their ex- 
 perience of the royal insincerity, and with their knowledge 
 of the royal necessities, those -who advised an explicit 
 recognition of Irish rights, religious as well as civil, 
 stood upon ground which common sense must acknowledge 
 to be invincible. The zeal of Glamorgan to satisfy the 
 doubts and suspicions of the Irish confederacy ; the oscil- 
 lating councils of Charles to both his negociators, Ormond 
 and Glamorgan; the pressure of his English enemies; 
 the strength of the Irish confederacy, and its present im- 
 portance in the royal scale^ all contributed to animate the 
 advisers of unconditional and unequivocal freedom, to 
 persevere in their demands, and to insist upon the rigid 
 performance of their claims. Such was the miserable in- 
 decision of the royal councils, that the time was consumed 
 in hypocritical ncgociation, which should have been em- 
 ployed in sending forward that assistance which Ireland 
 coidd have greatJy afforded to their distressed monarch, 
 Ireland wanted nothing more than the restoration of her 
 rights; and though she was the last refuge of Charles a- 
 gainst his rebeUious subjects of England, yet so infatuated 
 was the policy v.hich directed his affairs, that dissimulation 
 and trick seemed to be the only resources of the royal 
 councils in the greatest e:ctremity of their distress. The 
 sympathy of the Irish confederacy with the sufferings of 
 their embarrassed sovereign, induced them to yield to the 
 ])jomiscs of Onnond ; and the sincerity of their loyalty to 
 Charles, pron^pted thtra to relax in those conditions which 
 a wi&e^id enlightened policy would have generously con- 
 ceded. That treaty of peace was finally concluded on the 
 23th of March, 16iG, in vvhichthe Irish stipulated to trans- 
 
355 
 
 port ten thousand men to the support of the royal cause. 
 The time of action in England had gone by, the enemies of 
 Charles were triumphant, and the protection of his Irish 
 dominions was now the principal object to be attended to. 
 The Irish confederacy, honorable in their professions of 
 attachment to their king, immediately proposed to Ormond 
 that the Irish and the royal forces should be united in the 
 common cause, and that Ormond should accept the comr 
 niand of the united army. The conditions demanded by 
 the artful Ormond before he would subscribe to this x>ene- 
 rous and honest proposal, fully develqpe the character of 
 this nobleman, and satisfactorily confirm the suspicions 
 which tlie reader must have hitherto entertained of his 
 sincerity in the cause of his sovereign. Though the par- 
 liamentarians, under the command of the bi<iotted and 
 sanguinary sir Charles Coote, were wasting the west of 
 Ireland with fire and sword, Ormond hesitated to embrace 
 a proposal which must have secured the triumph of his 
 master. He required that the articles agreed to between 
 tlie Irish and the earl pf Glamorgan, and which pledged 
 the royal word to the toleration of the catholic religion in 
 Ireland, should be suppressed ; that they were disavowed 
 by the king, and that he cOuld not suffer their publication; 
 that if they did not subscribe to this condition, such were 
 the circumstances of his sovereign that he should be oblia- 
 ed to have recourse to some other mode of preserving his 
 authority in Ireland. This declaration alarmed tliat part 
 of the Irish confederacy who were most forward to con- 
 cojiclude the treaty with Ormond. It confirmed the sus- 
 picions of those who cautioned the confederacy against his 
 artifices ; it gave confidence to Rinuccini, who, with the 
 great majority of the Irish clergy, adhered to the letter of 
 that oath by which they associated for the estiiblishment of 
 their freedom. 
 
 " The parliamentarians of Munster," says Mr. Leland, 
 and in this assertion we cannot be better supported, " i^ 
 the fulness of their zeal, would be contented only with 
 
356 
 
 the extirpation of popery and the rebellious Irish race.' 
 They would therefore not be easily prevailed on to agree 
 to a treaty which conceded even existence to a catholic. 
 The nuncio, Rinuccini, who in many instances usurped 
 too much power and displayed too much arrogance, was 
 correct in the judgment which he gave of the stability of 
 any treaty concluded on the conditions prescribed by Or- 
 rnond. He resolutely remonstrated against it, and raised 
 up a powerful opposition among the clergy and the nation 
 against its continuance. Owen O'Neal denounced the 
 treaty ; at the head of five thousand foot and five hun- 
 dred horse, he joined the standard of the Nuncio ; and in 
 the celebrated battle of Benburbc, near the Blackwater, 
 routed the English and Scotch army with immense slaugh- 
 ter. The Scotch were commanded by Monroe, who fled 
 with the utmost precipitation, leaving his arms, tents, 
 and baggage, to the victorious Irish. The army of 
 Owen O'Neal quickly increased its numbers; victory 
 covered him with fame, and the hope of freedom once 
 more beamed on every Irish heart. 
 
 The Nuncio co-operated with O'Neal, in bringing to 
 his aid all the thunders ot the church against the support- 
 ers of a treaty wliich effected nothing for the Irish;* 
 
 • Party writers (we mean tbiise wfUers who have been paid to tra- 
 duce every eifort in favor of Irish fieedoin.) have so misrepresented the 
 conduct of the native Irish who co-operated with Rinuccini in unveihnj 
 the hypocrisy of Ormoad, and exposing tiie fallacy gf the treaty of peace 
 v^hich this wily lieutenant induced tlie confederated council assembled at 
 Kilkfuny to conclude with him, that we feel it a duty we owe to the 
 cause of truth and of our country, to detain »)ur readers for a few mo- 
 ments, while we state two or three propositions, conclusive in our minds 
 of the wisdom and the spirit which distinguihhfd those men who opposed 
 tiie Oroiondists of Ireland in the year 1646" — in Carte's life of Ormond 
 will be found the following remarks : " The nuncio, Rinuccini, and Owen 
 O'Neal absolutely refused to submit to the treaty : the former because 
 thfre was no provision made for the free CA'ercise of the catholic religion, 
 %^'ithout which the confederal es were engaged by their oath of association 
 liever to conclude a peace ; and the latter on the same account, as well as 
 that no stipulation was made for re^.toring him and his numerous follow- 
 ers to their forfeited estates in Ulster. I'he nuncio alleged besides, that 
 the commissioners who had concluded the peace did not, accordmg to 
 their mstructions, insist upon the repeal of the penal statutes against the 
 
357 
 
 which left them at the mercy of their enemies, and ex- 
 posed them to the ridicule and contempt of Europe. 
 Rinuccinni convened the clergy at Waterford, who there 
 proclaimed all those persons that adhered to the peace be- 
 tween the Irish confederacy and Ormond, as guilty of vio- 
 lating their oath of association. They excommunicated 
 
 Roman catholic raligion. — .The marquis of Ormond could not deny the 
 fact, but he maintained (and here we request the reader's attention to 
 the acute sophistry of the Anglo- Irishman) that ' the peace which tlie con- 
 federate commissioners had concluded, by virtue of an authority derived 
 from their general assembly, whether advantageous or prejudicial to those 
 that hurted them, ought to have been inviolably stuck to, how blame- 
 worthy soever they might be pretended for transgressing instructions.' 
 I'bis manner of reasoning, however, seems to have been taken up by his 
 excellency only for present convenience, for he argued very ditFerL-ntly 
 on the same topic of instructions, when, in a former treaty with the con- 
 federates, the case was to be his own, and when in order to justify his 
 rejecting some of their propositions, he told them that ' if he had ex- 
 «eeded his instructions, he would have deluded those he treated with, 
 with the shadow of concessions, for that the substance would be lost by 
 his transgressing the rules given him, in any one particular.' But how- 
 ever that might iiave been," continues Mr. Carte, " the nuncio's casuistry 
 differed materially from that of his excellency on this occasion, and there- 
 fore that prelate resolved to enforce his opinion by such means as it ap- 
 pears he had neither commission nor instructions to pursue. Having call- 
 ed together, at Waterford, such of the Irisii bishops and clergy as were 
 mostly under his influence, on pretence of forming a synod to settle ec- 
 clesiasiical matters, he entered all at once on a debate concerning the 
 lawfulness of the late peace, and having soon determined tliat ail those 
 who were instrumental in making it were, for the reasons before men- 
 tioned, guilty of a formal breach of their association, he issued an ex- 
 communication against them, .is also against those of their communion 
 who sliould afterwards adhere to it, forbidding, under the same penalty, 
 any further dues to be collected by, or paid to such persons as were for- 
 merly appointed to receive tnem, and giving encouragement at the same 
 lime to the people to resist anv force that might be used for that purpose." 
 Upon the above statement Mr. TaafFe has the following observations. 
 When we were making this quotation from the valuable, because honest, 
 history of Taaffc, we heard of the author's death, and the honors which 
 his countrymen ha've it in contemplation to pay to the remains of their 
 able but unfortunate historian. Perhaps there never was such a conflict 
 of good and bad qualities to be found in anv man as was observable in 
 Mr. TaafF?. Animated with the most ardent enthusiasm for the indepen- 
 dence and fame of his country, there was no toil so great, no danger 
 §0 formidable, no enemy so powerful, as to intimidate his spirit, or to 
 damp his ardor. A profound political thinker, he ably exposed the cause 
 of his country's we^ikness in many productions which attracted the atten- 
 tion of the first characters in the Irish senate. The writer of this history 
 has heard his immortal countryman, John Philpot Curran, quote the lines 
 of Mr. TaatFe from his Mirror of Ireland, in I7i}6; and he has seen the 
 Irish parliament caught with the strength and the truth of the quotation. 
 Mr. Taaffe was a catholic clergyman; but his passions triumphed over 
 
358 
 
 the commissioner who had negociated the treaty with 
 Ormond ; denounced the council of Kilkenny ; and bound 
 themselves by a new oath, never to lay down their arms 
 until they had secured their civil and religious rights. 
 
 'The Ormondists, for so were the Irish adherents to 
 the peace now called, fled to Dublin with the earl at their 
 
 the solemn obligation of his sacred profeosion, and his immoral example 
 made it necessary to denounce against him the terrors of the religion 
 ■which he disgraced. From his inflexible determination, however, never 
 to embrace the creed of any other persuasion, at a time too when his 
 great talents commanded the attention of the highest and most exalted po- 
 liticians in the land, we must, in charity, conclude that he was betrayed 
 by the constitution of his nature into a temporary abandonment of prin- 
 ciple ; that reflection brought on repentance, and that though dismissed 
 from the society of those \Vhom he mo^t respected, he resolved to convince 
 his countrymen that the enemies of the religion and liberty of his coun- 
 try should gain but little by his fvill. Those wiio doubt his sincerity as a 
 catholic, will i:ot presume to deny him the meed of an honest, brave^ 
 and uncorrupted Irishman; a man whose talents have exposed the frauds 
 and the conspiracy of party writers, and whose political opinions, when 
 fcis example as a priest shall be forgotten, will be engraven on every Irish 
 heart, and perhaps hereafter be the rule and the guide of his country- 
 men. The faults of Mr. TaafFe were rather the aberrations of a consti- 
 tution heated to excess by the fire of its own creation, than a cold, cal- 
 culating, selfish following of vice. Air. TaafFe has been often seen to 
 shed tears over the errors of his life. The superstitiousiiess of virtue fre- 
 quently drove from her door the penitent sinner; and Mr. Taaffe has 
 frequently been lashed by despair into a repetition of those foibles to 
 which he originally fell a victim. In 1798, that calamitous season of Irish 
 suffering and English torture, when the informer and the executioner were - 
 panting for their prey, Mr. TaafFe is well known to have enjoyed the 
 confidence of his countrymen. The constaut reader of Polybius, Xeno- 
 phon, marshal Saxe, and the king of Prussia, could not but be furnished 
 ■with some information on military subjects. He made the experiment of 
 liis military genius in the rebellion of 1798 ; and hundreds will attest that 
 to his direction and council alone is to be attributed the mtnh lannuted fate 
 of the ancient Britons, at Carnew, in the county of Wexford. Those who 
 were in command among the Irish bowed to his superior powers ; and 
 Mr. TaafFe was seen marshalling his pike-men on a weather-beaten mule, 
 with as much indifFerence as Buonaparte rode his charger at the battle 
 of Austeriitz. It is impossible any Irishman can read Mr. TaafFe's his- 
 tory of this country without .lamenting for a man who, when pressed 
 down by distress, the victim of every slander, the detestation of every 
 higot, the fool of every blockhead, had the spirit and the integrity 
 to resist the bribes of the castle, and vindicate the honor of his 
 country. It is impossible, we repeat, to refuse our tears over the grave of 
 ao singular a character. The bigot may dispose of him as he pleases; the 
 enemy of Irish* freedom may triumph over his ashes; but the true friend 
 ef Ireland will cherish his memory and read his v/orks. They will learn 
 wisdom from his errors, as well as from his doctrines; and while they a- 
 Toid his faults, endeavor to Imitate his virtues. • 
 
 The writer of this compendium has often contributed to soothe the 
 
359 
 
 liead. Owen O'Neal, Rinuccini, and the Irish arm)'', 
 took possession of Kilkenny. The nuncio assumed the 
 direction of Irish affliirs, appointed a coinicil, and selec- 
 ted his generals. So formidable was his power, that Gla- 
 morgan became his vassal ; and even Charles flattered 
 himself with the hope of finding protection under his au- 
 
 mind of Mr, TaafTe, when assailed by the heaviest of his afflictions. — 
 He may boast of having- endeavored to blunt the edge of the bigot, and 
 alleviate the sufferings of the patriot. He knew Mr. Taaffe when the 
 enemies of Ireland failed in corrupting him to their purpose ; and 
 he would now be doing injustice to his fame if he did not bear testi- 
 mony to the triumph of his integrity. — But to return to the quotation 
 which we have made from the history of our departed countryman : 
 " The reason of the nuncio, Rinuccini, against the peace, was not refut- 
 ed ; that the commissioners widely departed from their in.-tructions, oa 
 which account the assembly was not obliged to ratify. The reasons 
 urged to the queen, in a letter from the archbishops of Dublin, Cashel, 
 and the bishop of Elphin, in the name of the congregation of the clergy, 
 were quite sufficient to damn the treaty; ' that all was left to the pleasure 
 of the king, surrounded by their swoin enemies.' What worse could be 
 dictated by a conqueror to a prostrate people ? It v/as hard to surrender 
 their rights, civil or religious, to the pleasure of any man, especially a 
 prince of a -different religion, not noted for keeping his word, or even 
 his oath, and under the cantrol of their svsrorn enemies; and all this head- 
 long slavery rushed into by the very men who, on taking up arms, 
 swore never to lay them down until they obtained a full ratification of 
 their rights. The arguments of the confederates, to reconcile the clergy 
 to the omission of this article in the delusive treaty, were extremely 
 futile. They refer to the private treaty of Glamorgan, which the hmg 
 publicly disavowed in a message to both houses, and which, together 
 with Glamorgan, his secret ambassador, he would consider a slight sacri- 
 fice towards an accommodation with his novv victorious enemies. If Wil-. 
 liam was, though the victorious deliverer of the English, obliged to give 
 up toi their selfishness and their national hatred of the Irish, the treaty of 
 Limerick, can it be imagined that a subdued monarch, captive in the 
 hands of his irritated and triumphant subjects, could stickle for private 
 engagements made with a people odious to them, wliom at any rate thev 
 were resolved to crush. Equally or more absurd is it to refer to con- 
 cessions which the king might make hereafter. The king's restoration 
 could not reasonably be expected but by the sword or accommodation. 
 If by the former, of which there was not the slightest probability, he 
 would become an absolute monarch ; and what use he might make of un- 
 limited power they might conjecture from his having plundered the Irisli 
 for many years, by his tyrannic inquisition into defective titles : if the 
 latter, the Irish must be given up to their sworn enemies; no parole en- 
 gagements would be acknowleged, no public treaties held binding. The 
 nuncio and the clergy insisted on an honorable peace, such as might be 
 well received and abetted by the whole nation; a treaty that would be 
 approved by the head of the church and other catholic potentates, able 
 aud willing to assist tlie Irish, if they saw them sincere and earnest iu 
 their endeavars to support the cause of royalty and their religion. The 
 abaudonmeut of one of these, ia a public treaty, and that cousideied ia 
 
360 
 
 thority. The Irish had now taken a station better calcu- 
 lated, under prudent and spirited councils, to accomplish 
 the liberty of Ireland, than any we have yet witnessed. 
 There were no connections in the new Irish association, 
 which could corrupt by their influence, or betray by their 
 insincerity. The men who now took the lead were the 
 old Irish^ as Mr. Leland calls them ; the most determined, 
 and the most devoted to the cause of Irish liberty. It is 
 true, they acknowledged the authority of Riuuccini, the 
 pope's nuncio ; and it may here be asked, why not acknow- 
 ledge his authority ? liinuccini had brought them money 
 and arms ; he had procured the aid of foreign powers : 
 he was zealous, able, and eloquent ; capable of filling the 
 high station in which he was placed, and possessing the 
 unlimited confidence of the power which commissioned 
 him : the Irish therefore submitted to his councils, in com- 
 mon with those of their most distinguished countrymen. 
 Ormond's resources were exhausted: his duplicity was 
 
 an age of bigotry the most important, was enough to drown the Irish 
 cause with the catholic powers of Europe, who must consider their dere- 
 liction of their just demand of a claim to the toleration of the catholic faith, 
 in a solemn treaty, while they were craving the aid of catholic princes for 
 the maintenance of their church, as egregious folly and downright impru- 
 dence. Those who are so hasty to reprove the Irish clergy for insisting on the 
 confederates to keep to tlieir oath of association, and accept no peace that 
 did not include the toleration of their religion, seem neither guided by 
 candor or love of truth. Thev should first prove that the clergy stepped 
 beyond the limits of their office ; and, secondly, required impracticable 
 terms — neither can be proved. It is hard to prove that it is foreign to 
 the character of a clergyman to procure toleration for his fluck, or that 
 the Irish were then incompetent to oh:ain it, if unanimous in the demand. 
 I^ct the clergy of the opposite parries be compared In Lngland and 
 Scotland the pulpit thundered treason, sedition, persecution. No writer 
 has ventured to condemn the opposition of Owen O'Neal to that treaty— 
 with what color could they ? At a time when England and Scotland were 
 in arms for their privileges, and the Irish confederates contending for their 
 civil and religious liberties, was it for the brave men of Ulster to relinquish 
 their claims to their patrimonial estates, swindled from them ? The Ultonians 
 could not, and ought not, approve of any treaty that did not stipulate 
 an entire restitution cf tiieir patrimonial estates. Here was the blow. 
 The m;ijority of the assembly were possessed of forfeited estates, and 
 restitution to Owen O'Neal would encourage other claims, consequently 
 civil war, of which the Ormoudists ajid advocates of that scandalous 
 treaty were the real promoters, not the Irish clergy, cr the disinherited 
 Jviiiesians of Ulster." 
 
861 ' ^ir^^^ 
 
 defeated ; his services to his unfortunate sovereign were 
 fruitless, because insincere ; and so little of zeal had he 
 for the royal cause, that rather than strike to the demands 
 of the Irish, to which Charles had often secretly desired 
 him to concede, he surrendered to the bitterest enemies of 
 his sovereign — to those men, and that nation, which could 
 only be satiated with his blood, and the ruin and de- 
 struction oi' that unfortunate family. 
 
 Ormond applied to the English parliament, represented 
 his distress, the insecurity of English power in Ireland, 
 and the immediate necessity of a force to preserve it. The 
 parliament ordered two thousand foot and three hundred 
 horse to go foi'ward immeuiutely for Dublin. In the mean 
 time, the Irish army, amounting to sixteen, thousand foot 
 and six hundred horse, with O'Neal at their head, march- 
 ed to the siege of Dublin. Preston commanded the 
 Leinster forces ; and those two generals, if united, might 
 have determined the fjtc of their country. It appears 
 that Preston was i vain, credulous, and violent ; that 
 O'Neal was cautious, watchful, and jealous of every over- 
 ture made by Ormond, or anj^ of his friends. The latter 
 calculated on gaining upon the weakness of Preston ; and 
 thus, by division, blasting the fairest prospects Ireland 
 ever enjoyed. While the Irish were negociating, the 
 army of the English parliament were march izig to the 
 support of Ormond. The English arrive in Dublin, 
 and O'Neal retires with his army. Preston continues an 
 idle negociation with Ormond, and the opportunity of 
 action is lost. Though Preston was willing to betray the 
 Irish cause, yet he could not influence his officers to 
 follow his example. They would not abandon their 
 true, uncompromising countrymen,] under the command 
 of O'Neal. The feeble mind of Preston once more chano-- 
 
 o 
 
 cd, and again he is seen taking his place under the 
 standard of the Irish council at Kilkenny. The latter 
 send forward their ultimate propositions of peace to O ■• 
 mond, characterized by their wonted spirit, being an im- 
 
 X X 
 
S62 
 
 equirocal and unconditional assertion of civil and religious 
 Heedom. This was too much for the loyal Ormond ; he 
 preferred the degradation and humility of his persecuted 
 sovereign to the liberties of his country, and consented 
 to arm those hands with the sword which, he well knew, 
 would willingly sheath it in the bosom of the unfortunate 
 Charles. He concludes his treaty with the English 
 parliament, and sends forward his second son, lord Rich- 
 ard Butler, the earl of Roscommon, colonel Chichester, 
 and sir James Ware, as hostages for the faithful per- 
 formance of his stipulations. The articles were signed 
 on the 19th of June, IGtV, and the English parliament 
 immediately became masters of the Irish metropohs. 
 
 On the departure of Ormond from Ireland, faction seem- 
 ed to raise her head with multiplied_ terrors to the people. 
 They were now visited by a rapacious and insatiable ene- 
 my, whp thirsted for the extinction of the Irish name. 
 The royalists, parliamentarians, and Irish, tore the country 
 to pieces; and the jealousies, rivalships, and enmities 
 of those who should have been leagued in the common 
 cause, completed the victory of the English. The preci- 
 pitate zeal of Rinuccini frequently defeated the steady and 
 judicious valor of Owen O'Neal ; and the half loyal and 
 half patriotic leaders of the confederate army exposed 
 them to their more decided, although less powerful oppo- 
 nents. Owen O'Neal would sometimes rejoice in the dis- 
 appointment of the royal hopes, tliough the success of the 
 latter would have contributed to piomote his own favorite 
 object of Irish freedom ; and so infatuated were the lead- 
 ers of the confederacy, that they could smile at the de- 
 feats of Owen O'Neal, and the triumphs of their coun- 
 try's enemies. That a people wretchedly divided could 
 succeed against the well combined efforts of England, 
 would be weakness to suppose. Ireland was doomed to 
 be the prey of her own divisions ; and though possessed 
 of strength sufficient to struggle with the world, we shall 
 sec her the victim of folly and indecision. The leaders of 
 
S63 
 
 the confederate army were Preston and lord Taaffe. 
 Those men should be considered more as the champions 
 of Ormond and the king, than the defenders of their 
 country, or the assertors of its rights. They idly identi- 
 fied the royal interests with Irish liberty, and weakly con- 
 ceived that what promoted the one established the other. 
 It is not surprising, therefore, . that Owen O'Neal, whose 
 language was always intelligible, whose cause was plain, 
 clear and unequivocal ; M^ho never mingled the question of 
 his country's freedom with the royal interests ; who drew 
 his sword solely for his country- — it is not very wonder- 
 ful that such a man should hesitate to rejoice in the vic- 
 tories of Preston or lord Taafle. The fatal battles at 
 Dungan hill in Leinster, and Knocknoness in Munster, 
 in which the confederates sustained a decisive defeat, 
 broke down their spirit, and compelled them to make an- 
 other attempt at negociation. , The general assembly was 
 summoned at Kilkenny, and notwithstanding the vehe- 
 ment opposition of Rinuccini, they resolved to send agents 
 to the queen and prince of Wales, then residing in 
 France. The nuncio and Owen O'Neal, on the other 
 hand, proposed sending ambassadors to the courts of 
 Rome and Madrid. They truly insisted that all future 
 communications with the royal family would be an idle 
 waste of time ; that the queen and the prince w^ould be 
 no security lo^Ireland for the faithful fulfilment of those 
 conditions -which ought to be conceded, supposing either 
 the queen or prince wilhng to grant them ; and that the 
 question was no longer the re-establishment of Charles, 
 but the establishment of Irish liberty. Such reasoning 
 did not convince tlie partizans of royalty : the general 
 assembly agreed to send forward their deputies to the 
 queen and prince of Wales, who were then in Paris. The 
 predictions of the nuncio and the Irish leaders were 
 amply verified. Their old, artful, wily negociator, Or- 
 mond, was the cliief counsellor of the queen. He had 
 fled from England, either from fear or pohcy. It is im^ 
 
S64 
 
 possible tliat the solid services which he had render-* 
 ed to the enemies of his master could so soon have been 
 forgotten. Perhaps, as the adviser of the queen and 
 prince of Wales, he could once more demonstrate hi» 
 zeal against the liberty of irclaiid. We shall find him 
 practising the same dexterity, the same half measures, 
 wliich destroyed his sovereign's authority in Ireland. He 
 succeeded in poisoning the minds of the queen and the 
 prince against the nuncio and Owen O'Neal, and procured 
 his appointment to the lieutenancy of Ireland in 1648. 
 
 Durino"- these puerile negociations in France, in which 
 the interests of the royal family and their crafty adviser, 
 Ormond, were alone concerned, the supreme council of 
 Kilkennv, vvhich at this period consisted of the opponents 
 of Owen O'Neal, were greatly dismayed at the alarming 
 aspect of their affairs. Through the medium of Ormond, 
 thev struggle to gain over to their side the neglected lord 
 Inchiquin, who commanded the parliamentary forces. A 
 poAverful confederacy between him, Preston, lord Taaffe, 
 and Ormond, was formed by the machinations of the latter, 
 to procure a cessation of arms, and to ratify a peace on 
 such fair and reasonable conditions as every temperate 
 Irishman could wish for; or in other words, another 
 effort was to be made by Ormond to sacrifice the Irish 
 cause to the supposed interests of the royal family. 
 
 Owen O'Neal and the nuncio opposed the cessation 
 with increased zeal, and proclaimed those who gave it their 
 support imworthy the name of Irishmen. Mr. Leland 
 says that neither the people nor the clergy yielded at this 
 period to the threats of the nuncio ; that his excommuni- 
 cations had lost their terrors ; and that two archbishops, 
 two bishops, all the secular clergy of their diocess, all the 
 Jesuits and Carmelites, many of the Augustinians and 
 Dominicans, and above 500 Franeiscans, protested against 
 vbe violence of the pope's nuncio. This may be all true ; 
 but independent of the crowds of unbought and fearless 
 clergymen, ^^ ho supported the nuncio and Owen 0'N««JI 
 
365 
 
 in their opposition to a cessation founded on the hypo- 
 critical professions of men who had so oRen betrayed the 
 Irish, common sense proclaims the wisdom of the nmicio's 
 conduct on this occasion, and the stupid, or rather the 
 corrupt credulity of the Ormondists. The confederate 
 leaders turned their arms against their countrymen, and 
 the parliamentarians were gratified with the glorious pros- 
 pect of civil war. Lord TaafFc, and Preston, and Clan- 
 rickard, are now seen drawino; their swords against their 
 alhes of yesterday ; and the Irish reader may easily con- 
 ceive the mortifying spectacle which such fatuity must 
 have presented to every honest and reflecting observer. 
 It was a strange revolution to witness a friendly communi- 
 cation between Owen O'Neal and Jones, the general of 
 the parliamentary forces then quartered in Dublin. Such 
 was the inveterate rancor of hostiHty which existed be- 
 tween- the confederate leaders and Owen O'Neal, that the 
 common enemy was embraced by the latter, to revenge 
 himself on those whom he considered Ireland's great- 
 est enemies, namely, the Orm.ondists. He formed the 
 bold design of marehing to Kilkenny, and seizing the 
 v.hole supreme council of the confederates. Such was the 
 situation of thinjrs in Ireland, ^\llen Orraond arrived at 
 Cork from France. Ev^y succeeding day increased the 
 pressure of his sovereign's difficulties, and every effort 
 should now be made to strengthen the royal party in Ire- 
 land. — Alas ! the time for an efficient and decisive exertion 
 in Ireland had gone by ; the feelings of the nation were 
 trifled with ; their demand of right was rejected with dis- 
 dain ; and now the period had arrived when the royal mis- 
 fortunes extorted from the representative of the king those 
 concessions which should have been given with cheerful- 
 ness, and would have been accepted with gratitude. 
 
 The soldiers of Cromwell were now clamoring for the 
 blood of the king : the fatal information was conveyed to 
 the leaders of the Irish cc^ederacy ; its effect was sudden 
 and poweriuL The persecution of the king united every 
 
356 
 
 heart, and gave new energy to everj'- hand ; all objections 
 to a complete recognition of Irish privileges v/ere remov- 
 ed, and those concessions which Ormond conceived him- 
 self so prudent in rejecting at a former period, were grant- 
 ed with a feverish precipitation : all the penal statutes 
 ■were to be repealed, a'iid the catholics left to the free ex- 
 ercise of their religion. Such a concession, two years 
 before, might have saved tlie life of Charles, and extin- 
 guished tl»e rebellion of Englislimen ; Ormond's half 
 measures prevented so happy a determination. Twelve 
 commissioners were named by the general assembly, call- 
 ed cominissioners of trust, whose duty it was to take care 
 tliat the articles of peace should be duly performed. They 
 were to have a joint authority with Ormond, and only to 
 be dissolved by an act of parliament which would ratify 
 the freedom they had succeeded in establishing. In the 
 mean time Charles I. fell a victim to his enemies, and all 
 those visions of relief with which he flattered himself 
 from his Irish subjects vanished into air. Ormond imme- 
 diately proclaimed the prince of Wales kiHg ; the heart 
 of every Irishnjan re-echoed the sound, and every bosom 
 burned with vengeance against the insatiable cruelty which 
 pursued their sovereign to the scaffold. 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Commo^i'iceaUh. 
 
 ^^ J) 1 HE struggles cf Ormond, and his commission- 
 \Q^9 ^^^ ^^ trust, were marked with the same unde- 
 cided character that distinguished all his former 
 efforts. Oriuond's great object was to unite all parties, if 
 possible, in support of the common cause; that the ene- 
 mies of Charles II. and the murderers of his father, should 
 be hereafter considered the only enemies of Ireland ; and 
 that every concession should be made to conciliate the 
 most austere and rigid assertors of Irish freedom. For 
 this purpose Ormond would not hesitate to shake hands 
 with Owen O'Neal ; but so infatuated were the confederate 
 council of Kilkenny, that they not only refused to coalesce 
 with this gallant and generous soldier,* but actually pro- 
 
 * Mr. Taaffe, speaking- of the infatuated conduct which distinguished 
 the confederate council at Kilkenny, and of their ingratitude to Owen 
 O'Neal, their most illustrious leader, has the following animated ob- 
 servations : " What welcome news to the covenanters of England, 
 Ireland and Scotland ! The illustrious hero of Ireland, Owen Roe 
 O'Neal, crowned with laurels on the continent ; the only name on the 
 military staff of Ireland formidable to its enemies; who had the praise 
 even of his enemies, both at home and abroad ; the lineal descendant 
 and rightful heir of so many kings and nionarchs of Ireland; of a race 
 almost always its ornament and bulwark; munificent patrons of arts 
 and sciences; favourers of the muses; all that essentially grace and 
 adorn human life ; champions of the faith; protectors of the weak; 
 and unequivocal and unbending assertors of Irish rights ; 0\*en Roe 
 O'Neal, the only true champion, the shield and right hand of Erin, 
 is declared a rebel and a traitor! This was hard treatment to those 
 gallant Irish ofRcers, who quitted foreiga service, when proip.ctioas. 
 
S68 
 
 claimed lilm a traitor. Owen O'Neal, disgusted witli such 
 miserable policy, intrigued with the parliamentary forces, 
 relieved their distresses, and contributed indirectly to the 
 overthrow of the hopes of the confederacy. Ormond be- 
 sieges Dublin, and is repulsed with immense loss. The 
 parliament of England turn their whole and undivided at- 
 tention towards Ireland, the last refuge of the royal fami- 
 I3'. Tliey send forward Cromwell, at the head of eight 
 thousand foot and four thousand horse, with an ample 
 supply of money, a formidable train of artillery, and all 
 other necessaries of war. Cromwell commenced his bar- 
 barous warfare in Ireland by the siege and the destruction 
 
 honors, and honorable family alliances were open on the contii^eut, f» 
 assist their countrymen in their late strug-gle for their liberties. Such 
 an act of folly was fatal to Ireland ; by it the confederates damned 
 their cause, and surrendered tiiemselves and their country into the hands 
 of their enemies. They did that which the English par.liameHt, Cromwell, 
 Coote, Ormond, and all the open and covert enemies of Ireland, 
 •wished. They delivered Sampson into the hand of the Philistines, and 
 the latter took care to destroy the man who was the terror of all the 
 popish and covenanting enemies of Ireland. 
 
 " Sir Charles Coote, holding Derry for the parliament, and being sorely 
 pressed for want of provisions, having sustained a long sitge from the 
 lordof Ardes, who commanded the rovaiist army, contrived to send a 
 messenger to O'Neal. Having heard of his being proclaimed a traitor 
 and rebel, and knowing, consequently, that he must be distressed for 
 money to ^ay his troops, he offered him a large sum, on the coniiirion 
 that O'Neal relieved him. Owen, indignant at the outrage offered to him 
 and his brave troops, marched to raise the siege. The lord ot Ardes, not 
 thinking it prudent to wait his arrival, departed from before Derry hastily. 
 Owen Roe O'Neal was received with every appearance of friendship 
 into the town. A ball and supper was prepared for the entertainment 
 of the deliverer of Derry; and he received a present of a pair of russet 
 boots, in order to dance with a young ladv who was particularly anxious 
 to enjoy the honor of that diversion v,'ith the great man. Supper being 
 ended, he danced with her and some others, until he fell into a per- 
 ipiration, and was completely exhausted. He soon after retired to bed, 
 fell sick, and in a few days expired. M^hether the popular opinion of his 
 having been presented with a pair of poisoned hoots, be well founded, 
 still rests on conjecture — yet 1 think the probabilities favor that opinion. 
 Coote was a mortal enemy to Irish papists. He had engaged for a large 
 sum, which perhaps he was unable to pay, and the general at the 
 head of his forces could compel payment or make reprisals." Mr. TaafFe 
 concludes, that Coote conspired to destroy his great and powerful ally. 
 We are unwilling to attribute the sudden death of Owen O'Neal, how- 
 ever formidable either his talents or power, to the cause suggested by 
 Mr. Taaii'e. Coote was at this period most peculiarly interested in his 
 «afety ; and the stupid denunciations of the Irish confederacy against 
 O'Keal, were the best possible security for his fidelity. 
 
369 
 
 of Drogheda. He basely butcliored the Inhubitaiits. Af- 
 ter a promise of quarter to the brave defenders of the 
 town, lie permitted his fanatical soldiers to slaughter them, 
 when stripped of their arms and incapable of defence. 
 For fivq days this hideous and cowaixlly murder was con- 
 tinued, under the direct orders of this hypocritical Eng- 
 lishman : but thirty persons remained unslaughtered by an 
 enemy glutted and oppressed with carnage; and Borlase 
 says, that even this miserable thirty were transported as 
 slaves to Barbadoes. Such were the effects of a policy 
 dictated by the furious spii-it of fanaticism, ursed on by 
 national hatred and contempt. With such facts before 
 the contemplation of Ireland, will a rational Englishman 
 wonder that an Irishman should give utterance to his po- 
 litical feelings in the language of the bitterest indifrna- 
 tion — yet all this desperate and murderous violence of 
 Cromwell would have availed but little, had it not been 
 for the wretched divisions of the confederates. Even this 
 dreadful calamity with which their country was now visit- 
 ed was insufficient to induce them to the adoption of any 
 manly generous principles of action. The wolf was sut- 
 fered to prowl and continue his bloody course among the 
 luiprotected flock, while the drunken shepherds were either 
 disputing about their booty, or perhaps speculating on the 
 slaughter of each other. Cromwell went on, and vigor- 
 ously took advantage of the folly which surrounded him ; 
 he artfully held out the hope of religious toleration ; in- 
 trigued with the principal leaders among the Irish ; and 
 by force and stratagem succeeded in the capture of Wex- 
 ford, Waterford, and Ross. The duplicity practised by 
 Ormond on the people of Ireland was signally punished 
 by their present indifference to the result of the conflict 
 between him and Cromwell : well and truly did they say, 
 that they saw but little difference between the cause of 
 Charles and the English parliamoit; both promised free- 
 dom, civil and religious, and experience told them that the 
 word of Ormond was not to be relied on. 
 
 Y y 
 
370 
 
 Urtdsr sucli cirnimstances, and with a nation so dispos- 
 ed, the victoi*y of Cromwell, at the head of a well ©r- 
 ganized army, undivided in se^itiment, animated by the 
 hope of phmder, and the zeal of bigotry, was as certain 
 as it was easy. All the principal towns of Munster sur- 
 O'endered to his arms, (1650) and the cause of Charles 
 in the west of Ireland seemed to be irretrievably blasted. 
 Clonmel was the only place which could be considered 
 a serious impediment to the triumphant career of Crom- 
 well's arms. A verj^ interesting and remarkable instance 
 of individual heroism occurred there, which should, not 
 yield to the achievement of the Roman general ; and 
 which, if performed in ancient days, would have enjoyed 
 the in;mortality of a classic historian. Hugh O'Neal, a 
 northern officer, with twelve hundred of his provincials, 
 maintained the town with such valor, that on the first as- 
 sault two thousand of the besiegers lost their lives. " The 
 Komish bishop of Ross," says Mr. Leland, " who was 
 particularly active in raising and animating the besieged 
 to this singular defence of their town, was taken prisoner 
 in one of the assaults." A man so distinguished by his 
 determination to resist the English depredators could ex- 
 pect but little mercy. His life, however, was offered him, 
 on condition that he should use his spiritual authority with 
 the garrison of a fort a<-'.;acent to the field of battle, and 
 prevail on them to suirendei'. For this purpose the 
 bishop of Rpss was conducted to the fort ; but the gallant 
 captive, unshaken by the fear of death, and unjnoved 
 by the denunciations of vengeance, exhorted the garrison 
 to maintain their post resolutely against the enemies of 
 their religion and their countrj^, and instantly resigned 
 himself to execution. Mr. Leland observes, with honest 
 indignation, that " the bishop's enemies could discover 
 nothing in his conduct but insolence and obstinacy ;" yet 
 such was the insolence of Regulus, whose name has been 
 preserved by the Roman historian as an example of the 
 TOoist exalted courage and inflexible integrity. The page 
 
SIX 
 
 of Irish suffering affords a thousand subjects of equal ad- 
 miration to the reader; but the injustice which doomed 
 the heroes of our country to deaths of dishonor, bus also 
 buried in obhvion their names ; and here and there onljr 
 do we discern an attestation to the greatness of their spirit 
 and their valor, extorted from the reluctant pen of a 
 venal historian. Clonmel was at length obliged, after 
 an obstinate and sanguinary siege, to yield to the terms 
 of Cromwell. This last conquest closed the Irish cam- 
 paign of Cromwell ; he resigntKl his triumphant army 
 to the care of Ireton, and immediately embarked for Eng- 
 land. It appears tolerably clear to the reader of these 
 pages, that the great cause of Irish disaster was the want 
 of confidence in the general who commanded them ; that 
 whenever the Irish fought under the standard of such an 
 officer as O'Neal, who possessed the hearts and affections 
 of the people, victory crowned their valor ; and that 
 whenever they were obliged to surrender to superior num- 
 bers, or superior niihtary resources, tiie enemy dearly 
 purchased his triumph and his spoils. 
 
 The historians of the pale attribute the rapidity of 
 Cromwell's progress to the factions of the Irish ; to the 
 intrigues of the priesthood ; to their intolerant arrogance, 
 and their ungovernable io;norance. The writer of this 
 compendium must rather attribute the inglorious strug- 
 gles of the Irish against the desperate and sanguinary 
 sword of puritanical fanaticism, to the half expedients of 
 Oi'mond, who endeavoured to balance himself between 
 the kiag,the English parliament, and the Irish people; who 
 had already, as we have seen, incurred the suspicions of 
 the latter, and now laboured in vain to bring into action 
 the various conflicting parties which stmggied lor ascen- 
 dancy. The councils of such a man accelerated the pro- 
 gress of the common enemy, and palsied the Irish arm. 
 Were it not for this cause, the Irish could, on the depar- 
 ture of Cromwell, have made a successful stand against 
 England j they were still in possession of the entire pro- 
 
nl^ 
 
 12 
 
 vincC of Connauglu ; Waterford, Limerick and Galway, 
 were in their hands; they possessed the forts of Duncan- 
 nonandSligo; the castles of Athlone, Charlemont, Car- 
 low, andNenagh; their numbers were considerable, and 
 the spirit by which each Irish bosom was animated was 
 equal to any enterprize however arduous or desperate. 
 The brave Owen Roe O'Neal no longer existed to point 
 their road to victory. The loyal marquis of Ormond, 
 struggling more zealously for ascendancy over the Irish 
 priesthood than for victory over the arms of Cromwell, 
 was the ill-fitted director of those energies which judicious- 
 ly and honestl}' guided, would never have been conquered. 
 Even the wretched bigotry of Cromwell suspended its in- 
 tolerance in the face of good and sagacious policy. The 
 parliamentarian generals offered that indulgence to con- 
 science which was contumeliously refused by the loyal 
 Ormond ; and a man whose sovereign depended on the 
 allegiance and fidelity of the Irish, often refused that tole- 
 ration which was granted by the hand that struggled for 
 their destruction. An event now took place which pe- 
 culiarly marks the sense of the Irish nation with regard 
 to the claims of Ormond on their confidence. The Irish 
 determined no longer to trust to the hollow and hypocri- 
 tical professions of a man wiio had so often demonstrated 
 his antipathy to their civil and religious liberty ; they ap- 
 pealed in their present extremities to foreign powers, and 
 resolved to trust to their own resources and their own coun- 
 cils. Ormond despaired of ever beinoable to establish his 
 authority', when opposed by a power so audacious and so 
 arrogant as he was pleased to represent the Irish cjer- 
 gv. It must often excite the astonishment of ^Ir. Leland's 
 readers to observe his perpetual and unceasing invectives 
 against the Irish priesthood, in this great struggle for 
 their religion and their liberties. To an impartial and 
 teiu])erate observer it would occur, that the whole catho- 
 lic clergy of Irelanil, not very remarkable for their igno- 
 rance or their want of spirit, would be anxious to submit 
 
373 
 
 to such councils as were best calculated to presence the in- » 
 dependence oi" their country, and the venerated creed of 
 their forelathers. It would be reasonable to presume, that 
 the collected wisdom, and learning, and spirit of the Irish 
 clergy and laity, who so often differed in opinion with Or- 
 mond, were at least equal to the understanding of an indi- 
 dividual, whose opportunities of information were no 
 greater than those with whom he is compared ; and whose 
 motives to promt)te the liberties of Ireland were undoubt- 
 edly not stronger than those of the unmixed and unadul- 
 terated native Irish. Such presumptions, however rea- 
 sonable, vanish before the infallible understanding and fide- 
 lity of Ormond. Mr. Leland is perpetually conplaining of 
 the insidiousness by which his- hero is assailed ; of the ig- 
 norant obstinacy of the bigoted clergy of Ireland ; of 
 their presumption and the extravagance of their pride. The 
 impartial observer of human nature wants no facts to con- 
 tradict such silly invectives. They are too absurd even for 
 the credulity of an enemy to swallow, and every man 
 closes the chapter which thus degrades the character and 
 the intellect of the Irish clergy, wlio at this calamitous 
 period appear so forward in defence of their country, with 
 a smile of contempt, or a sneer of suspicion. Those much 
 reviled clergy determined to assemble and deliberate on the 
 present alarming attitude of Irish aliairs. Those " inso- 
 lent ecclesiastics" as Mr. Leland calls tliem, " did meet, in 
 the year 1650, at a place called James-town, and felt it 
 a duty which they owed to their religion as well as to their 
 country, to consider whether that king, who had now pro- 
 claimed war against both, inx)rder to gratiiy and conciliate 
 the furious persecuting fanaticism oT the Scotch, was de- 
 serving of their allegiance or their su})port ; whether that 
 king, or his favorite representative in Ireland, who had 
 now determined to violate the peace which they solemnly 
 concluded with the Irifc,h, any longer merited their con- 
 fidence or their fidelity. When Mr. Leland arraigns the 
 clergy of Ireland with the odious charges of "presumption, 
 
S74 
 
 fjiction, turbulence, fanaticism," doeii he make full allo-vr- 
 ance for the causes which provoked that presumption and 
 faction ? does he, with true historical candor, admit that a 
 whole people who were denounced by their king, would 
 be undeserving the liberty for which they contended, if 
 they did not give fiill ex; ression of their indignation,* 
 when Charles was degraded into the mean policy of signing 
 the following declaration? " That he would have no ene- 
 mies but the enemies of the covenant; that he did detest 
 and abhor all popery, superstition and idolatr}', toge- 
 ther with prelacy; resolving not to tolerate, much less to 
 allow those in any part ot his dominions, and to endea- 
 vour tlie extirpation thereof to the utmost of his power; 
 
 * Mr Leland loses no opportunity of expressing^ his unlimited homage 
 to the superior understanding' and integrity of Ormond, as compared 
 with tiie whole Irish nation. I'he disgracetui ceci .raciun against the Irish, 
 signed by tiie king for the gratification of his Scotch subjects, (Mr. 
 Leiaud writes) Oinioud wished to regard as forgery, and affected to 
 treat it as such. Dr. Curry, who is somewhat more industrious for 
 the honor of Ireland, has unmasked Mr. IvuUnd's favorite, and hat 
 shown that Ormond was not only perfectly aware of the king's inten- 
 tion to sacrifice his Irish people, but actually advised such a policy; 
 for Charles, in a letter to Ormond, dated January 16th, 1649, says, " you 
 will perceive by my public letter, that I have resolved of a treaty with 
 my subjects of Scotland, whereunio I was principally induced by that 
 relation which Harry Seymour made to me from you of the state of 
 things in Ireland." Accordingly his Majesty, having agreed with the 
 Scotch commissioners, left Breda, and arrived in Scotland on the 23d 
 ofjuae, 1650; but before they buffered him to land, they obliged him 
 to sign both tiie covenants, national and solemn, ivir. Carte, in hi« 
 life of Ormond, gives the opinion of one of his majesty's ovvn secre- 
 taries on the abominable want of principle and integrity exhibited by 
 Charles II. in agreeing to the infamous Scotch declaration, iiis Ma- 
 jesty's secretary thus writes: " When I consider this infamous declaration, 
 which the Scots compelled the king to publish, and are siiil resolved to 
 Lave his majesty make good, though not only all the king's party, but 
 even strangers that have any sense of honor or conscience, declaim against 
 it, I caunot so much as hope, that they intend any good or safety to hifr 
 majesty, whom they have so wickedly and notoriously abused." January 
 \5th, 1650 — Utter to the marquis of Ormond. Yet Mr. Leland would im- 
 j-ress on his readers, that his pure amiable favorite, Ormond, was per- 
 fectly unaware of the king's determination ; and that, to use the hist.jnan's 
 own language, " nothing could be more convenient for the congregation 
 of prelates, soon alter assembled at James-town, and their purp-ose of 
 inliaming the people, than this virulent declaration; they (poor delud- 
 ed people) imputed it entirely to the representations of the marquis of 
 Oiniond," It is really surprising how shrewdly our counirymea iomdimu 
 guess who are their eneoiitrs and who are their frieuds. 
 
575 
 
 and with regard to the peace lately concluded with the con- 
 federates, and confirmed by himselfj he expressly pro- 
 nounced it null and void, adding, "that he was convinced 
 in his conscience of the sinfulness and unlawfulness of it, 
 and of allowing them (the confederates) the liberty of the 
 popish religion ; for which he did from his heart desire to 
 be deeply humbled before the Lord, and for having sought 
 unto such unlawful help for the restoring of him to the 
 throne." Such were the honorable conditions on which 
 the religious liberality of the Scotch agreed to co-operate 
 with their sovereign for the recovery of his throne ; and 
 such Yvas the humiliation to which that unprincipled mon- 
 arch stooped to conciliate the support of his enemies. In 
 the mind of the impartial reader, such a declaration from 
 Charles would not be a little calculated to rouse the appre- 
 hensions of the Irish clergy, who were now convened at 
 James-town. But what should the feelings of Ireland be, 
 when even her enemies blushed for the dishonor of the 
 king? when all his friends were seen to cover their faces, 
 and commiserate the fate of that monarch who could have 
 been reduced to so humiliating an act? We cannot there- 
 fore agree with Mr. Leland in deploring the extraordinaiy 
 influence which the Irish clergy were able to exercise over 
 the minds of their countrymen ; or that they were deaf to 
 every summons but from those men who were honestly m- 
 terested for the fate of their religion and their freedom. 
 
 Mr. Leland's observations are peculiarly strong, and are 
 «o often echoed in the time we now live in, that it may not 
 be useless to quote the passage, and to request at the same 
 instant that the reader will not forget the peculiar circum- 
 stances we have above described, when he is readino- it. 
 *' But the ignorance of the vulgar" writes ISIr. Leland, 
 " had stamped such a degree of reverence and authority 
 on the ecclesiastical character, that the dictates of the 
 meanest of this order were superior to all pow(*r, civil 
 and military." What man, protestant, presbyterian, or 
 catholic, can conscientiously deplore the veneration which 
 
376 
 
 the poor Irishman feels for his ecclesiastical instructor? 
 The readers of this history will hear those complaints 
 only from the enemies of the civi-l and religious liberty of 
 the Irish people ; and will admit that every friend to that 
 liberty estimates the progress of virtue and morality among 
 the people, in proportion to the degree of veneration in 
 which they hold the sacred profession of their rdigion. In 
 tills instance, as in all that we have seen, the clergy were 
 prompt in the execution of their dut}'. Their king had 
 basely surrendered them to the sanguinary prejudices of the 
 Scotch. He violated his faith with a people who were shed- 
 ding their blood in his cause, and, from the meanest motives, 
 consigned them over to the murderers of his father. With 
 such a scene before him, Mr. Leland writes that " Ormond 
 was unable to suppress his disdaiii of so contemptible 
 a faction as the catholic clergy of Irpland !" 
 
 True to the people, those venerated ecclesiastics con- 
 vened a meetinjT at James- town, and took the kin^-'s con- 
 duct into xonsideration. They agreed to a declaration 
 tliat Ormond, the king's lieutenant, was no longer deserv- 
 ing of Irish confidence. Their language v/as the true 
 picture of their wounded and abused feelings — strong, de- 
 cided, and ingenuous. *' Our king" say these honest men, 
 " has cast away his Irish nation from his bosom ; helias la^ 
 mented and broken the peace which he had made with 
 his people ; — are we to be bound by a peace which he so- 
 lemnly disclaims? Let us go back to our oath of associ- 
 ation ; let us recur to our original confederacv, and instead 
 of fighting in support of a treaty thus disowned by our 
 pionarch, let us bravely hazard our lives and fortunes to 
 extort more favourable articles from the enemy." This 
 •was the language of a manly integrity, which knew no 
 double ways to victory ; which could not comprehend the 
 mental reservations and state tricks of Ormond ; and this- 
 is the language and the conduct which Mr. Leland has 
 been pleased to brand with the epithets of faction, turbu- 
 lence, fanaticism, &c. &c. Orraond's intriguing resourc- 
 
' 317 
 
 es were now almost exhausted, and he dctermhied to retii'fe 
 from a scene in which he could no longer succeed by his 
 practices of deceit and hypocrisy. 
 
 In those days the catholics had their modtrafe advisers, 
 who saw no danger in negociating with fraud, nor 
 in compromising with insincerity ; those moderate men still 
 liad confidence in Charles and Ormond, and would still 
 be loyal to the hand that promised to shed their blood. 
 Those moderate catholics commiserated the prejudices of 
 their fellow-countrymen, which would not suffer them to 
 see protection in treachery, truth in falsehood, and the 
 most enlightened liberality in the most unwearied bigotry. 
 They struggled and remonstrated in favcj-,' of Ormond j 
 but this good man was obliged to surrenddr to general in- 
 dignation, and to leave that country which his insidious 
 policy had nearly ruined. The clergy drew up and sign- 
 ed an excommunication aQ-ainst all such catholics " as 
 should enlist under, feed, help, or adhere to his excel- 
 lency, or assist him with men and money, or any other 
 supplies whatsoever." This instrument was signed on the 
 12th of August, 1650: it was published with the usual 
 formalities on the 15th of September of the same year: 
 thus, says the estimable Dr. Curry, " adopting the only 
 expedient calculated to protect their religious liberty, 
 lives, i:n:l fortunes." On the 15th of November, 1650, 
 a general assembly was convened at Loughrea; and 
 though the historians of the pale are pleased to say that 
 this, assembly, composed of the principal nobihty and gen- 
 try of fortune and interest in the kingdom, came to re"- 
 solutions disapprobatory of the conduct of the bishops at 
 James-town ; it will be found, on a reference to the actual 
 proceedings of this assembly, that the acts of the bishops 
 were fully, fearlessly, and unequivocally confirmed. '• An 
 instrument," says Dr. Curry, " was drawn up by this as- 
 sembly, wherein they declared, that neither the lords spi- 
 ritual nor temporal, gentry nor people, clergy nor laity, 
 had power to discharge the nation from that due and per- 
 
 2 z 
 
S78 
 
 feet obedience to his majesty's authority vested in the mar- 
 quis Clanrickard, and that in case of any such act or en- 
 deavors, no persons should or ought to be led thereby, 
 but that for their disobedience on any such grounds, they 
 were subject to the heavy censures and penalties of the 
 laws of the land ; but to, this is added, (and let the vio- 
 lators of solemn treaties attend to it) that this obedience 
 was not' intended to be paid to any person that should be 
 appointed chief governor, who had joined in the 
 covenant, or should violate the articles of peace." Upon 
 this declaration lord Clanrickard was prevailed upon to 
 accept the government, and Ormond departed for France. 
 We have thought it necessary to devote so much to the 
 vindication o^i,the Irish clergy against the interested slan- 
 ders of a distinguished historian ; to demonstrate that 
 those men who have been so cruelly branded with the 
 opprobrious names of factious and fanatical priests, have, 
 in the instance before us, been the last and unconquerable 
 refuge of their country's liberty and religion. We have 
 endeavored to condense that evidence which convicts the 
 calumniator, and establishes the claims of injured inno» 
 cence. The Irish were now headed by a man who enjoy- 
 ed their confidence. The marquis of Ormond brought 
 along with him a number of distinguished protestant offi- 
 cers who were attached to his lordship ; and the single 
 circumstance of his successor being a catholic, most natu- 
 rally caused a separation of the two religions in a mora 
 distinct manner than heretofore. It is impossible not to 
 observe the reluctance with which the protestant portion 
 of Ireland yielded even to that necessity which bound 
 them for some time together in the common cause of their 
 king. The lord Inchequin embarked with Ormond. The 
 conduct of the king and Ormond had so completely de- 
 stroyed all confidence in any royal professions, that it is 
 not to be wondered that the poor people of Ireland should 
 seek refuge in the arms even of the parliamentarians, 
 who now offered that toleration which was denied by their 
 
379 
 
 sovereign. Such a proposition, however reasonable in 
 their present reduced state, was rejected by the majority 
 of tlie Irish leaders ; and the spirit of the country, not 
 yet wholly extinguished, turned its attention towards the 
 practicability of obtaining the interposition of some foreign 
 power in this hour of their distress. They determined 
 therefore, that the bishop of Ferns, their most active par- 
 tizan, should be sent to Brvissels to solicit the duke of 
 Lorraine to take their nation and religion under his 
 princely protection. So low were the hopes of the mar- 
 quis Clanrickard, that he could not effect any considerable 
 opposition to the progress of the parliamentarians without 
 the aid of a foreign power; that even he was inclined to 
 listen to, and encourag^e a neo;ociation with the duke of 
 Lorraine ; and Clanrickard, in his letter to the marquis of 
 Ormond, states his reason why such a treaty with the 
 duke of Lorraine would be attended with the greatest ad. 
 vantages to the royal cause. " But no sooner," writes 
 Clanrickard, " had the Irish understood that the duke of 
 Lorraine's ambassador had arrived in Ireland, with offers 
 of powerful assistance for the preservation of the catholic 
 religion and of his majesty's subjects interest, than they 
 took much comfort and encouragement thereby, hoping 
 that the rebels' power might be exposed ; and soon after 
 the towns of Limerick and Galway, and all other places 
 yet in his majesty's obedience, seemed more cheerfully 
 than before to assist his majesty's authority in opposing 
 the rebels." Upon this change in the temper of the peo- 
 ple, Cliinrickard gave his countenance to the imn^ediate 
 iiegociation of a treaty with the duke of Lorraine, 
 
 Mr. Leland is peculiarly angry at the anxiety manifest- 
 ed by the Irish people to court the protection and aid of a 
 foreign power. Mr. Leland, knowing the calamities and 
 desperate situation to which the Irish people wer^ now re- 
 duced, should have had the candor to admit, that to seek 
 for such foreign aid as would possibly rescue them from 
 their present distressing embarrassments, was the wisest 
 
380 
 
 f r.d the honcstest counsel which could have been sugges"- 
 etl ; and that such interference ought to be solicited at the 
 hazard of the eternal interests of the monarch who had 
 already abandoned them to tlieir bitterest enemies-. But 
 the Irish did not go so far; they stiil heid fast by that 
 loyal principle which so much distinguished them, and 
 even the treason of Charles to their country did not ob- 
 literate the impressions of an old veneration for his fa- 
 mily. 
 
 The marquis of Ormond would not only have recom- 
 mended an alliance with tlie duke of Lorraine, but he 
 would advise that overtures should be made even to his ho- 
 line»s the pope, for that relief which no protcstant crown- 
 ed head could now afford. " To come shortly," says he 
 in a letter to Clanrickard, " to what I would be at, where- 
 in you n)ay be concerned, I conceive some one must be 
 found that hath power, if not with all, yet with most Chris-> 
 tian princes and states. Among the protestants there i* 
 none such, and among the Roman catholics it is visible 
 that the pope has the most of authority and persuasion j 
 and it shall be, witliout scruple, my advice, and that speed- 
 ily, tliat fitting ministers may be sent, and apt inducements 
 proposed to him for his interposition m ith all the prince* 
 and states." 
 
 The terms of the treaty, as proposed by the duke of 
 Lorraine, were so extravagant that Clanrickard preferred 
 the alternative of his own unaided efforts in support of 
 the royal cause. The negociation, however, continued un- 
 til events in Ireland rendered any terms, however favor- 
 able, perfectly unavailing; the arms of the parliamentari- 
 ans made a rapid progress, and almost every place of 
 strength had submitted to their power. The treachery 
 of an Iribh ofliccr, of the nanie of Fennell, opened the 
 gates of Limerick to a merciless enemy, and the most pro- 
 minent amono- the Irish in their zeal aijainst the English, 
 vrere sacrificed to the fury of the conquering army ; Gal- 
 way alone remained to tii3 Irish. In tliis last refuge Clan- 
 
SSI 
 
 rickard took slielter with the mutilated army. Ireton, the 
 Eriirlish iieneral, one of the fanatical scottrws of the Irish, 
 fell a victim to disease while besieging the town of Gal- 
 way. The dreadful denunciations of vengeance issued by 
 the leaders of the parliamentary army, rendered it a ques- 
 tion of prudence no longer to irritate a power which could 
 not be successfully opposed, and the inhabitants of Gal- 
 way opened their gates to the enemy. Clanrickard flew 
 to the north of Ireland, where he struggled to rally the 
 scattered partizans of royalty. He at length took advan- 
 tage of an oiier made by the English general, who per- 
 mitted him to depart from Ireland with the three thousand 
 troops which remained of the royal army ; and well may 
 we say with Mr. Leland, — but ?iot i7i the sjm-it of his ap- 
 plicatioJi — that " he retired from a country lost to his roy- 
 al master by illiberal bigotry, frantic pride, the blindness 
 of men intoxicated by an imaginary consequence — their, 
 senseless factions and incorrigible perverseness in contend- 
 ing against their own interest, and rejecting every mea- 
 sure necessary for their own security." Truly may it be 
 written, that the desperate bigotry of Oi'raond, tiie un- 
 princi[)led ambition of Charles, and the total want of a 
 decided system of policy always directed to the candid 
 support of the religious and civil liberties of the Irish, con- 
 tributed in an eminent degree to the destruction of that 
 kins who miajht have ever found an inexhaustible resource 
 in the* gratitude and sensibilitj^ of the Irish heart. 
 
 The Marquis of Clanrickard thus abandoned Ireland to 
 the fury of tlie English rebels; and thus, "in a few 
 months," observes Borlase, " the usurpers got possession 
 of such a country' as Ireland with as much ease as if they 
 had merely to conquer a county. Such a winter's cam- 
 paign, and by so inconsiderable a party against so consi- 
 derable a kingdom, wivs never read or heard of, and is 
 abundant evidence of the complete inutility of numbers and 
 of spirit, when divisions are suffered to exist amongst those 
 whoihould be united, and the leader who should possess the 
 
3S2 
 
 confidence of the people, chances to be an object of ge- 
 neral suspicion." There was a barbarous decision in the 
 character of Cromwell, which would not stop at universal 
 extermination, if such a determination was necessary to 
 the carrying any object of his ambition. Dalrymple, in 
 his memoirs of Great Britain, says, that Cromwell, in or- 
 der to get free of his enemies, did not scruple to transport 
 forty thousand Iiish from their own country, to fill all the 
 armies in Europe with complaints of his cruelty, and admi- 
 ration of their own valor. 
 
 One hundred and seventy years have nearly elapsed 
 since Ireland experienced this scene of barbarous devas- 
 tation. The policy was cruel, but there was one feature 
 of humanity still to be discovered in such desperate tyran- 
 nj^ ; it put an end to the victim ; it did not preserve his 
 existence to perpetuate his sufferings ; it did not inflict the 
 agonizing torture of that feverish being which our ances- 
 tors were doomed to suffer under the slow fire of the pen- 
 al code. ' This was the progeny of an ingenuity which em- 
 ulated the despotism of Cromwell, and consumed the 
 heart, while it preserved the body of the wretched and 
 impitied sufferer. Yet our readers will now see with what 
 philosophic insensibility and speculating barbarity an Eng- 
 lish writer delivers his opinions on the present sufferings of 
 the devoted Irish. " It cannot be imagined," writes lord 
 Clarendon, " in how easy a method, and with what peace- 
 able formality, the whole kingdom of Ireland was taken 
 from the just owners and proprietors, and divided among 
 those irho had no of her right to it but that they had ponsoer to 
 keep it. In less than two years after lord Clanrickard left ' 
 Ireland, the new government seemed perfectly established; 
 insomuch that there were many buildings for ornament as 
 well as use, orderly and regular plantations of trees, fences 
 and inclosures, raised throughout the kingdom ; purchases 
 made by one from the other at very valuable rates; and 
 jointures settled on marriages, and all the conveyances and 
 settlements executed as in a kingdom at peace within itself 
 
383 
 
 and where no doubt could be made of the validity of titles.** 
 This peaceful and gratifying picture, in the view of an 
 English writer, more than compensates for all the varied 
 and infinite calamity which the expatriated Irish must have 
 endured. The cries and tears of the persecuted millions of 
 our countrymen arc no longer heard, amidst the sweet har- 
 mony of English contractors. The Irish were a barbarous 
 people, and should be sacrificed to the fanatical soldiers of 
 Cromwell. With such facts before the reflection of Ire- 
 land, will an Englishman wonder that his country is view- 
 ed with suspicion and jealousy ? or will an English govern- 
 ment hesitate to adopt that course of conduct by Ireland, 
 which will induce her to bury in eternal oblivion those 
 dreadful records which make so powerful an appeal to their 
 vengeance ? 
 
 A very singular measure of cruelty and violence was 
 now adopted by the English rebels, Cromwell and his 
 council, to complete, as they were pleased to say, the 
 tranquillity of Ireland. Notvvithstanding the thousands 
 that were destroyed by the sword, and the thousands that 
 were driven with their beCTcrared families to roam throuoh 
 the unpitying world, there still remained a large portion 
 of the native Irish, whom Cromwell and his council 
 thought it necessary to dispose of. There was a large 
 tract of land, even to the half of the province of Con- 
 naught, that was separated from the rest by a long and 
 large river, and which, by the plague and many massacres, 
 remained almost desolate. Into this space and circuit of 
 land Cromwell required all the native Irish to retire by a 
 certain day, under the penalty of death ; and all who, after 
 that time, should be found in any other part of the king- 
 dom, man, woman, or child, might be killed by any body 
 who saw or met them. They were not only driven into 
 this barren country to linger out a niisez'able existence, 
 but they were forced at the point of the bayonet to sign 
 releases of their former rights and titles to the land that 
 was taken from them, in consideration of what was novr 
 
58* 
 
 assigned tliem ; that so they should for ever bar themselves 
 and their heirs from laying claim to tlieir old inheritance. 
 It would be supposed by the reader of these pages, who 
 has seen the inflexible fidelity of the Irish people to the 
 fortunes and cause of Charles that this monarch would not 
 have forgotten the loyalty of those who stood by hmi in 
 the extremity of his greatest distress ; that he would not 
 send forth their children to the wilderness, who had shed 
 their blood in his defence ; — yet what is the fact ? — That 
 this infamous and ungrateful monarch agreed that one of 
 tJie conditions of his restoration to the crown of his father 
 should be, that the plundered people of Ireland should ne- 
 Ter be restored to their properties. Here was the royal 
 reward for the fidelity and allegiance of Ireland; and 
 here was the plan of civilization on which Englishmen 
 acted, and by which they were to introduce the laws and 
 privileges of a free constitution. 
 
 Courts of justice were appointed, whose sanguinary de- 
 crees suo-ffested the name of " Cromwell's slauohter- 
 houses." These infamous tribunals were erected under the 
 pretext of bringing to justice the promoters of, and actors 
 in, the rebellion of IG-il ; but the real object was the. 
 confiscation of property, and the destruction of the Irish. 
 The feelings of humanity and the principles were boast- 
 higly trampled on. To be cruel to the Irish was to be hu- 
 mane and rehgious ; to p^lunder their properties and beggar 
 their children was to enrich the godly and disseminate 
 the gospel. Thus v.oiild the rapacious destroyer insult 
 the justice of omnipotence by the hypocritical adoption 
 of his word ; and the reUgion which was intended to give 
 peace and security to mankind, was made the instrument 
 of desolation and barbarity. The marquis of Ormond, 
 in his place in parliament, drevv' a faithful picture of 
 those tribunals to which English fanaticism gave birth in 
 the time of the commomyealth. " What less m.isery could 
 be expected at a time when all distinctions of right and 
 vrong were confounded and lost in those of power and im- 
 
385 
 
 portaiice ; when the noblest acts of loyalty received the 
 judgment due to the foulest treason; due to the unrigh- 
 teous judges who pronounced it without authority in the 
 persons o^ justice in the sentence ; when the benches were 
 crowded and oppressed with the throng and wicked weight 
 of those that ought rather to have stood manacled at the 
 bar; when such was the bold contempt not only of the es- 
 sentials, but also the very formalities of justice, that they 
 gave no reason for taking away men's estates, but that thy 
 ivere Irish papists ; when all men were liable to the entan- 
 glement of two edged oaths, from the conflicts raised by 
 them in men's breasts between conscience and conveniency 
 — between the prostitution of their conscience and the ru- 
 in of their fortunes; than which a harder and more ty- 
 rannical choice could not be obtrudetl on Christians. For 
 here the election was not, swear thus against your con- 
 science, or you shall have no part in the civil government, 
 no office in the army, or benefice in the church — but, 
 swear thus, or you shall have no house to put your head 
 in, no bread to sustain yourselves, your wives and chil- 
 dren." A writer cotemporary vdth those tragical events, 
 (Morrison) strains his memory for examples of such re- 
 lentless barbarity as was now exhibited in Ireland. " Nei- 
 ther the Israelites," he says, " were more cruelly perse- 
 cuted by Pharaoh, nor the innocent infants by Herod, nor 
 the Christians by Nero, nor any of the other pagan tyrants, 
 than were the Roman catholics of Ireland at tins fatal 
 juncture, by Cromwell's savage commissioners; and the 
 same price (five pounds sterling) was set by the commis- 
 sioners on the head of a Romish priest, as on that of a 
 wolf, the number of which was then ver}^ considerable in 
 Ireland ; and although the profession or character of a 
 Romish priest could not, one would think, be so clearly 
 ascertained as the species of wolf by the mere inspection 
 of their heads thus severed from their bodies ; yet the bare 
 asseveration of the beheaders, v.as, in both cases, equally 
 credited and rev;arded by those commissioners, so invete- 
 
 A a a 
 
S86 
 
 rate was their malice and hatred to that order of men." 
 It may now be fairlj asked the declairners against the in- 
 satiable despotism of the cathohc inquisition, do they not 
 here see the account of blood between the dissenters from 
 the catholic religion and th.e catholics, most strictly balan- 
 ced ? and do not the persecutors of conscience also see the 
 insanity of that zeal which will not suifer the human mind 
 to follow the creed and profess the doctrine which it con- 
 siders the best, ,and which is not incompatible with the 
 })eace and tranquillity of society? The present daj 
 mourns the effects of the follies it laughs at ; and the mild 
 and healing sentiment of toleration is now closing the 
 wounds which fanaticism has so long kept open. 
 
 In a compendium of Irish history, it would be a depar- 
 ture from the intention and the object of the writer to 
 set down every instance of individual suffering and oppres- 
 sion with which Irish history so constantly overflows; 
 neither the understandino; nor the heart derives much im- 
 provement from this accurate parade of human misfortune 
 and human atrocity. Perhaps, as it was beautifully ex- 
 pressed by the eloquent and pathetic Curran, in one of the 
 finest passages that ever issued from human genius, the 
 real state of our country, and particularly in the melan- 
 choly hour of calamity we are now arrived at, is more 
 forcibly impressed on the attention of the reader by a par- 
 ticular than it ever could be by any general description. 
 " When you endeavor," saj's Curran, " to convey an idea 
 of a great number of barbarians, practising a great, va- 
 riety of cruelties upon an incalculable number of suffer- 
 ers, nothing defined or specific finds its way to the heart, 
 nor is any sentiment extorted, save tliat of genei'al, erra- 
 tic, unap[)ropriated commiseration." True; the misfor- 
 tunes of an individual find refuge in every bosom. The 
 niisfortunes l>f a nation are too widely diffused ; the sur- 
 face of human suflering is too extended ; the sensibility of 
 the spectator is lost in the immensity of the scene he has 
 to contemplate, and he closes the recital of murders, and 
 
S87 
 
 rapes, and robberies, with less sympatliy tl)an he would 
 view the fracture of a limb, or the plunder of a cabin. In 
 the wild and wanton devastation which the coinniissioners 
 of Cromwell were making through every part of this devot- 
 ed country, it is diflicult to select one instance of barbarous 
 injustice greater than another. Among those persons who 
 were brought before the iniquitous tribunal created by 
 Cromwell, was sir Phelim O'Neal, one of the most dis- 
 tinguished leaders in the rebellion of IG-il. The great 
 object of O'Neal's judges was to make him the instrument 
 of their vengeance against the charaeter of the monarch 
 whom they had murdered ; for which purpose they offer- 
 ed him his life and estates, on condition of his confessing 
 that the instrument which he had forged as a commission. 
 from Charles to levy forces and money for the insur- 
 rection, was bona Jide the genuine act of the king, and 
 not an imposition practised by the ingenuity of sir Phdim 
 O'Neal on the credulity of the Irish people. Even the 
 ashes of the murdered Charles, flmaticism would not suf- 
 fer to rest in peace; but the heroism and truth of sir Plie^ 
 lim O'Neal could not be terrified by the menaces of death ; 
 for at the place of execution, and after he had mounted 
 ihe ladder, when an offer of his large estates and life were 
 made him by Ludlow, on the condition of criminatino- the 
 memory and character of the king, he calmly and firmly 
 replied,'"! thank the lieutenant for his mercy; but I 
 declare, good people, before God and his anoels, and all 
 you that hear me, that I never had any commission from 
 the king ibr what I have done in levying and prosecutin,?- 
 this war." Mr. Lcland represents this man, who acted 
 thus when standing on the verge of eternity, as a monster, 
 of cruelty and disloyalty ; on 'the otlier hand Mr. Carte, 
 in his life of Orniond, writes, that sir Phelim O'Neal 
 had not the character of being an ill-natured man. " In 
 this charitable character," says our honest countryman 
 Dr. Curry, " I am apt to consider this unfortunate gen- 
 tleman ; but when I compare the behaviour of sir Puelijui 
 
S88 
 
 O'Neal, in liis last Tnoments, with that of his judges, I 
 am at a loss to deteriiiine which should be deemed greater, 
 the heroism of tlie former, or the yillany of the latter. 
 Tlie murderers , of the unfortunate Charles wanted some 
 justification of their conduct, which now began to tell 
 against them. Il was not the crimes of sir Phelim O'Neal 
 which brought him to trial ; it was the hope that he y» ould 
 Sficnfice his sovereign to the preservation of his life and 
 property, and thus vindicate the act which had so much 
 astonished and disgusted the world." 
 
 The sword and the law had now nearly performed their 
 ©nice. The spirit of the country was^ broken down. Its 
 heart sunk within its bosom, and the eye of pit}' had one 
 unchecquered scene of dreary desolation to wander over. 
 The child was torn from the parent, the wife from the hus- 
 band ; all were s^cattered by the rapacious spirit of fanati- 
 cism ; and the ancient rank and venerated blood of Ireland 
 were now to be found in the performance of the most hu- 
 miliating occupations — the sl-aves of English and Scotch 
 adventurers. Well might the English parliament, in 1655, 
 declare that now the rebels in Ireland were subdued and 
 the rebellion ended ; that now they might securely proceed 
 to a distribution of tlie Irish lands. It was therefore de- 
 termined, that tlie whole kingdom should be surveyed, and 
 the number of acres taken, with the quality of them; and 
 then that all the soldiers should bring in their demands of 
 arrears, and to give every man, by lot, as many acres as 
 should answer the value of his demand. The proposal 
 was agreed to; and all Ireland being surVej^ed, the best 
 land was only rated at foiw shillings, and some only at a 
 penny. The soldiers drew lots in what part of the king- 
 dom their portions should be assigned them. The lands 
 50 divided amounted to 605.670 acres. Lord Clarendon 
 says that Cromwell reserved for the aggrandizement of his 
 «nvn family the entire of the rich and fertile province of 
 Munstcr. The administration of Henry Cromwell gave 
 some respite to the suftcrings of Ireland ; he often hesitat- 
 
ed to put into execution the sanguinary mandates of hi« 
 father's government, and the Irish, under his protection, 
 frequently found shelter from the pursuits of fanaticism 
 and rapacity. We shall close our history of Ireland du- 
 ring the commonwealth, with the relation of an event, as 
 given us by Dr. Curry. The reader may, in this picture, es- 
 timate the blessings enjoyed by the Irish people, during 
 the sanguinary existence of Cromwell and his republican 
 associates. It is a powei ful illustration of the absurdity of 
 religious persecution, and exhibits the cowardice of the 
 persecutor in the wretched meanness of his revenge. 
 
 " In these days," says Dr. Curry, " the natae of an 
 Irishman and rebel was thought to signify the same thing; 
 for whenever the Cromwellians met any of the poor coun- 
 try people abroad, or discovered them lui'king from their 
 fury in dens and caverns, they killed them on the spot, 
 if some unusual or whimsical circumstance did not happen 
 to save them. Thus Ludlow tells us, that being on his 
 march, an advanced party found two of the rebels, ' one 
 of whom' says he, ' was killed by the guard before I came 
 up; the other was saved, and being brought before me, 
 I asked him if he had a mind to be hanged, and he onlj^ 
 answered, if you please.* At another time, Ludlow 
 says, he found some poor people retired within a hollow 
 rock, which was so thick that he thought it impossible to 
 dig it down upon them, and therefore resolved to reduce 
 them by smoke. After some of his men had spent most 
 part of the day in endeavouring to smother those within, 
 by fire placed at the mouth of the cave; they withdrew 
 the fire, and the next morning, supposing the Irish to be 
 made incapable of resistance by the smoke, some of them 
 crawled into the rock, but one of the Irish, ^ith a pistol, 
 shot the first of his men ; by v.hich he found the smoke had 
 not taken the desired effect, because, though a great smoke 
 w^ent into the cavity of the rock, vet it came out aoain at 
 other crevices ; upon which he ordered those places to be 
 closely stopped, and another $moke to be made; and the 
 
S90 
 
 fire was continued until midnight, then taken away, that 
 tke place might be cool enough for his men to enter the 
 next morning; at which time they went in, armed with 
 back, breast, and head-pieces, found the man M'ho had 
 fired the pistol dead, put about fifteen to the sword, and 
 brought four or five out alive, with the priests' robes, a 
 crucifix, chalice, and other furniture of that kind, but 
 no arms. . Those within preserved themselves by laying 
 tlieir heads close to a waterfall that ran through a rock. 
 We found two rooms in the place, one of which was large 
 enough to turn a pike. " 
 
 The reflection of Dr. Curry, on this wretched scene of 
 cowardly barbarity and mean revenge, is worthy of the head 
 and the heart of this most valuable writer. " Such," says Dr. 
 Curry "were the enemies whose lives those gallant regicides 
 were incessantly hunting after; a score of despoiled 
 peo}>le lurking in caverns from the fury of their pur- 
 suers, and furnished but with one pistol to guard the 
 entrance of their hiding place. From the character of 
 these barbarians, we may well believe, though Ludlow 
 does not mention it, that these four or five wretches whom 
 they brought alive out of the rock, soon after met with 
 tlie fate of their companions." Wretched indeed are 
 such triumphs to those who have the misfortune to boast 
 of them ; and disastrous must that period be to the ill- 
 fated native Irishman, which exhibited the sanguinary 
 fanatical re})ublicans of England, thus sporting with 
 Imman blood, and pursuing the brave and unbending Irish- 
 man v/ith as much fury as they would the ourang outang, 
 or the tj'ger. Such a fact, coming from one of the most 
 distinguished leaders among the fanatical partizans of 
 Cromwell, is a faithful picture of the misery which 
 Ireland experienced during this age of remorseless Eng- 
 lish despotism. Is the heart of the reader to be relieved 
 hereafter by a cessation of Ii'ish suffering ? Alas ! every 
 page presents its scene of persecution ; and the hand 
 for which they have hitherto endured such cruel pri- 
 
sn 
 
 ■^iitlons, will be hereafter seen strlkin<T tlic blow wLIcli 
 it was its duty to have averted. Tiie petty tyrants of 
 Cromw^ell will be forgotten in the base and unprincipled 
 ingratitude of the monarch whom Ireland served witli 
 fidelity, and the torture of the bayonet will be found 
 to give way to the more ingenious and more protracted 
 torture of the law. Yet an Englishman has wondered 
 that Ireland is not partial to the connection which has 
 thus driven her to madness. — An Englishman has won- 
 dered that Ireland should writhe under the lash, or bm-n 
 under the fagot ; he has smiled at that obstinacy which 
 the Irishman calls fidelity, and has deplored the errors 
 of that judgment which the Irishman dignifies with the 
 name of conscience. Thank God, a better feeling has 
 arisen. The Englishmen of the present day begin to appre- 
 ciate the Irish character with more justice and a ])ro- 
 founder sagacity — they estimate his loyalty in proportion 
 to his attachment to the faith of his fathers, and repose 
 their confidence in his honor, in proportion to the 
 courage and the firmness with which he has repelled the 
 temptations of corruption, or the threats of power. 
 
fHZ 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Charles IL 
 
 A.D. 
 
 1660. 
 
 1 HE reader of the foregoing pages must have 
 lonjx since been wearied witli the dismal narrative 
 of suffering which we have endeavored to detail ; 
 and which we have struggled to condense into the smallest 
 number of facts that the nature of our work would permit. 
 There has been but little respite from exasperating oppres- 
 sion and unmerited cruelty. The eye wanders over a 
 dreary scene of desolation without a single point on which 
 it can rest, the heart of the philanthropist sinks un-; 
 der a hopeless despondency, and passively yields to the 
 unchristian and impious reflection, that the poor people of 
 Ireland are a devoted race, whom providence has aban- 
 doned to the malig^iant ingenuity of an insatiable enemy. 
 It would have been reasonable to suppose that the cup of 
 misfortune was completely filled; that the enemy was ex- 
 hausted in their efforts to torture and to destroy; that the un- 
 happy native, despoiled and hunted intothe desert, would 
 have been suffered at least to exist, the wretched monu- 
 ment of human change, and the living evidence of human 
 malignity. Hitherto the Irishman has been persecuted by 
 the fafiatic and the plunderers. Hitherto the struggle was 
 with the English adventurer who would wade through the 
 blood of Irishmen to the possession of Irish property. Hi- 
 therto the Insh had to contend with a rapacious ^neroy, 
 
393 
 
 from wliom no incrcy was to be expected or received. 
 The reign of Charles II. however,, tlirows an ingredi- 
 ent into the cup of Irish misfortune, which the inge-^ 
 nuity of ancient tyranny did not discover; which makes 
 the memory of Charles II. rank higher in the an- 
 nals of intamy, than Nero or Cnliu,ula; and 'which is 
 only to be equalletl by the stupid ci-edulity with which 
 a nation so treated has clung to the memory of tlie most 
 despicable monarch that ever occupied the throne of 
 Great Britain. 
 
 The reader has not forgotten rhe inflexible fidelity 
 with wiiich the Irish people stood by the house of 
 Stuart in all their varied calamity. He has not forgotten 
 the royal promises which were so lavishly poured forth, 
 of indemnification for the past, and security for the 
 future. He does not forget the honest and indignant 
 ardor with which the murderers of Charles I. were pur- 
 sued by the Irish people, until the fraudulent councils of 
 such friends as Ormond broke their spirit, dissolved 
 their union, and sowed division and distrust in every 
 bosom. The arm of Ireland was still held out to her 
 injured monari:h ; it maintained his honor and his fame 
 in the ranks of foreign armies ; France, Spain^ and Ger- 
 many, bore attestation to the sincerity and truth of her 
 loyalt)'. At home, the Irish are hunted into the recesses 
 of their mountains by the fanatical regicides of Eng- 
 land.; abroad they are supporting their sovereigrj 
 sharing in his privations, the cheerful partner of 
 his sufferings, and the never desponding advocates of his 
 fortune. What was the reward for this Irish fidelity^ 
 which never could be shaken in the most violent tem- 
 pest of Charles' adversity ? What was the return which 
 was made by the monarch of England to the most active 
 and enthusiastic instruments of his restoration? Posterity 
 will scarcely credit that the innocent and deserving people 
 of Ireland were sacrificed by Charles to the suggestions 
 of that abandoned policy which insidiously told |iim, that 
 
 B b b 
 
39* 
 
 lie should rob and beggar his most faithful allies the 
 Irish people, in order to conciliate the murderers of liis 
 father. It will not be credited, that the Cromwellians 
 who hunted this monarch through Europe, who thirsted 
 for his blood, who brought his best friends to the block or 
 the gallows, should be the very men who found refuge 
 under his patronage, and enjoyed fortune and station un- 
 der his government. Clarendon, an artful and avaricious 
 minister, prompted this odious determination, and the 
 vicious indolence of the monarch embraced it. We have 
 seen the rapid progress of Cromwellian devastation dur- 
 ing the commonwealth. In possession of all the strong 
 positions through the country, with the accumulated trea- 
 sures of successful robbery, they corrupted the monarch 
 and minister with their gold, while they intimidated the 
 disarmed nation with their sword. Charles was advised to 
 accept the proffered bribe;- and the infamous bargain 
 which sacrificed a loyal and faithful people, was cheer- 
 fully struck by the royal hand. 
 
 Soon after the restoration of Charles, sir Charles Coote, 
 now earl of Montrath, sent forward commissioners to his 
 majesty with a large present of money, accompanied with 
 professions of loyalty and attachment. These commission- 
 ers, whose presence would have insulted a monarch of 
 integrity, were lord Broghil, sir Audley Mervin and sir 
 John Clotwoi-^hy ; men distinguished, as we have seen, 
 for their inveterate Iiostility to his fatlier and to himself 
 during the rebellion. The power they enjoyed in Ireland, 
 and their command of money, counterbalanced all con- 
 siderations in the royal breast drawn from their past dis- 
 loyalty. *' Lord Broghil, now earl of Orrery," writes 
 lord Clarendon in his own memoirs, " appeared so very 
 generous and disinterested, that he obtained immediate 
 credit from his majesty; and having free access to the 
 king, by mingling apologies for Avhat he had done, with 
 promises of what he would^ do, he made himself so ac- 
 ceptable to Ills majesty, that he heard him willingly ; bfr- 
 
, 395 
 
 cause he made all things easy to be done and compassed, 
 and gave such assurances to the bed chamber men, to 
 help them to good fortunes ni Ireland, which they had 
 reason to despair of in England, that he wanted not 
 their testimony on all occasions, nor their defence and 
 vindication when any thing was urged to his disadvan- 
 tage." To surround the throne with the bribed advocates 
 of their usurpation was an artful and efficient stroke of 
 policy. The praises of the bed chamber men in favour of 
 those Cromwellian despoilers of the Irish, who thus flat- 
 tered them with a participation in the plunder, drowned 
 the cries of Ireland, and blocked up the avenues to royal 
 mercy or royal justice. The act of oblivion granted to 
 English rebels what was refused to Irish loyalists. The 
 king nobly and generously excepted the catholics of Ireland, 
 Yet, this determination was not the hasty or precipi- 
 tate mistake of a man anxious to adopt the quickest and 
 most immediate mode of establishing his power, without 
 any consideration of the violation of moral feeling. 
 Charles, before he flung away his Irish people, had often 
 revolved in his mind their past fidelity and sufferings 
 in his cause. Even before those very ministers, Claren- 
 don and Ormond, by whose councils he was ultimately 
 directed, he has often called to their recollection the 
 jobhgations he ow<^d to his people of Ireland. In his speech. 
 to parliament alluding to the bill of amnesty, he said 
 *' that he hoped the Irish alone would not be excluded 
 from his mercy, that they had shewn him much affection, 
 and that he expected the parliament would have a care of 
 ins honor, and of what he had promised them." From 
 such words it vv'onld be supposed tliat gratitude still 
 found a place in the royal bosom; yet what was the 
 result? the cold, calculating, frozen feeling of Claren- 
 don gained the ascendancy ; and the degrading ad- 
 vice which told him to neglect his friends who would not 
 therefore injure him, and reward his enemies wlio might 
 be troublesome, was meanly ToUowed by Charles. 
 
396 
 
 France, in whose lap this vicious monarch dissipated a 
 considerable portion of his time during his exile, must 
 have smiled at the success with which she corrupted the 
 heart of the royal guest. Europe must have contemplat- 
 ed Cnarles" with indignation and with contempt ; and the 
 very people whom he governed, and to whose preju- 
 dices and avarice he thus basely ministered, sanguinely 
 speculated on the practicability of triumphing in the strug- 
 gle with a monarch who thus volunteered in his own 
 degradation. The Irish Cromwellians succeeded in in- 
 fluencing Charles to issue a proclamation against the people 
 of Ireland, grounded on the rumours of plots and con- 
 ferences which they artfully circulated : the same pro- 
 clamation gave the royal protection to all military ad- 
 venturers who were but a few months back arrayed in 
 arms ao;tinst the claims and the riohts of Charles. The 
 Cromwellians thus succeeded in preserving their power 
 iu all the towns of Ireland. They could select the repre- 
 sentation as they pleased, and conmiand the voice of par- 
 liament accordinor to their wishes. The oaths of alle- 
 o 
 
 glance and supremacy, were the condition of legal pro- 
 tection ; and as Dr. Curry justly observes, in order to 
 have the entire division of the spoil among themselves, 
 and for ever to preclude the catholics from having any 
 share even in their debates about it, one of the first re- 
 solutions ' of the ftrst parliament assembled after the re- 
 storation was, " that no members should be qualified to 
 ^sit in that house, but such as had taken, the oaths of alle- 
 'giance and supremacy. With the same view of banish- 
 ing the catholic peers from the house of lords, primate 
 BramhaU, the speaker, procured an order to be passed 
 there, that all the members thereof should receive the 
 sacrament of the Lord's supper from his grace's own 
 hands." To such vile and predatory pui'poses was one 
 of the most awful institutions of religion prostituted at 
 that juncture. But in no other parlitunent but one so 
 constituted and perverted, could acts alienating the just 
 
S97 
 
 properties of almost all the catholics in the kingdom, be 
 expected to pass. 
 
 We have seen that the catholics of Ireland were par- 
 ticularly excepted by Charles in his act of indemnity, and 
 that this Wtis done with the approbation of Ormond. The 
 reason which this nobleman gave for this act of kindness 
 to the Irish nation, perfectly accords with that insidious 
 and abandoned policy which hitherto distinguished him. 
 "If" says Ormond, "I had not opposed the motion for 
 including the Irish in the general pardon, others undoubt- 
 edly would ; who, by exap'gcrating their former miscon- 
 duct, would have excited rather the parliament's indigna- 
 tion ao^ainst them, than commiseration for their case." 
 This, no doubt, was a most Icind consideration, . and pe- 
 culiarly well marked with all the fraudulent character of 
 the speaker ; yet, {as Mr. Carte, in his life of this noble- 
 man, observes,) "as Ormond was a witness of every year's 
 conduct during the troubles, he was well acquainted with 
 all the circumstances of their case : he knew better than 
 any other man the early attempts which the most consider- 
 able of their nobility and gentry made to return to their 
 duty ; the difficulties they had to struggle with in that walk ; 
 the perseverance with which they pursued their design, till 
 they had accomplished it, and the zeal with which, in the 
 king's distress, they had embraced the peace of 1648.'* 
 Though Ormond could have borne such an attestation, 
 yet he had some sound special reasons lor a contrary con- 
 duct. Were the catholics of Ireland vindicated by him, 
 he could not perhaps calculate on the possession of the vast 
 estates of which he plundered them ; he might, by strik- ' 
 ing to the avaricious fanaticism of the Cromwellians, rea- 
 sonably calculate on theconfiz'mation and extension of that 
 property which so copiously flowed into his lap from the 
 wounds of Ireland ; he therefore joined in the general ca- 
 lumny, and as we will hereafter see, was the immediate 
 instrument of tlie remorseless persecution of tlie Iri^a 
 elergy. 
 
398 
 
 Charles now proceeded to establish the settlement of 
 the kingdom of Ireland, and as he consulted his old ene- 
 mies, when to include the catholics in the proclamation 
 of pardon was the question, so do we find him now in 
 council with the chief plunderers of the Irish, when the 
 question arises of atljusting the claims and settling the pro- 
 perty of his loyal Irisli subjects. What the result would 
 be to Ireland rnay easily be anticipated, when lord Brog- 
 hil, sir John Clotworthy, and sir Arthur Mervin, were 
 the distributers of justice. We may quickly conclude what 
 would be the measure of mercy or equity to the ill-fated 
 catholic. Under the direction of such heads and such 
 hearts, the royal declaration for the settlement of Ireland 
 was framed and published. We shall not disgust the read- 
 er by the painful recital : it is sufficient to say, that ingra- 
 titude of the blackest feature, and hypocrisy of the most 
 impudent character, distinguished every article of the 
 royal document. Irishmen are industriously sacrificed to 
 the aggrandizement of the very hands which shed the blood 
 of Charles' father. The London adventurers who advan- 
 ced their money on the mortgage of Irish misfortune, have 
 precedency of the men who shared in all the royal suffer-^ 
 ings, and supported the king under all his afflictions. 
 Thus were the great majority of the Irish people robbed 
 by the royal order, and exposed to the contemptuous 
 pity of the regicides of England. Ormond, however, 
 during this solemn mockery of justice, took good care of 
 himself. Fie procured his restoration to the Irish estates 
 by an act of the English parliament : he and lord Inchi- 
 quin were specially protected. A provision was made, in 
 t-he royal declaration for the seUlement of Ireland, for thir- 
 Ty-t-ix of the Irish nobility to b. restored to their pro- 
 perties on the same terms with those who served his majes- 
 ty when on the continent. That this dec' -oration of Charles 
 for the settlement of Ireland should have excited indigna- 
 tion and revenge in every Irish bosom, is not to be won- 
 dered St. That the poor worn out soldier, v,'ho had slied 
 
599 
 
 his blood, and sacrificed 1 us pro}ieity in defence of liis 
 monarch, should be seen shedding tears over that infamous 
 insrratitude which thus abandoned him and his children to 
 his enemie?, will be admitted, by every man who knows 
 the human heart, to be a likely and a probable scene in 
 this melancholy period of Ireland's suffering. Every eye 
 was turned to that meetmg of the Irish parliament which 
 was to confirm or to reject this act of royal turpitude. It 
 was supposed that some sparks of honor might still be 
 found in either house of legislature, which might be kindled 
 by discussion into a generous flame ; and that at least the 
 old peerage of Ireland would not suffer their venerated 
 names and their noble blood to be trampled on bv the 
 yoracious reptiles which crept into parliament, and which 
 we may say rose into existence, from the miseries of Irish- 
 inen. Tlie earl of Kildare, with odier Irish peei-s did 
 come forward in the lords', -and did assert the superior 
 claims of the Irish to royal protection. The mushroom 
 products of calamity shrmik into their native insignificance: 
 the earl pointed out the gi'oss injustice of the royal decla- 
 i*ation ; the infamous violation of public and private taith : 
 he appealed to the widows and the orphans who crowded 
 the streets of Dublin, and whose claims the royal decla- 
 ration must extinguish, in evidence of the cruelty on which 
 the king had grounded his declaration. Constituted as 
 the Irish parliament then was, such an opposition, how- 
 ever supported^ by truth and sound reasoning, must be 
 feeble and impotent. The bill of settlement, in confir- 
 mation of tlie royal declaration which we have already de- 
 scribed, was at length prepared, passed, and presented to 
 the lords justices : it was transmitted by those lords com- 
 missioned by the council, wjiile each house of parlia- 
 ment nominated their agents to attend the king and coun- 
 cil in England, and to solicit the immetliate passing of 
 the bill. London was now the great theatre on which the 
 property and comfort of Irishmen were about to be de- 
 cided. Their last appeal was to be made to the king ; 
 
, 400 
 
 and those were to be found in Ireland, who still cre- 
 dulously thought that the royal eye would have recog- 
 nized and gratefully acknowledged the wounds which 
 covered his humble petitioners for mercy, in this their 
 last effort for the common sustenance of their children. 
 Mr. Leland is displeased at the demeanor of the Irish be- 
 fore the royal tribunal. They had not the folly to re- 
 pose confidence in Ormond, who had so often deceived 
 them ; they wotild not solicit him to be their advocate : a- 
 gain, they were so imprudent as to rest their claims to 
 royal protection ou their justice and their truth. They 
 w^ould not adopt the more dexterous and skilful policy of 
 Ormond, who recommended submission, and the acknow- 
 ledgment of crimes. The Irisli felt that thej/ iverc in- 
 nocent ; that they were not only innocent of offence to 
 his majesty, but that the monarch xvas their debtor ; and 
 that the}' then appeared before him not so much to enjoy 
 tiie protection of his royal mercy, as to demand the debt 
 which was due to their services. They therefore select- 
 ed colonel Richard Talbot to be their advocate, and they 
 made the justice of their claim the foundation of their 
 case. No doubt these were feeble bulwarks to defend 
 them against the heavy fire of corruption which poured 
 on them from tlie overflowinor coffers of the Cromwei- 
 lian plunderers of their property. Mr. Carte, in his 
 life of Ormond, makes mention of a few circumstance's 
 which helped to blunt the vulgar weapons wielded by 
 the advocates of the impoverished Irish. " The hew earls 
 of Orrery and Montrath had taken care to raise piivately 
 among the adventurers and soldiers, twenty or thirty 
 thousand pounds, to be disposed of properly, without 
 any account, by way of recompense to such as should be 
 serviceable to what was called the English interests." 
 Tiic Irish had no such sums to command, few friends a- 
 bout the court, and no means of procuring any. Those 
 of the English council before whom they were to plead 
 their cause, were highly prejudiced and incensed against the 
 
401 
 
 wliole nation ; knew little of the conduct of particular per- 
 sons who deserved favor, but wcie willing to .involve every 
 body in the general guilt of the massacre, as well as the 
 rebellion." The Irish nation should not have been so 
 destitute of council ; gratitude should have presided on 
 the royal tribunal, and the tears of Ireland should have 
 been dried by the royal hand. If Charles had been a 
 grateful king, or rather, had he possessed the feelings of 
 a man, he would have been the minister of consolation 
 to the unprotected Irishman. Ke should have said, 
 ^' You, who remembered me in my adversity, I will not 
 forget when sittino; on the throne." No — the Eno;hsh 
 interest must be favored, and justice and Ireland must 
 sink into the tomb. Why sliould Irishmen, after such 
 a scene, be partial to the house of Stuart, or to the con- 
 nection with England ? or what compensation can be 
 made to Irish feeling, before the memory of such transac- 
 tions are totally obliterated ? 
 
 Both parties, the English adventurers and the Irish 
 proprietors, were heard before. the king in council. Lord 
 Clarendon, in his life and memoirs, written by himself, 
 gives a very interesting and pathetic description of the 
 reasons advanced by the Irish in support of their claims. 
 " This nobleman" says Dr. Curry " seems to exhibit some 
 symj)toms of remorse for that Machiavelian advice which 
 the Irish ever accused him of having given to the king, 
 while the settlement of Ireland was under consideration." 
 Dr. Curry hasgivBn a very curious certificate of a declara- 
 tion made by Clarendon, after his disgrace in England, to 
 one of his most confidential friends. We shall literally copy 
 it, as it bears all the internal marks of authenticity. " Me- 
 morandum — The Rev. Mr. Cock of Durham, beinor at his 
 kinsman's, sir Ralph Cole, at Banspith castle, about the time 
 that lord chancellor Clarendon was disgraced, sir Henry 
 Brabant of Newcastle came thither, in his way from Lon- 
 don, and told sir Ralph and him this passage. That he, 
 sir Henry Brabant, having been to wait on lord Claren- 
 
 c c c 
 
4C2 
 
 Cion just after his disgrace, his lordship, after telling him 
 how kindly he took that pi^ce of friendship, expressed 
 himself to this effect; 'that there were grievous things 
 laid to his charge, but that he could bear up against the 
 rest, if his majesty would forgive him but one thing, which 
 Was, that he was the person who advised him to prefer his 
 enemies, and neglect his friends, since the principles of 
 the latter would secure them to him; adding, that he 
 took that for the cause of his own ruin, and wished it 
 Jnight not occasion that of many others, and at last the 
 king's.' " This" says Dr. Curry " is testified by H. Bedford, 
 who had it from the above Mr. Cock." 
 
 Lord chancellor Clarendon, who thus expressed himself, 
 when the folly of injustice was too glaring not to be ac- 
 knowledged, has given us in his memoirs, such a picture 
 of the proceedings before the king and council on the sub- 
 ject of the settlement of Ireland, as must silence th^ most 
 impudent defender of English usurpation. We shall give 
 it entire and unmutilated ; it is valuable from its authority, 
 as well as its composition, and demonstrates the infamy of 
 the monarch who could have given his countenance to a 
 polic}' so atrocious and unprincipled. " In vain did the 
 Irish accents urije the nreat and loner suffcrinjrs of their 
 countrymen ; the loss of their estates for five or six and 
 twenty years ; the wasting and spending of the whole na- 
 tion in battles, and transportation of men into the parts 
 beyond the seas, whereof many had the honor to testify 
 their fidelity to the king by real services, (many of them re- 
 turned into England with him, and were still in his service j) 
 the great numbers of men, women and children that had 
 been massacred or executed in cold blood, after the king's 
 government 'had been driven from them; the multitudes 
 that had been destroyed by famine and the plague, these 
 two heavy judgments having raged over the kingdom for 
 two or three years; and at last, as a persecution un- 
 heard of, the transplanting of the small remainder of the 
 nation into the corner of the province of Connaught, 
 where yet much- of thclands were taken from them, which 
 
403 
 
 had been assigned with all those formalities of law that 
 were in use and practice under that government. Indeed 
 it was deemed strange indiscretion and folly in the Irish to 
 insist upon the un worthiness and incapacity of those who 
 for many years had possessed themselves of their estates, 
 ,and sought then a confirmation of their rebellious title from 
 his mrijesty; or even to insinuate that their rebellion liad 
 been more infamous, and of greater magnitude than that 
 of the Irish, who had risen in arms to free themselves 
 from the rigor and severity that was exercised upon them 
 by some of the king's ministers, and for the hberty of their 
 conscience, without having the least intention or thought 
 of withdrawing themselves from his majesty's obedience, 
 or dechning his government ; whereas the others had car- 
 ried on an odious rebellion against the king's sacred person, 
 whom they had horridly nmrdered in the sight of the sun, 
 with all imaginable circumstances of contempt and de- 
 fiance, and as much as in them la^', had rooted out mon^ 
 archy itself, and overturned and destroyed the whole go- 
 vernment of cimrch and state ; and therefore they observ- 
 ed whatever punishment the Irish had merited for their for-^ 
 iner transgressions, which they had so long; repented of 
 and departed from, when they had arms and strong towns 
 in their hands, (which together with themselves they put 
 again under his majesty's protection) that surely this part 
 of the English who were possessed of their estates, and 
 had broken all their obligations to God and the king, could 
 ?iot deserve to be gratified with their ruin and total destruc- 
 tion, it was deemed unpardonable indiscretion in the 
 Irish agents to give the most distant intimation of their 
 humble hope, that when all his majesty's other subjects 
 were by his clemency restored to their own estates, and 
 were in fall peace and mirth and joy, the Irish alone should 
 not be exempt from all his majesty's grace, and left in tears 
 and mourning and lamentation, and be sacrificed without 
 redemption, to the avarice and cruelty of those v.'ho haci 
 not only spoiled and oppressed them, but had done all 
 
404 
 
 that was in their power to destroy the king himself and his 
 posterity, and who now returned to their obedience and 
 submitted to his government, when they were no longer 
 able to oppose it." ^ 
 
 Charles appointed commissioners, denominated " k 
 court of claims," to put into execution the act of settle- 
 ment. The first set of commissioners appointed, were 
 so corapletciy and tlioroughly in the interest of the ad- 
 ventin-ers and Cromwellians, that it would be a long- 
 Work to detail their acts of partiality and oppression. 
 They overshot their duty, and were superceded. Another 
 set of commissioners were substituted, of purer charac- 
 ter and better feeling. Lord Clarendon says that they 
 rather leaned to the Irish, and thus exasperated a formi- 
 dable power in the persons of the Cromwellians ; and his 
 lordship further adds, that the commissioners themselves 
 were so conscious of having acted in obedience to the dic- 
 tates of truth and justice in the several decisions the}^ made, 
 t^hat they would proceed no further in the commission, 
 nor subject themselves more to the whispers of censure, 
 until they could receive his majesty's pleasure ; and that 
 they might more effectually receive it, they desired leave 
 from the king that the}' might attend his royal person ; 
 and there being at the same time several complaints made 
 against them to his majest}^, and appeals to him from 
 their decrees, he gave the commissioners leave to return, 
 and at the same time, all the other interests sent their 
 deputies to solicit their rights; in the prosecution whereof, 
 after much time spent, the duke of Ormond was called 
 from Ireland to court, at which time a third bill was 
 transmitted from the Iri.sh nariiament, called the addi- 
 tional and supplemental biil of setdement, and to revise 
 many of the decrees made by the commissioners. 
 
 'i'his bill, or black act, was brought over to Ireland, 
 signed and sealed by the duke cf Ormond himself. By 
 that bill the claims of the innocent, wlio had not received 
 any compensation for their immense losses, were for ever 
 
405 
 
 fxtin^uished. Thus were the loyal and the faithful adiiercnts 
 to the fortunes of Charles sacrificed to his old and inveter- 
 ate enemies; and those acts of pai'liument, which complet- 
 ed the settlement of Ireland, iire at tlie present day 
 the foundation of the titles to the great majority of lar.d- 
 ed property in this country. 
 
 So enormous was the injustice which was now done by 
 the Enghsh monarch against the poor people of Ireland, 
 that we find the compassion of Louis XIV. was excited by 
 the bitterness of Irish lamentation. He wrote the king 
 of England a letter, in which he remonstrates v.ith his 
 unprincipled abandonment of his best and sincerest friends, 
 and calls upon him to imitate that toleration which Louis 
 himself then allowed to his subjects of the reformed reli- 
 gion. Such interposition, however important, \:sls in 
 vain ; the king had taken his measures, and indolence, if 
 not vice, would not suffer him to retrace his steps. As 
 yet, we have for the most part confined ourselves to those 
 authorities in favor of Ireland, whose impartiality will not 
 be suspected. Lord Clarendon, Carte, Hume, Leland, 
 and the accurate Dr. Curry, have borne testimony to the 
 infamy of the act of settlement, to its unparalleled cruelty 
 and injustice. Time, however, has given to that proceed- 
 ing a stability and a strength which it never could enjoy 
 from its own intrinsic merit ; and the catholics of the pre-; 
 sent day have devoted their industrj^ and their wealth 
 to the purchase of those properties which derive their ti- 
 tles from the foulest record in the history of an}' legislature. 
 They are therefore deeply interested in the permanency 
 of that settlement which their ancestors most naturally 
 would have struggled to overturn. The encouragement 
 which has been given, for some years back, under a more 
 wise and generous policy, to the numerous population of 
 Ireland, has caused a great revolution in property. Tlie 
 Irish catholics of the present day can boast of extensive 
 landed proprietors among their body; of ricii and power- 
 ful merchants ; active, skilful, and prosijerous manufuc- 
 
406 
 
 tmrers ; eveiy class of human industry, and every depart- 
 ment of science, are filled with catholics of great and pro- 
 minent celebrity. Catholic wealth is daily accumulating, 
 and the various sects of Ireland are rapidly becoming one 
 people, by the powerful operation of mutual interest, as 
 well as mutual charity. 
 
 Tlie infamy of Charles is lost in the consideration 
 that all his successors have not imitated 'his example; 
 and though the devoted people of Ireland were again doom- 
 ed to exjierience the lash of persecution under the hand 
 ' w^hich deposed the house of Stuart ; yet a better order of 
 things has risen up during the last thirty years ; and some 
 compensation, though not half what is due, has been 
 made to the Roman catholics of Ireland, for the unmerit- 
 ed sufferings of their ancestors. One of the ablest men, 
 perhaps the very ablest man, to whom Ireland ever gave 
 birth, has vindicated the character of the Irish catholics 
 against the ignorant calumnies of English usurpation 
 and prejudice. Dean Swift, whose orthodoxy the estab- 
 lished church will not refuse to acknowledge, thus gives 
 his opinion of the merits of the catholics and of their 
 enemies, after the passing of the act of settlement. 
 
 " These insurrections, wherewith the catholics are 
 charged, from the beginning of the seventeenth century 
 to the great Enghsh rebellion, were occasioned by many 
 oppressions they lay under. They had no intention to in- 
 troduce la new religion, but to enjoy the liberty of preserv- 
 ing the old ; the very same which their ancestors professed 
 from the time that Christianity was first introduced into this 
 island, which was by catholics ; but whether mingled with 
 corruptions, as some pretend, doth not belong to the 
 question. They had no design to change the govoi'nment ; 
 they never attempted to figlit against, to imprison,- to be-? 
 tray, to sell, to bring to a trial, or to murder, their 
 Mng. The schismatics acted by a spirit directly con- 
 trary. They united in a solemn league antl covenant 
 to alter the whole system of spiritual ^ government, cstab- 
 
407 
 
 lished in all christian nations and of apostolic institu- 
 tion, concluding the tragedy with the murder «f the 
 king in cold blood, and upon mature deliberation, at 
 the same time changing the monarchy into a common- 
 wealth. The catholics of Ireland, in the great rebel- 
 lion, lost their estates for fighting in defence of their king; 
 the schismatics, who cut olF the father's head^ forced the 
 son to fly for life, and overturned the whole ancient frame 
 of government, religious and civil, obtained grants of 
 those very estates which the catholics lost in defence of the 
 ancient constitution — many of which estates are at this 
 day possessed by those schismatics ; and thus they gained 
 by their rebellion what the catholics lost by their loyalty.'* 
 This is a brief and comprehensive picture of the acts and 
 fortunes of both parties; and such a one as will not be de- 
 nied by any honest or dispassionate reader. 
 
 Notwithstanding the palpable cruelty and injustice with 
 which the Irish were treated by Charles in his settlement 
 of the claims of the various parties in Ireland, we find the 
 ascendancy spirit of the Cromv/ellians most grievously 
 pained by the consideration, that even a single mdividual 
 case of protection to the innocent Irish or catholic claim- 
 ant, should be suffered to exist by the commissioners ap- 
 pointed to put the act of settlement into execution. They 
 not only menaced a rebellion, but actually formed a con- 
 spiracy to seize the castle of Dublin, overturn the govern- 
 ment, and again plunge the nation into blood ; so oifcud- 
 ed was the rapacious sensibility of tliose adventurers, 
 whose numbers, as compared with the people of Ireland, 
 were, in the opinion of lord Ormond and Mr. Carte, as 
 one to ten. So true is it, that the property is the strength 
 of the country ; and that those few who can wield it may 
 bid defiance to the anfjry menaces of a disarmed and be<j- 
 gared multitude. Before the rebellion of 1641, the Irish 
 were (according to a colonel Lawrence, quoted by Dr. 
 Curry,) proprietors of ten acres to one that the English 
 had in Ireland ; but after the act of settlement those Eng- 
 lish were in possession, by that act, of four millions, five 
 
408 
 
 hundred and sixty thousand, and thirty seven acres; so 
 that (adds my author) if the majority of proprietors may 
 give the denomination to a country, wliich usually it doth, 
 Ireland may be called west England. Walsh, the author 
 of the famous remonstrance, says that they "the Roman 
 catholics of Ireland wei'c the lawful proprietors, and had 
 been lately the possessors, of nineteen parts in twenty of 
 the lands of that kingdom." The act of settlement ba- 
 nished thousands of those families vvhich had lived in af- 
 fluence and comfort; and the hand which executed it was 
 that of the king for whose restoration they had brought 
 their lives, their properties, and their children to the altar. 
 Yet all this royol treason to humanity and justice could 
 not satisfy or conciliate the Cromwellian adventurers. . All 
 or none Avas their motto; and a feeble experiment was 
 made by those insatiable fanatics to devour even the mi- 
 serable pittance assigned to the original proprietors of the 
 country. There was a point, however, beyond which 
 Charles could not be driven ; and the activity of Ormond 
 in his Irish government scon extinguished the impotent 
 efforts of insurrection. 
 
 Whenever the English parhamcnt were inclined to 
 amuse themselves with the torture of their fellow creatures, 
 or to make experiments on human sensibility, Ireland was 
 a convenient subject on w hich their malicious genius could 
 be (iispliiyod, and with the approbation too of the whole 
 English nation. If a roval favorite like Clarendon or 
 Ormond, at this period were to be hunted down, Ireland 
 was the road through which their pursurers were to pass. 
 Irish industry must be trampled upon, and the Irish arm 
 nmst be chaineii. Tiiis would })robably embarrass a rival, 
 or distress the king, or create discontent, and thus lay new 
 ground for future insurrections and future confiscations. 
 To such a policy must we attribute the successful blow 
 which the British parliament made at the existence of the 
 poor people of Ireland. In their fury against this coun- 
 try, they displayed the grossest ignorance, as well as the 
 
409 
 
 most malignant feeling to injure Ireland. They were con- 
 tent to inconvenience themselves ; but that which tl?ey in- 
 considerately supposed would contribute to impoverish, 
 and ultimately render the Irish incapable of all future ef- 
 fort, may be considered as one of those providential instru- 
 ments, by Tihich the malevolence of nations to each other 
 is often counteracted. When the celebrated cabal, com- 
 posed of the most unprincipled and able men in England, 
 Buch men as Shaftesbury, Buckingham and Lauderdale, 
 declaimed against the importation of fat cattle from Ire- 
 land, they little contemplated that the necessities of Eno-- 
 land, induced by this absurd policy, would force her to 
 throw open much more extensive sources of consumption 
 than even the market of England. Mr. Leland thus ob- 
 serves on the folly of this malicious determination of Enfj-- 
 land agaiijst Irish industr}^ *' The English nation soon 
 felt the inconveniencies of the act for the prohibitirm of 
 fat cattle from Ireland. Discerning men saw the happy 
 consequences which it must in time produce to Ireland ; 
 for the present however, the Irish subjects were cast into 
 despail" ; all commerce was interrupted ; war made it ne- 
 cessary to guard against invasion ; subsidies were due, bi^t 
 no money could be founcK Ormond thought it both ne- 
 cessary and convenient to accept pait of those subsidies in 
 provisions, consulting at once the king's service and the 
 ease of his distressed subjects ; nor was the king ill dispo- 
 sed to extenuate the present difficulties of Ireland. With 
 the consent of his council, obtained not without some 
 reluctance, he, by an act of state, allowed a free trade 
 from Ireland to all foreign countries either at war or in 
 peace with his majesty. He permitted the Irish at the 
 same time, to retaliate on the Scots, Avho, copying from 
 England, had prohibited their cattle, their corn, and their 
 beef. The importation of linen and woollen m.anufactures, 
 stockings and gloves, and other commodities from Scot- 
 land, Avas forbidden, as highly detrimental to the trade of 
 Ireland." This inveterate policy of tying up the arm o^' 
 
 D dd 
 
410 
 
 Irish industry recoiled on those who adopted it. Provi- 
 sions in England rose in price. This augmented the 
 price of labour; manufactures followed; and thus the 
 English loom fell a victim to foreign competition. All 
 this was foretold by the opponents of so absurd a measure; 
 but party spirit swept away the understanding of parlia- 
 ment, and a "bill disgraceful to the moral as well as intel- 
 lectual character of England, was imposed on the reluct- 
 ant councils of the monarch. The conduct of the lead- 
 ers in parliament on this desperate effort of their pai'ty, 
 fully verifies and illustrates the observations made by the 
 earl of Essex when lord lieutenant of Ireland some year* 
 after. " Ireland" said his lordship " has been perpetually 
 rent and torn since his majesty's restoration; I can com- 
 pare it to nothing better than the flinging the reward, upon 
 ii\e death of a deer, among a pack of hounds, where 
 every one pulls and tears what he can for himself; for in- 
 deed it has been no other than a perpetual scramble." 
 This may be considered a true epitome of our history, not 
 only since the restoration of Charles, but since the first 
 invasion of the English under Henry, Ireland has been 
 the theatre of every political gambler, from Strongbow 
 down to the humblest follower of ascendancy, whom we 
 still see enriching his family in proportion to the zeal h« 
 exhibits in withholding the rights or restraining the in- 
 dustry of Irishmen. 
 
 It is pleasing however to observe some little interrup- 
 tion tj that profligate system of government Vvhich was 
 perpetiplly dividing and distracting the people; which 
 saw no security but in Irish misery, and no triumph but 
 in Irish degradation. It is pleasant to observe the duke 
 of Ormond employing his talents in the establishment of 
 Irish manufactures, and in the encouragement of Irish 
 industry-, and even for a time hanging up the sword of 
 intolerance and the book of controversy. We therefore 
 copy with' pleasure from Mr. Leland, the recital of 
 those efibrts which were made by Ormond in 1667> to 
 
41i 
 
 give some compensation to Ireland for the destructive 
 effects of that commercial and manufacturing jealousy 
 which England had lately manifested in so remarkable 
 a manner. Men of abilities and knowledge in commerce 
 (says Mr. Leland) were encouraged by Ormond to sug- 
 gest their schemes for promoting industry and pi'eventing 
 the necessity of foreign importation. Sir Peter Pett pre- 
 sented a memorial to the duke of Ormond, for erecting 
 a manufacture of woollen cloth, which might at least 
 fm'ULsh a sufficient quantity for home consumption. He 
 chiefly recommended the making fine worsted stockings 
 and Norwich stuffs, which might not only keep money 
 in the country, but be so improved as to bring considerable 
 sums from abroad. He offered to procure workmen from 
 Norwich. The council of trade, lately established in Ire- 
 land, approved of his proposal. The duke of Ormond 
 encouraged it, and erected the manufacture at Clonmel, 
 the capital of his county palatine of Tipperary. To 
 supply the scarcity of workmen, Grant (a man well kiiown 
 by his observations on the bills of mortality) was em- 
 ployed to procure five hundred w^oollen protestant families 
 from Canterbury to remove to Ireland, At the same 
 tjme Colonel Richard Laurence, another ingenious pro- 
 jector, was encouraged to promote the busixiess of comb- 
 ing wool and maldng friezes. A manufacture of this kind 
 was established at Carrick. But of all such schemes of 
 national improvement, that of a linen manufiicture was 
 most acceptable to Ormond. He possessed hin^self with 
 the noble ambition of imitating the earl of Strafford 
 in the most honourable part of his conduct, and opening 
 a source of wealth and prosperity, which the ti'oubles 
 and disorders of Ireland had stopped. An act of parlia- 
 ment was passed in Dublin, to encourage the grov»th of 
 flax and manufacture of hnen, Ormond was at the charge 
 of sending skilful persons to the low countries, to make ob-^ 
 servations on the state of the trade, the manner of work- 
 ing, the way of whitening their thread, the regulatioii* 
 
4]f 
 
 »f their manufacture, and management of their grounds, 
 and to contract with some of their artists. He engaged 
 sir William Temple to send to Ireland five hundred 
 families from Brabant, skilled in manufacturing linen; 
 others were procured from Rochelle and the isle of Rhe, 
 from Jersey, and the neighbouring parts of France. Con- 
 venient tenements ' ore prepared for the artificers at 
 Chapelizod, near iJublin ; where cordage, sail-cloth, 
 linen, ticken and diaper, were brought to a considerable 
 degree of perfection. " Such cares," Mr. Leland truly 
 observes, " reflect real honour on the governors who thus 
 laboured to promote the happiness of a nation ; and should 
 be recorded with pleasure and gratitude, however we may 
 be captivated by the more glaring objects of history.'* 
 The historian of Ireland is seldom relieved in his office by 
 the narration of such useful works as we have now de- 
 scribed. The ingenuity to destroy rather than to build 
 up, to disfigure rather than to adorn one of the finest 
 countries in Europe, is almost in every page the subject of 
 the writer. Whenever Irish industry is encouraged, the 
 encouragement is found to flow fi'om some struggle be- 
 tween parties, who in the next page are seen undoing the 
 work they contributed with so much zeal to execute. 
 There is no honest and continued feeling in favor of Ire- 
 land. Her governors (in general mere birds of passage) 
 obey every wind of prejudice which blows from the shores 
 of an avaricious and envious nation. 
 
 The honorable efforts now made by Ormond to pro- 
 mote the manufactures and commerce of Ireland, soon 
 excited the apprehensions of English jealousy, and the 
 virulence of party combined with the national feeling to 
 injure Ormorid in the estimation and confidence of his 
 sovereign. He was soon recalled from the administra- 
 tion, to which he was succeeded by lord Roberts, who, in 
 1670, gave way to Lord Berkley. 
 
 The administration of. this nobleman opened a new 
 ^eue in IreiancI, I'hat portion of the community which 
 
413 
 
 had so long and so unjustly suffered under the malignant 
 suspicions of an ascendant sect, suddenly became the fa- 
 vorites of those who were once the instruments of their 
 persecution. The celebrated cabal, which "vvtre so near 
 overturning the liberty of England, suggested to Charles 
 the good policy of altering his mode of governing Ire- 
 land. They recommended his pecuhar patronage of that 
 religion and its members, who had already displayed so 
 ardent a zeal in behalf of monarchy, and who struggled 
 so fruitlessly to resist the tide of fanaticism which rushed 
 from the fountain of English puritanism. The real view* 
 of the present counsellors of Charles were to raise him 
 and themselves on the ruins of England's freedom ; to ex- 
 tinguish the spirit of that parliament which was maintain- 
 ing so splendid a contest with Charles, and which had 
 succeeded in extortmg from that unprincipled monarch 
 tlie most powerful bulwarks of human liberty. For this 
 purpose they recommended the most cordial alliance with 
 the French sovereign ; and the ministers of Charles, Cla- 
 rendon, Buckingham and othersj stooped even to the de- 
 grading service of being the hired advocates of this 
 French connection. The menaces of the popular leaders 
 alarmed the fears of the monarch, and the devotion of 
 his brother to the catholic religion co-operating with the 
 specious policy of being independent of parliamentary 
 aid, prompted him to encourage a foreign connection, 
 which might have terminated in the establishment of an 
 uiilimited monarchy. Such were the plans of the king» 
 and the designs of his ministers, when lord Berkley, as 
 lord lieutenant of Ireland, thought proper to manifest 
 a peculiar partiaUty for the long depressed Irish catho- 
 lics. The poor people of Ireland, so long chained down 
 by the violent hand of intolerance, feeling the fetters 
 somewhat loosened, naturally gave full expression to their 
 joy, and full svv-ing to their partial triumph. The catholic 
 clergy participated in the general satisfaction, and have 
 most grievously ©ffended the ascendancy pride of JMr. 
 
414 
 
 Lelandy He has been pleased to say, that on this oc- 
 casion they endeavoured to estabhsh doctrines wliich they 
 had a hundred times abjured, and that the intemperance 
 of their joy forced them into the assertion of rehgious 
 principles which must have offended the power from 
 wliich they were then obtaining some relaxation of the 
 fury of penal law. It was a strange spectacle, and one 
 which must have excited suspicion in the bosoms of obser- 
 ving Irishmen, ito see the monarch who had so lately sa- 
 crificed them to the rapacity and violence of his most in- 
 veterate enemies, and his present advisers, who were most 
 forward in the yell of persecution against the catholics, it 
 mnist have excited surprise to see such men suddenly revo- 
 lutionizing the political power of Ireland — creating catho- 
 lic aldermen, catliolic sheriffs, catholic corporations, and 
 (as Mr. Leland most benevolently, and in the true spirit 
 of Clu'istian kindness, says) offending, by such " impious 
 confidence in papists" (as he is pleased to call the catho- 
 lics) the tender and loyal consciences of the protestants of 
 Ireland. Such a revolution, and so unexpected, and com- 
 in.o-from such a source, must have excited the suspicions of 
 the reflecting catholic ; and though he embraced the hand 
 which gave him even a temporary relief, he could not 
 but have doubted the sincerity of the motive which sug- 
 gested the protection ; nor could he flatter himself with a 
 long duration of the indulgence he experienced. So a- 
 larmincr a change roused the fears of all those adventur- 
 ers who so lately thought themselves securely settled in 
 their ill acquired properties. Another revolution was ex- 
 pected, and a renewal of all those sanguinary scenes which 
 desolated Ireland, was revived in the imagination even of 
 the boldest and least credulous among the colonists. A 
 sensation so tremendous immediately found its way to 
 England ; and the hot-headed advocates of despotic power 
 struck to the universal sentiment of indignation which is- ^ 
 sued from all quarters of the country. They removed 
 lord Berkley from his Irish administration, and endeavor- 
 
415 
 
 ed to conciliate the power which they could not trample 
 on. Charles would have tolerated the Irish catholic to 
 enslave the English protestant, and conquering the latter, 
 he would th^n put his foot on the neck of the former. 
 This was his policy, and the policy of his brother. Tiie 
 effort, however, was ruinous to the poor devoted catholic. 
 It exposed him to the experimentalizing malice of an Eng- 
 lish parliament. The latter, in 1675, again thrqw down 
 the catholics to the earth, banished their priests, and gave 
 marked encouragement to the ascendancy of the English 
 protestant interest. The earl of Essex was now lord lieu- 
 tenant ; his administration was not remarkable for any oc- 
 currence worthy of record. 
 
 Charles was obliged once more to have recourse to the 
 artful Ormond, who is again ajjpointed cliief governor of 
 Ireland. Mr. Leland lias the followina; interesting ac- 
 count of the first interview of Charles with Ormond, af- 
 ter a considerable interval of apparent displeasure. " It 
 was now several yeats since the king had spoken to Or- 
 mond in any confidential manner, except when Shaftes- 
 bury was declared Lord Chancellor. On this occasion 
 Charles ventured to take him apart and to ask his opinion 
 of this measure. ' Your majesty,' said the duke, ' hath 
 acted very pradently in committing the seals to lord 
 Shaftesbury, provided you know how to get them from him 
 again.' After this short conference, the king relapsed into 
 his former coldness. For almost a year he never deigned 
 to speak to the duke, who from his return to England, 
 every day attended at the court. At length, in die month 
 of April, 1677, Ormond was surprised by a message from 
 the king that he would sup with him. Their interview 
 was easy and cheerful, without any explanation or any 
 discussion of past transactions. On parting, Charles sig- 
 nified his intentions of again employing him in Ireland. 
 The next morning he saw the duke at a distance, advan- 
 cing to pay hisusual duty. ' Yonder comes Ormond,' 
 said Chai'les, * I have done all in my power to disoblige 
 
416 
 
 "him, an^l to make him as discontented as others, but he 
 will be loyal in spite of me ; I must even employ him 
 again, and he is the fittest person to govern Ireland.'" 
 From this time he was designed to succeed Essex in the 
 Irish administration. 
 
 The object of the king and duke of York, in the ap- 
 pointment of Ormond in 1677, was to counteract the 
 G-rowinn- influence of Monmouth, the natural son of 
 Charles, who was now anxiously looked up to by a pow- 
 erful faction in England, as the fittest successor to the 
 throne. Such was the royal homage to the talents and 
 character of Ormond. It will be found that he acquitted 
 himself with firmness and good sense in the performance of 
 his high duties. No man was more anxiously interested 
 in preventing a renewal of those dreadful calamities which 
 had visited Ireland. Sufficient blood had flowed for Or- 
 mond ; he had acquired splendid revenues, and he now 
 studied to preserve them. We therefore find him exer- 
 cising all his prudence to counteract the vicious practices 
 of the authors of Gates' plot, or as it was most foully called, 
 the popish plot, who struggled to make Ireland the theatre 
 of their murderous conspiracy. 
 
 The object of this plot, (batched and encouraged bj 
 Sliaftesbury, one of the ablest and most vicious charac- 
 ters in modern history) was to blast the reputation of 
 the monarch and his brother, to prevent the succession 
 of the latter, and to sacrifice on the altar of justice, the 
 innocent and persecuted catholics of the empire.* For 
 
 • The Rev. M- Grainger, in his biographical history of England, ha» 
 the following account of this despicable wretch, whom the more aban- 
 doned proiTioters of this conspiracy encouraged to shed {he blood of so 
 many innocent men. " The infnmous Titus Gates was, soon after the 
 accession of king James, convicted of perjury, upon the evidence of 
 sixty respectable witnesses, of whom nine ivere protestants ; he was en- 
 tcuced to pay a fine of two thousand marks j to be stripped of his ca- 
 nonical habit ; to be whipped twice in three days by the common hang- 
 man ; and to stand in the pillory at Westminister hall gate, and at the 
 royal exchange. lie was moreover to be pillored five times every 
 year, and to be imprisoned during life. The hangman performed hit 
 tflke with uncommon ri^or. The bsst thing J^mes ever did, vrn 
 
417 
 
 this the most abandoned ruffians were liired to swear 
 away the lives of men they never saw, or whose names 
 they scarcely knew; the gaols were swept for witnesses, and 
 the wretch who was doomed to expiate a murder or a rob- 
 bery, was released from the halter, on condition of his 
 bearing false witness against the most respected and be- 
 loved of the people. To such atrocious lengths did tlie 
 fiirious ambition of party drive those very men who contri- 
 buted to raise that proud and envied edifice of political 
 freedom, for which England now stands distinguished in 
 the world. Those perfidious and relentless conspirators 
 thought to turn the tide of perjury into Ireland, and thus 
 sweep away the beggared catholic population. Ormond 
 interposed; and Ireland, in which the great majority 
 were catholics, was protected against that legal slaughter 
 which the interested credulity of the English parliament 
 encouraged in England . Strong measures, however, 
 were resorted to by Ormond, to guard, not so much a- 
 gainst a plot which he did not credit, but against the ma- 
 lignant suspicions of his enemies in the English parliament, 
 whose views and characters he detested : nor was the sup- 
 pression and humiliation of the unfortunate catholic a sub- 
 ject of sorrow to him, so that he would not be forced to 
 the adoption of measures which might once more drive tlif 
 nation into madness and rebellion.* 
 
 Proclamations against the catholic clergy were issued, 
 
 punishing Gates for his perjury; and the greatest thing Gates ever did, 
 was supporting: iiiniself under the most afflictive part ot his pUnishment 
 with the resoliitiv)!! and constancy of a martyr. A pension of four hun- 
 dred pouu,ds a year was conferred upon this miscreant by king WiUi.ara; 
 he was, for a clergyman, remarkably illiterate ; it is well known that h* 
 was the son of an anabaptist ; and he probably died in the commuuiou 
 in , which he had been educated." 
 
 • By the act of settlement, Ormond is represented by an author of 
 this period (quoted by Dr, Curry) called the " unkind deserter," to 
 have got the city of Kilkenny, and six other corporate towns, together 
 with their lands and liberties, valued by himself and his friend? of the 
 council but at =^00,000, though they were well worth ^120,000. It is 
 not very extraordinary, therefore, tliat Qrniond should have interposed 
 to prevent the progress of a conspiracy against the public feeling, aiid 
 national religion, which might have again thrown every thijig into con- 
 fusion, and risked that immense property which he had accpired, .ifter th^ 
 pasiing through so many scenes of blood and devasUtion. 
 
418 
 
 atid ever}' possible caution adopted to secirre the protestant 
 interest against any plans of conspiracy which might be 
 meditated.* So infatuated was the fanaticism of the day, 
 that if it had not been controlled by the better reflection 
 pf Ormond, the proprietors of lands would have driven 
 their tenants from their holdings; the manufacturers would 
 have banished their workmen, and masters their servants — 
 yet this would have been a severe punishment to them- 
 selves, for all those various denominations were catholic. 
 By the computation of sir William Petty in 1679, there 
 were about fifteen catholics to one protestant at this period. 
 The hopes of the sanguinary Shaftesbury to create an 
 insurrection in Ireland, were blasted by the prudence of 
 
 • Notwithstanding the malignant industry with which Shaftesbury 
 and his friends exerted theniselve«, to rake from the sweepings of the 
 prisons of Ireland, something like testimony against the poor Irish, in 
 support of his favorite scheme of the papist plot, it is rather singular 
 that so few candidates for the infamous office were to be found. If a dis- 
 graced or excommunicated priest, who had smarted under the ecclesias- 
 tical lash, could be discovered, he was immediately courted by the ad- 
 vocates of " religions freedom," and either tortured or corrupted into evi- 
 dence against the highest and most dignified of the Catholic hierachy. To 
 some of those outcasts from religion and morality, the veuerated Oliver 
 Plunket, archbisop of Armagh, fell an innocent aad unpitied victim. 
 To the parliamentary leaders it was perfectly immaterial how abandont-d 
 the witness, or how guiltless the party, when they prosecuted.- Tiiey 
 thirsted for the sacrifice of popish blood, that they might better exasper- 
 ate the popular mind against their king and his brother, and under the 
 specious pretext of defending their free constitution against the en- 
 croaclimcnts of arbitrary power, they stopped at no expedient, how- 
 ever iiifamous, to carry an object of such paramount importance. The 
 Jegal murder of this venerated Irish prelate, was one of those expe- 
 dients by which they thought they might exasperate Ireland into in- 
 surrection. Bishop Burnet (whose authority will not be questioned by 
 Englislimen) gives the fi)U»wing account of the infamous proceeding* 
 against the Irish catholic archbisiiop. 
 
 " Plunket (says Burnet) was at this time brought to trial. Some 
 Jewd Irish priests, and others of that nation, hearing that England wa» 
 then disponed to hearken to good swearers, thouglit themselves well 
 qualified for the employment, so they came over to swear that there 
 v.as a great plot in Ireland, The witnesses were brutal and profligate 
 men, yet the earl of Shaftesbury cherished them much. They were 
 e:taminea by parliament at Westminisitr, and what they said was be- 
 lieved. Some of these priests had been censured by him for their Icwd- 
 tiess. Plunket had nothing to say in h»5 defence, but to deny all ; so he 
 was condemned, and suffered very decently ; expressing himself in 
 manv particulars as became a bishop. He died denying every thing 
 that had been sworn against him." 
 Thus Burnet writes of this horrible transaction. By such detestable 
 
419 
 
 Ormond. Tlie former was so incensed, that he brought 
 forward a frivolous impeachment against Ormond ; wlien 
 Ossory, the distinguished son of Ormond, confronted this 
 infamous conspirator, and extinguished him on his favor- 
 ite theatre. The discovery of the llye-house plot, (1682,) 
 in which the principal parliamentary leaders were involved, 
 completely establiihed the royal ascendancy over those diii- 
 tinguished persons, who were struggling (and often by the 
 instrumentality of the most vicious means) to restrain th© 
 king's authority within the wholesome limits of a free con- 
 stitution. The general alarm which ran through the 
 country, lest it should again retura to that dreadful stat^ 
 of anarchy from which it had but lately emerged, rallied 
 the great majority round the thione; and the zealous pre- 
 cipitancy of the best friends of civil and religious liberty 
 in England, was the meiuis of causing that sudden change 
 in the administration of the two countries, which soon al- 
 ter threatened the existence of the English constitution. 
 Charles yielded to the counsel which suggested that in the 
 Irish catholics he would find willing instruments wherewith 
 he might establish his favorite desjiotic principles, and 
 that this was the happy moment to seize, when the popular 
 
 means did the great and leading patriots of England flatter themselves 
 they could conquer the power of the crown. The tide of popular 
 opinion at lenptli began to ebb, and swept away, in its mercileis course, 
 those great cliampions of English rights. The Englisli reader of EnolisK 
 history, when he comes to the page which records the deaths of Russel 
 cr Sydney, may shed a tear over tlie fate of mtn devoted, as they were, 
 to the establishment of his civil and religious freedom. But with what 
 reflections can the Irish reader of Irish suffering follow the persecutors 
 of their country and their religion to the scatTold ? Will it not be consider- 
 ed by them as consolatory, that the malicious det'amers of his coun- 
 try and ambitious destroyers of the most exalted among his countrv- 
 men, should at length fall victims to tliat policy which visited their 
 native land with such excessive calamity ? As to Ireland, the partizans 
 of English liberty have been the furious persecutors of her reli'Tion. 
 The Sydneys and the Hampdens of England have been to Ireland its 
 Neros and Caligulas. But a very few years have elapsed since the 
 English patriot began to extend his principles of liberty to his Ifish fellow 
 subject. The highest and most enlightened -senators of the British par- 
 liament have been (until tlie last few years) the creatures of a mean, 
 jealous and sfclflsh policy, worthy of the most ignorant inhabitant of a 
 compting- house. The Irishman, therefore, who thought and spoke in 
 candor, was always accustomed to associate the free constitutioo of 
 England with lUe degradation aiid suirtring ef in« aative land. 
 
450 
 
 party in parliament had sunk so low in public estimation. 
 He therefore determined to recal Ormond from his Irish 
 administration, and substitute a lord lieutenant who would 
 be more inclined to act with sincerity on the new prin- 
 ciples and with the new men whom Charles had determined 
 to encourage* 
 
 The death of Charles taking place about this time (1685) 
 opened a new t'^ene in Ireland, and perhaps one of the 
 most fruitful of instruction which has as yet come under 
 the observation of the reader. He will see Ireland pass 
 from the extremes of an intolerant and suspicious govern- 
 ment to the opposite extreme of unlimited confidence. 
 He will see the great majority of the Irish nation, who 
 have so long been the drawers of water and the hewers of 
 wood in tlieir native land, suddenly raised into the station 
 of governors and legislators ; their religion not only toler- 
 ated, but peculiarly patronized ; and the very persons who 
 were but hitely threatened with tlie scaffold, the victims 
 of the suborned perjurer, jn-omoted to the highest places 
 of confidence and honor. If he looks back upon the reign 
 through which he has passed, he will have to contemplate 
 the most despicable object in the whole circle of our na- 
 ture, namely, the sovereign of a great nation, not only 
 forgetful of the services and the fidelity of the men who 
 restored him to his throne, but actually courting his old ene- 
 mies, the mm'derers of his father, by the abandoned ne- 
 glect and persecution of those who sacrificed every thing 
 that was most dear, to his exaltation. If ever Charles has 
 been seen to listen to the cries or the remonstrances of 
 liis Irish people, the reader may trace the ro3'al motive to 
 a princi{)le of despotism. The English sovereign would 
 strike off the chains of Ireland if she would join him in 
 rivetting them qn Englishmen. Ele would unbar their 
 prison doors if they Avould volunteer to take up arms a- 
 e;ainst the free constitution of England. Never was a 
 monarch (n^ay Ireland say) less deserving of the throne 
 which he recovered, or better entitled to the infamy which 
 now covers his memory. 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 James II. 
 
 . y^ i HE reign to which we have now arrived, affords 
 1684;* t^i6 best commentary on that vicious policy which 
 distinguished the administration of Ireland dur- 
 ing the last hvmdred and fifty years. The reader has 
 already waded throu^Th a long period of Irish suffering, 
 inflicted by the exasperating hand of intolerance. He 
 has seen the sword which was drawn bv Elizabeth against 
 the religion and the liberties of the Irish nation, give way 
 for some time, under the government of James I. to the 
 more slow, though not less torturing devastation of a per- 
 fidious and unprincipled litigation. He has then passed 
 to the heartless and sanguinary fanaticism of the English 
 republicans, who would have sacrificed every inhabitant of 
 Ireland on the altar of their demoniac liberty. From 
 this scene of hypocrisy and cruelty, where the bible was 
 made the instrument of human misery, he has come to a 
 period not less calculated to excite tlie sym})athy or the in- 
 dignation of the reader ; namely, that which exhibits a 
 whole nation sacrificed to the vengeance of their most 
 relentless enemies, by that very sovereign for whose restor- 
 ation they had exposed their lives, their families, and their 
 properties. The black ingratitude of Charles II. to his 
 faithful Irish subjects, is perhaps the most distressing pic- 
 ture which can be presented to the reflection of an Irish- 
 
422 
 
 I 
 man. The infatuation of fanaticism, or the impulse of 
 avarice or ambition, may account for the furious spirit of 
 persecution with which the English reformers or colonists 
 have ever pursued the poor people of our country ; but it 
 is not so easy to accoinit for the existence of that base and 
 contemptible feeling which could humiliate a king, possess- 
 ed of an almost incontroulable power, so low as to minister 
 to the passions of those very persons who were the leading 
 persecutors of his best friends. 
 
 The people of Ireland must have witnessed with satis- 
 faction the various and successful struggles which their fa- 
 vored persecutors had with the ungrateful monarch. 
 They must have triumphed in those vexations which that 
 party caused in the royal bosom, when they reflected on 
 the unprincipled policy of conciliating the common enemy 
 at the expense of the sincere and faithful friend. It was 
 left for the successor of Charles II. to do justice to a peo- 
 ple who had so long suffered by their attachment to his 
 family, and to extend that protection to their civil and re- 
 ligious freedom, which their fidelity so truly merited. Un- 
 fortunately for Ireland, the band which promised her pro- 
 tection was found unfit to govern. Devotedly attached 
 to the catholic religion, James weakly exposed himself 
 to the suspicions of his English protestant subjects. Too 
 proud and too despotic by nature, he would not bend to the 
 prayers or the threats of his people ; he would listen to no 
 dictation, nor be controuled by any power. The murmurs 
 of parliament were not noticed, or if noticed, were de- 
 spised. His great ambition seemed to be to frown them 
 into silence, to insult the religious feelings of his people, 
 and to establish an unlimited monarchy. There never was 
 a period in the history of England, when an artful and jut- 
 dicious monarch could have so easily succeeded in raising 
 an unlimited despotic power on the ruins of that free conr- 
 stitution which Englishmen tlicn enjoyed. The recollec- 
 tion of that anarchy from which England so providential- 
 ly emerged; the universal sentiment of abhorrence which 
 
423 
 
 ran through the nation against the hypocritical declaim- 
 ers in favor of liberty and religion ; the indignation lately 
 excited by the attempt to destroy the king, and once more 
 plunge the country into convulsion — all these considera- . 
 tions contributed to strengthen the arms of the sovereign 
 to lull the suspicions and diminish the caution of the peo- 
 ple. Had James II. sought his way to despotism through 
 the prejudices of the nation — had he dissembled and con- 
 cealed his zealous attachment to that religion so much 
 dreaded and abhorred by Englishmen, he might have. suc- 
 ceeded in extinguishing their civil and religious liberties. 
 Ireland might have enjoyed, during this disastrous strug- 
 gle, the advantages of a temporary toleration, but lit- 
 tle time would have elapsed until she too would bo swal- 
 lowed up in the royal vortex, and even all hope of future 
 liberty be completely destroyed. It is true, that during 
 the short reign of James II. the Irish cathohc was restor- 
 ed to the constitution of his country. In common with 
 the protestant, he enjoyed the confidence of his sovereion. 
 He was eligible to all situations of honor and profit mider 
 the crown ; he was admitted into parliament and corpora- 
 tions; he was the dispenser of the laws and the distribu- 
 tor of justice. But it should be recollected that the mon- 
 arch who extended this indulgence to the Irish catholic, ^ 
 would have made that catholic the instrument by which he 
 could conquer the liberties of England;" and the same 
 power which could not bear the controul of an English 
 parliament, would soon turn on the hand that established 
 his unlimited authority, and reduce it to the common level 
 of English slavery. The Irish nation would in its turn be 
 trampled upon by the despotic spirit of James, and the 
 catholics of the present day perhaps would have been de- 
 ploring the unfortunate circumstances which induced their 
 ancestors to co-operate with their sovereign in the destruc- 
 tion of a constitution which promised so many blessiings to 
 mankind. 
 
 No Irishman is so devoted to his religion or to liis coun- 
 
424 
 
 try as not to acknowledge the principles of despotism which 
 influenced the conduct of James II. ; but the candid read- 
 er, whether he be protestant or catholic, must a^mit, that 
 at the particular peridd when James thought proper to 
 extend his royal protection to the long oppressed people of 
 this countiy, no nation ever exhibited so many inducements 
 to abuse the power with which accident had suddenly in- 
 vested them. It remains for us to show from the impartial 
 records of history whether the catholics of Ireland de- 
 meaned themselves in this season of their prosperity in such 
 a manner as was not only consistent with those feelings 
 which regulate our nature, but with those social sympathies 
 which make us anxious to promote the happiness of our 
 fellow creatures. 
 
 The historians of the colony, (for no man should honor 
 them with the titles of Irish historians,) have struggled, 
 by every mean and despicable artifice, to blacken the cha- 
 racter of the Irish catholic during the reign of James II. 
 The impudent falsehoods of archbishop King in his state 
 of the protestants of Ireland during this reign, are auda^ 
 ciously echoed by Mr. Leland. The two clergymen, in 
 the fury of tlieir invective, discover all the vicious ma-i 
 lignity of polemics, and, in the true spirit of churchmen, 
 represent the professors of cathohc doctrine either as insa- 
 tiable tyrants or degraded slaves. So extravagant are the 
 accusations of King and Leland against the Irish during 
 the reign of James II. that the most superficial observer 
 of human nature requires no evidence to demonstrate 
 their absurdity or their atrocity. In proportion as we ap- 
 proach the days in which we live, the necessity of pressing 
 the advantages which must flow from the practice of mu- 
 tual charity, must occur to the reader. If the facts which 
 the historian has before him, and which it is his duty to 
 record, be calculated to inflame, to exasperate, and to 
 multiply prejudices, we should suppose that he would not 
 be anxious to make such mention of them as would contri- 
 bute to increase their effect upon the reader. He would 
 not adopt the little artifice of the daily adventurer in con- 
 
425 
 
 troversy whose sole object and ambition is to malign his 
 antagonist. Yet this is the tone in which Mr. Leland has 
 written the reign of James II. ; and to the confidence with 
 which he has handed down the unprincipled assertions iand 
 calumnious falsehoods of archbishop King, may be attri- 
 buted perhaps much of the foolish and ungenerous prin- 
 ciples which have been so obstinately maintained by the 
 most distinguished of modern days. They stop not to in- 
 quire or to investigate; they pause not to reflect on the 
 peculiar circumstances of the Irish people, at the period 
 they are charged with intolerance, cruelty, and violence. 
 They never consider the character of their libeller, his mo- 
 tives or his rewards ; they go on reading without thought, 
 and deciding without justice. 
 
 Never was a nation more abused by an historian, than 
 Ireland has been by Mr. Leland; it would appear as if he 
 had studiously and elaborately compiled his history in or- 
 der to perpetuate those prejudices and follies which every 
 good man would gladly extinguish. He has, in glaring and 
 splendid phrase, set forth the insolent ascendancy of the 
 Irish catholic during the reign of James II. He has re- 
 presented him as wreaking his vengeance on the prostrate 
 English protestant, for the long course of humiliation which 
 his country suffered. He has made no allowance for the 
 excesses of that public spirit which had so long been chain- 
 ed to the ground, nor does he ever speak of the acts of 
 James' catholic government, but in terms the most contemp- 
 tuous or malignant. The pride of ascendancy w liicli anima- 
 ted the bosom of archbishop King, seems to have transmi- 
 grated to that of Mr. Leland ; and the reader would suppose 
 that Leland's history of the reign of James II. was written 
 almost immediately after . the triumph of the prince ojf 
 Orange, when the passions were inflamed, and the heart 
 was exasperated, by the recollection of sufferings v^hich a 
 sudden revolution will ever inflict on its victims. jMr. 
 Leland's prejudices will not suffer him to allow talent in the 
 
 Fff 
 
425 
 
 catholic judge or the catholic officer of the croti'n. Th« 
 ^reat abilities of James' attorney general, Mr. Nangle, 
 which lord Clarendon so often acknowledges, are noticed 
 by Mr. Leland, only to be treated with a contemptuous 
 observation. The catholic general can display no courage, 
 nor no military skill sufficient to call forth the admiration of 
 this historian of the pale. If the Irish catholic priest 
 should rejoice in the toleration of his religion, he is repre- 
 sented by Mr. Leland as a vain and insulting fanatic. Hu~ 
 man nature must keep down her feelings to please the fas- 
 tidious judgment of such an historian. The Irishman 
 must look sad because his civil and religious liberty is re- 
 stored; and he must join the English in their hatred of 
 that sovereign under whose protection he was for the 
 first time protected against the sanguinary intolerance of 
 English Gouncils. 
 
 Ireland, with that candor which distinguished her eveti 
 in her most adverse hours, indulged in the utmost excesses 
 of jo\' and of triumph, when she found herself governed 
 by a monarch who would not insult her religion nor tram- 
 ple on her rights. She stood by James II. for the very 
 same reason whicli prompted England to abandon him. 
 She saw herself restored to her proper station in Europe, 
 making her own laws, asserting her own independence, 
 encouraging her own talents^ cherishing her own strength, 
 and putting forth her own inexhaustible resources. Ireland 
 saw and felt all this, under a monarch whom Englishmen 
 justly considered as the violator of English liberty and the 
 enemy of their beloved religion. We shall find by a faith- 
 ful view of the occurrences of this reign, whether James 
 II. merited from the great majority of the Irish nation, 
 that fond partiality they entertained for him. They did 
 not stop to reflect on the motives of the British monarch. 
 They experienced his protection, and they gave him a li- 
 beral return in the overflowing zeal of their attachment. 
 Had James succeeded against William, the British con- 
 stitution might have been oTcrturned, and an unlimited 
 
427 
 
 Tnonarchy might have been the result of the inglorious 
 struggle ; but under the existing circumstances of Irish- 
 men, he is an uncandid and dishonest observer who will 
 not give credit to that feeling which bound the Irish na- 
 tion so ttedfastly to the cause and fortune of James. No 
 man who has read the history of British liberty, or wlio 
 has marked the progress of those who distinguished them- 
 selves in establishing its principles from age to age, will 
 deny that the catholic is entitled to the high praise of being 
 instrumental to the production of that perfect sj'stem of 
 freedom, which now constitutes the pride and glory of 
 the English nation. The professors of the religion of Ire- 
 land have been the great founders of the British constitu- 
 tion. Little more has been done by the English protes- 
 tant reformers than to echo that spirit which distinguished 
 their catholic ancestors. The catholics, in the days of the 
 Edwards and the Henrys, were not less alive to the bles- 
 sings of political freedom, than the murderers of Charles I. 
 or the fanatical organizers of Oates' plot, in the time of 
 Charles II. The petition of rights, or the bill of rights, 
 is little more than declaratoiy of the great commanding 
 principles of Magna Charta. The latter was the offspring 
 of catholic spirit, the former of protestant. The catholic 
 laid the foundatioa of the EngUsh constitution ; the pro- 
 testant built the superstructure, and put the last hand to 
 that im.mortal edifice. 
 
 Justice Blackstone has borne testimony to the labors of 
 our catholic ancestors. In his enmiieration of the instances 
 in which the fundamental principles of the British consti- 
 tution were asserted. by the people of England, he carries 
 back his readers to that period when England was entirely 
 catholic, and begins with the great charter, or Magna 
 Charta, which was obtained, sword in hand, by the catho- 
 lics from king John, and afterwards, with some alterations, 
 confirmed in parliament by king Henry III. his son; 
 " which charter," says justice Blackstone, " contained 
 very few grants ; but a* Edward Coke observes, was for th« 
 
428 
 
 most part declaratory of the principal grounds of the fun- 
 damental laws of England, afterwards by the statute, con- 
 Jirmatio cartarum, whereby the great charter is directed 
 to be allowed as the common law, all judgments contrary 
 to it are declared void ; copies of it are ordereil to be sent 
 to all the cathedral chapels and read twice a year to the 
 people, and sentence of excommunication is directed to be 
 as constantly denounced against all those that by word, 
 deed, or counsel, act contrary thereto, or in any degree 
 infringe it." — These were the acts of the English catholics; 
 and yet it will' be urged again and again that the catholic 
 religion is the religion of the slave. This vulgar error, 
 however, is losing ground ; and the progressive illumina- 
 tion of his protestant fellow subjects is daily doing justice 
 to the religion and political principles of the catholic. 
 The ardor with which the Irish catholic combated on the 
 side of James II. is by no means incompatible with the 
 character which we have given of his religion. Every 
 feelinff of human nature urged the Irish catholics to fight 
 the battles of James, and the fidelity with which they main- 
 tained his cause and fought in his ranks is their best recom- 
 mendation to an enlightened protestant monarch. They 
 demonstrate that the Irish nation will ever be true to that 
 power which does justice to their feelings. When James 
 n. ascended the English throne, great hopes were enter- 
 tained by the Irish that there would be some relaxation 
 of that rigid government which distinguished his faithless 
 predecessor. The latter had experienced the folly of en- 
 deavoring to conciliate his enemies by the abandonment of 
 his friends, and James was induced by religious as well as 
 political feelings not to follow an example which produced 
 so much uneasiness to his brother. The character of James 
 is admitted by his greatest enemies to be of the most can- 
 did and fearless nature. Full of the sacredness of his au- 
 thority as a monarch, he had no idea of being subject to 
 control from the voice of his subjects. He expected and 
 commanded universal obedience ; and in his anxie»y to ex- 
 
429 
 
 tend his protection to those of his subjects who professed 
 the religion to which he himself was attached, lie could 
 not brook the opposition of that party who had brought 
 his father to the block, and would have pursued his bro- 
 ther with the same sanguinary fury. 
 
 James had been witness to such scenes of h^^pocrisy, 
 fanaticism, and cruelty, and practised too by men who 
 were perpetually declaiming on the blessings of political 
 and religious freedom, that we need not be much surpris- 
 ed when we see him cautious of reposing confidence in 
 those whom no concessions could conciliate, and whom no 
 indulgence could satisfy. He therefore naturally turned 
 his attention to that portion of his subjects who had dis- 
 tinguished themselves by the sincerity of their attachment 
 to their sovereign, and he was too proud to turn back or 
 retrace those steps which his more prudent advisers whis- 
 pered him were dangerous and impracticable. It was not 
 easy for a monarch even of profounder judgment than 
 James to determine upon that line of conduct which could 
 best secure him against the encroachments of popular am- 
 bition. Mr. Hume, in one of the wisest passages of his 
 valuable history, takes the following view of the characters 
 of those men with whom the unfortunate Stuarts had to 
 contend. We shall give the entire passage, as it is the 
 best vindication of that conduct which James determined 
 to adopt with those haughty popular spirits who boldly 
 wrestled with the monarch for the liberties of their coun- 
 try. Speaking of the popula'r parliamentary leaders in 
 the time of Charles and James, Mr. Hum^e v/rites as fol- 
 lows: " More noble perhaps in their ends, and highly 
 beneficial to mankind, they must also be allowed to have 
 been often less justifiable in the means ; and in many of 
 their enterprizes to have paid more regard to pohtical than 
 to moral considerations. Obliged to court the favour of 
 the populace, they found it necessary to comply with their 
 rage and their folly : and have even, on many occasions, 
 by propagating fictions and by promoting violence, served 
 
430 
 
 to infatuate and corrupt that people to whom they made a 
 tender of liberty and justice. Charles f I. was a tyrant, a 
 paj)ist, and a contriver of the Irish massacre. The church 
 of England was relapsing fast into idolatr}^ Puritanism 
 was the only true religion, and the covenant the favorite 
 object of heavenly regard. Through these delusions the 
 party proceeded, and, what ma}^ seem wonderful, still to 
 the increase of law and liberty, till they reached the im- 
 posture of the popish plot, a fiction which exceeds the or- 
 dinary bounds of vulgar credulity. But however singular 
 these events may appear, there is really nothing altogether 
 new in any period of modern history ; and it is remark- 
 able, that tribunitian arts, though sometimes useful in a 
 free constitution, have been usually such as men of probity 
 and honor could not bring themselves either to practise or 
 approve. The other faction, which since the revolution 
 had been obliged to cultivate popularity, sometimes found 
 it necessary to employ like artifices." 
 
 It is to be lamented that the characters whom history 
 hands down to the admiration of posterity, are too often 
 to be found the servile instruments of the most vicious and 
 abandoned policy ; that the advocates of popular rights 
 were often ministering to the malignant passions of fanati- 
 cism; and that even the venerated names of Hampden, 
 of Russel, and of Sydne-y, are to be found among the 
 persecutors of conscience, and the patrons of the grossest 
 intolerance. It is not to be wondered that a monarch 
 reared in the school of despotism, with the example of 
 his predecessors before him, whose authority was seldom 
 restrained by the popular voi.ce, should feel indignant at 
 the remonstrances of his subjects when they presumed to 
 dictate to their sovereign the religion he ought to profess, 
 and the men in whom he ought to repose his confidence. 
 James had not the judgment to discern the point at which 
 he ouglit to resist or to submit. He spurned the control 
 of the people, and embraced the principles and the coun- 
 try which were ready to humor his prejudices or gratiij 
 his ambition. 
 
431 
 
 Soon after James ascended the throne of England, an 
 ill concerted experiment was made by the duke of Mon- 
 mouth, (16'85,) to raise a rebellion in England, and over- 
 turn the government. In this struggle he was supported 
 by some of the great popular and parliamentary leaders of 
 England. The people of Ireland particularly distinguish- 
 ed themselves on this occasion by the promptitude of their 
 exertions in support of the crown ; and the king soon 
 seized the opportunity to manifest his gratitude by a 
 marked predilection for their religion and their principles. 
 He disarmed the protertaht militia, among whom he sus- 
 pected the rebellious principles of his English subjects were 
 lurking, and conferred the title of eai-1 of Tyrconnel on 
 colonel Richard Talbot, who was a distinguished catholic 
 officer. He appointed his brother in law, lord Clarendon, 
 to the viceregency of Ireland. James' instructions to 
 this nobleman were liberal and enlightened. He resolved 
 to break the chains of intolerance, and ordered that his 
 catholic subjects should not be excluded from the acivan- 
 tages of the constitution. He introduced them into corpo- 
 rations, and invested them with magistracies and judicial 
 offices. Mr. Leland says that this extraordinary indul- 
 gence to the Irish catholics exjiosed their protestant fellow 
 countrymen to perpetual hazard and inquietude ; that they 
 were left naked to the fury of their most relentless enemies. 
 Lord Clarendon, the lord lieutenant at that period, on the 
 contrary, in his speech to the Irish parliament, felicitates 
 the country on the universal concord which such measures 
 of conciliation aS were recommended by his master, pro- 
 mised to produce in this country ; and he frequently beare 
 testimony to the tranquillity which the nation experienced 
 when he assumed the reins of administration. It was now 
 reasonable that the thousands of the Irish people who were 
 reduced to beggary by the infamous arrangement called 
 the act of settlement, should at this period appeal to a mo- 
 narch who was disposed to protect them — at least to make 
 them some compensation for the distress and injustice 
 
43% 
 
 which they experienced from that disastrous measure. Al- 
 most twenty years had elapsed since the passing of the act 
 of settlement, and the evils attending the repeal might 
 ROW have in a great measure counterbalanced the ad- 
 vantages. The protestants might have been drawn into 
 rebellion, and the catholics might again be exposed to the 
 horrors of another convulsion ; for the present, therefore, 
 the repeal of this act was not pressed, but the army and 
 corporations were new modelled. It appears that the in- 
 structions of Jamos went no farther than that all subjects 
 indiscriminately should be admittejj to serve him, without 
 regard to their religious principles ; but the earl of Tyr- 
 connell ijave full swincj to his attachments, and excluded 
 the protestants from the Irish army. The expectations 
 of the people naturally rose with the protection they re- 
 ceived, and they flattered themselves with the restoration 
 of those properties of which they were so cruelly deprived. 
 Such a revolution could not easily take place during the 
 administration of Clarendon. It was therefore resolved 
 that he should surrender his situation to a man who would 
 follow the wishes of the people and the sovei'eign with less 
 reluctance. Were the readers of Mr. Leland to c;ive im- 
 plicit credit to eveiy accusation he has brought against the 
 violence of the catholics during this administration, he 
 would be inclined to agree with this most fanatical perse- 
 cutor of that great bod)^, that there should be no relaxa- 
 tion to the controul of protestant ascendancy. But Mr. 
 JLeland (who copies all his statements from archbishop 
 King, and who has forgotten to give any part of the trium- 
 phant refutation written by Mr. Leslie, a distinguished pro- 
 testant divine, in 1692, which the archbishop never had 
 the confidence to reply to,) seems to have employed all 
 his industry to represent the conduct of the catholics dur- 
 ing the reign of James 11. in such a light as would vin- 
 dicate that infamous penal code which was soon after im- 
 posed on the unoffending catholics of Ireland. Arch- 
 bishop King, whose narration is as absurd as it is false. 
 
433 
 
 determined to atone, by the profligacy of his falsehoods 
 against the Irish, for the principles he mauitained when he 
 considered James secure in the seat of sovereignty.* Mr, 
 Leslie, in his reply to archbishop King, has the following 
 anecdote of the archbishop, which this libeller of the 
 Irish catholic never thought proper to contradict : 
 
 •, We have set forth many instances hi which the pious and honest 
 archbishop has been directly contradicted by the highest and most re- 
 spectal)le authority : but as the great majority of the readers of this 
 compendium may never have had an opportunity of seeinj^ this very 
 precious compilation of Hes, which Mr. Iceland has thougiit proper to 
 make the principal source of his informatioii durino^ the reig-n of James 
 II. we shall here set down two passages which will enable the intelli- 
 gent reader to form his conclusions respecting either the religion or 
 the integrity of tiie rev. bishop. To those who have perused the 
 vicious absurdities of poor sir Ricliard A-Iusgrave, wliQwrote aa accouiic 
 of all the murders, rapes, and robberies committed by the Irish ia 
 the year 1798, and from whose producrion lord Cornvvallis, wiien lord 
 lieutenant of Ireland, peremptorily and indignantly ordered the author 
 to take his name, lest the world should conclude that his Lordship 
 was the patron of such destructive nonsense ; — to those also, who had 
 witnessed the steady going, trading, political gait of Dr. Patrick Dai- 
 penan, and who have read that sweet and pious doctor's anathemas against 
 his countrymen, the quotations we shall make from the pages of arch- 
 bishop King, will not perhaps be matter of great surprise*. It is more 
 than probable that the fancy of either Masgrave or Duigenan mav 
 have outrun even the indamtd imagination of King ; if so, certainly 
 Duigenan and Masgrave are objects of greater curiosity, when we con- 
 sider the enlightened days in which it has been their good or ill fortune 
 to live. The dissenters o£ the present day from the religion of ths 
 catholic, join with the latter in the general laugh at the comical cre- 
 dulitv of these polemics; and the British parliament, vyho are some- 
 times put to the torture by Duigenan, are obliged, in self defence, to 
 quit the house when the doctor rises; If archbishop King commits aa 
 outrage on the feelings or the common sense of his reader of the present 
 day, the latter should make some allowance for the period in which 
 the bishop wrote his calumnies. He himself, according" to Dr. Leslie, 
 was once the ardent advocate of James II. and passive obedience. The 
 scene changed ; and William being in possession, the learned doctor had 
 no protection against his past errors, but the fury ot his denunciations 
 against his old friends. It was therefore in his opinion, most prudent 
 to represent the catholics of Ireland, who were the leading and ascen- 
 dant party during James's government ia Ireland, as monsters, cut-throats, 
 murderers, perjurers, robbers — and worse, if the English language could 
 produce more opprobrious denominations. Like Alusgrave, archbishop 
 King estimates the truth of his facts by their atrocity, and, as has 
 been often said of our modern retailers of mvirders, he would give little 
 thanks for any story in which one or two murders at lensr, were the 
 not committed. Archbishop King gives to his reader an account of 
 the various expedients adopted by James IL and the Irish catholics, 
 to destroy the -property of their protestant countrymen. It was au 
 ^ngenioui contrivaiice, no doubt ; but one which archbishop King says 
 
 G g g 
 
4S4 
 
 " No man" says Mr. Leslie, " was or could be a higher 
 assertor of passive obedience than Dr. King had been all 
 his lifetime. Even at the beginning of the revolution, he 
 told a person of honor, from whose mouth I had it, that 
 ' if tlie prince of Orange came over for the crown, he 
 prayed God might blast his designs /* " This, no doubt, wai 
 
 tvouM hive never been thought of, were it not for the diabelical but 
 fertile fancy of the abandoned Irish catholic priests. We do not want 
 tlie authority of Mr. Leslie or lord Clarendon to contradict the silly 
 statement we are now about to extract from archbishop King; but the 
 reader will not forget that even this is moderation, compared with many 
 pages which we would not excite his disgust by quoting. 
 
 " During the reign of James 11. in Ireland, estates, both in 
 city and country, were rendered fruitless to protestants; but yet, whilst 
 the cattle and the great manufactories and staple commodities of the 
 kingdom were in their hands; whilst they had the wool and the hides, 
 the tallow and the butter, which bring in all the money that is in the 
 kingdom, all the former arts would not have undone them ; and there- 
 fore some means must be used to get their, stocks from them. It 
 seemed not decent for the government to seize on them as they seized 
 on our houses and arms. It was not thought prudent to give a 
 positive order for doing it — the truth is there was no need of it ; 
 it was sufficient to connive at the new raised men to have it done. The 
 priests had every man that came to mass to get a skeau and half pike, 
 at least ; and thev whispered ti» the people that it was not for nothing 
 that they were thus armed. They assured them that whatever injury 
 they did to their protestant neighbours would be forgiven them, only 
 they advised them not to slu'd blood ; sometimes they went along to see 
 it effectually done, and sometimes they imposed it as a penance on such 
 2$ came to them for absolution, to rob .'iume of their protestant 
 neit^hhours. I'iiis (says the honest doctor,) may sretB improbable, 
 but we have had creditable iniormations of it, and it wiJI not seem 
 so unl'kcly if we consider tiiat the priests reckoned the taking and 
 keeping tlicm a "sin ; and lastly, that some of the greatest of ttiOoe rob- 
 beries were committed in lent, when they do their penances; and 
 ihtrttore they couid not be tempted at that time to steal and kill in 
 order to ea^, for in some places they killed whole flocks and .'eft them 
 dead on the place. These r( bberies began in November 1G88 ; and 
 bv th.c end of March next aftei, they har.dly lelt one piou-siant in Ire- 
 land a cow or a sheep. Ireland has aUvaVs been famous for its pattuies, 
 and the riches «f it have always coiisicted in cattle, uf which many 
 centkmcn had vast crocks ; for a man to have six, eight, or ten thousand 
 shtep was very common A'A these were gone in three monihs, to the 
 value of at least a niillion of inc>nty ; which, if rightly managed, would, 
 vi'ith the cows and hullocKs, of which thtre were likewise great herds, 
 have- furnished an arniv oTone hundred thousand men, with flesh enough 
 for tiifec years. Those virho took them from the protestants, destroyed 
 them Without considerstioii : they killed them by fifties and -threw them 
 into' bo^ I'it* ; they 'v^ok off thtir skins and left their carcases to rot, 
 aiid make all the havov- of them imi-.gmahle." 
 
 So goes tiie worthy bishop tioiu tde beginning to the end of one 
 shocking mass of horrible nipostibilitie* ; and to crown this work, Le 
 
435 
 
 a most pious ejaculation, and one which cannot fail to rais« 
 the person who uttered it very high in the estimation of a 
 protestant reader. Yet this man, who thus swore, was one 
 of the mostcrouching sycophants to that very king whose de- 
 signs heprayed God toblast. But Mr. Leslie continues to de- 
 scribe this gospel authority of Mr. Leland. " In a letter 
 
 gravely states, that the chief justice of the kini^'s bench, and all the 
 judges of that day, nut only suffered the coniinitt'ers of such incredible 
 outrages to g-o unpunished, but did actually declare that such robberies, 
 as this bishop describes, were " necessary evils." The most savage 
 nations cannot produce such an administration of justice as Ireland must 
 have suffered under in 1689, if a tenth of the report of archbishop 
 King be well founded. The archbishop passes fron\ the persecution 
 of the cows and sheep and pigs of the Irish protestants by James and 
 his judges, to their equally relentless persecution of their religion and 
 its pastors. A good deal of the virulence and malignity which the 
 following lines exhibit, may be traced to that unfortunate «/ir/V </« «r/f 
 •which too often distinguishes ecclesiastics of all persuasions; but the 
 representation here given is so contrary to truth, that it required all 
 the bishop's impudence 'o obtrude it on his reader. We shall close 
 this n(.te with a few extracts from somewhat better authorities than Dr. 
 King, to show that the poor doctor must have been smiling when h« 
 was writing the following very comical fiction : 
 
 " I might add (writes the d(JClor,) as a fitth means of destroying th« 
 protestant religion, and slackening discipline, the universal corruption 
 of manners that was encouraged at court. 1 do not charge , king Janice 
 with this in his own person, nor willi insinuate that he designed it, 
 though he took no care to redress it ; but it looked like a design in some, 
 and whether designed or no, it served the ends more than can easily 
 he imagined, and opened a wide door for it. That k'ngdom that is 
 very corrupt in morals, and debauched, is in a very fair way to em- 
 brace that persuasion ; and generally these proselytes were such as had 
 renounced Christianity in their practice before they renounced the 
 principles thereof, as taught in the reformed churches ; and many 
 Roman cathohcs declared that they would rather have us profess no 
 religion at all than the protestant. In bhort, whether it was from the loose- 
 ness of the principles of their religion, or from a design to gam on 
 protestaiYts, impiety, profaneness and libertini'^.n were higiiiy encourag- 
 ed and favored; and it was observable, that very few came with 
 king James into Ireland, that were remarkable for any strictness or 
 severity of life ; but rather, on the other hj.nd, they were generikily 
 signal for their viciousness and looseness of morals. Tlie perjuries iu 
 the courts, the robberies in the cnuntry, the lewd practices n» the stores, 
 the oaths, blasphemies and curses in the streets and armies, the dri^ik- 
 ing of contusions and damnations In towns, were all of them generally acts 
 of papists. This universal viciousness (continues the pious .loctor) made 
 discipline irqposslbie, and whatever protestants were infected with it were 
 entirely lost to their religion and the church; for the stress of salva- 
 tion, according to the principles of the reformed religion, depend* 
 on virtue and holiness of life, without which neither sorrow for sm 
 nor devotion will do a man any justice ; whereas, he that hears maw 
 ^aily in the^ Roman chuich, kneel* often before a crucifix, aud b«' 
 
436 
 
 to a person of undoubted credit, in the year 1686, arch- 
 bishop King thus wrote ;" (^nd the reader is requested to 
 attend to the shppery materials of which some churchmen 
 are composed) " that ' the principle of non-resistance was 
 a steady principle of loyalty ;' and that ' it was intolerable 
 for the members of any state to flee to foreign succours, on 
 
 lieves firmly that the Roman church is the catholic, and that all out 
 of her (ommunion are damned, makes not the least doubt of 
 his salvation, though he be guilty of habitual swearing, drunReu- 
 licss, and many other vices ; and the observation of this indulgence 
 gained them most of their proselytes that went over to them, of the 
 jewd women and corrupted gentry ; and many amongst themselves 
 had so great a s-,ense of this advantage, that it made tliem vtry favor- 
 able ?o dcb:iuchery, and openly profess that they had a much better 
 opinion of their lewdest persons that died in their own communion, 
 than of the strictest and most devout protestant ; and tiiey would often 
 lauglt at our scrupling a S'n, and our constancy and prayers, since, 
 as they would assure us with many oaths, we must only be damned 
 the deeper tor our diligence; and thej;- could not endure to "find us go 
 about to punish vice in our own members ; since, said they, it is to no 
 purpose to trouble yourselves about vice or virtue, that are out of the 
 church and will all be damned." 
 
 These extracts from the pious and christian labours of this liberal 
 archbishop, will, it is hoped, satisfy the reader. He will ask himself 
 perhaps, is this is the authority on v.hich Mr. Leiand founds his defa- 
 n^atory account of tlie state ol Ireland, during the reign of James II? 
 or has the Irish protestant been doomed to get from the hands of a pro- 
 testant clergyman, almost of the present day, a second edition of that 
 vile absurd scurrility which excites the disgust and indignation of 
 every enlightened protestant who reads it ? Dr. Currv, v.'hose memory 
 should for ever be dear to Ireland, has done a good deal in the refuta- 
 tion of tljcse infamous slanders, which the candidates for mitres have so 
 industriously circulated. Dr. Leslie, who replied to archbishop King, 
 and whose reply never was answered nor contradicted, gives a very 
 different account of the practices and conduct of the protestant clergy ; 
 to which practices he attributes the rapid decay of that religion in Ire- 
 land. Dr. Leslie, beirig a protestant clergyman hinjself, is no bad autho- 
 rity on such a subject; Lt, thus writes. " I was myself a witness, that 
 atheism, contempt of alT rehgion, debauchery and violence, were more 
 notorious and universal in the protestant army in Ireland, from 1688 
 to I6S2, and more publicly owned, than since I have known the world. 
 To my knowledge several have turned papists, on account of the lewd- 
 Dess of the army and the apostacy of the clergy." Marshal Schomberg, 
 jn a letter to king William, thus writes his opinion on the same subject. 
 *' I did not find (says the general) that the protestant clergy apply 
 themselves enough to their duty, — while the Romish priests are passionate 
 to exhort the people to die for the church of Rcjme, in putting them- 
 selves at their head." — This letter is dated December 1689. JJalrywplet 
 tnetnoirs, •vcl. I I J. p. 59. 
 
 Eut bishop Burnet is still more explicit in his reasons for the very cor- 
 rupt st;ite of the protestant church, during the pious ministry of arch- 
 bishop King; and the reader will find a good portrait of archbishop 
 
437 
 
 the pretence that their own governors had made laws a- 
 gainst reason, conscience, and justice ;' yet this is one ot' 
 the principal arguments in the book above-mentioned, for 
 justifying the revolution. What I have now written," saj'-s 
 Mr. Leslie, " I have from the person who wrote it ; and 
 if he desires it, his letter shall be produced." Archbishop 
 King did not court an investigation of his old principles, 
 and was silent; he trusted entirely to the fury of his 
 ho^iity against the Irish, for the quantity of credit which 
 
 King himself, drawn by the hand of his episcopal brother. " A disbe- 
 lief (says bishop Burnet, in his history of his own times) of revealed re- 
 ligion, a profane mocking of the. Christian faith and the mysteries of it, 
 became scandalous and avowed; and it must be confessed, that the be- 
 haviour of many protesta-nt clergymen during the time of Janies II. gave 
 atheists no small advantage. They had taken the oaths to read the' pray- 
 ers for the present government ; they observed the orders for public fasts 
 and thanksgivings ; and yet they showed in many places their aversion to 
 our establishment too visibly. This made many conclude that the pro- 
 testant clergy were a sort of men that would swear and pray even against 
 their consciences rather than lose their benefices; and by consequence^ 
 that they were governed by interest and not by principle. Upon the 
 whole matter, the nation was falling into a genei-al corruption, both as to 
 morals and principles ; and that was so much spread among all sorts of 
 people, that it gave us great apprehensions of heavy judgments from 
 Heaven." 
 
 Here the reader sees a protestant depose against another protestant 
 bishop; and queen Mary, in a letter to her hu';band William, July 1690^ 
 thus gives her opinion : — " I must put you in mind of one thing, believing 
 it is now the season; (the king was then in Ireland; which is, that you 
 would take care of the protfestant church in Ireland; every body agrees 
 that at present it is the worst in Christendom." Yet such a revert^J pas- 
 tor as archbishop King, feels himself perfectly warranted to read lectures 
 on morality and religion to the catholic clergy of Ireland. The reader 
 will now be able to judge the quantum of Christian benevolence and 
 mildness and toleration, to which this ecclesiastical authority Of Mr. 
 Leland may fnirly lay claim. So much as we have here set down is only 
 due to the acknowltdged purity of character of which the catholic cler- 
 gy may boa;.!., during the sad and varied misfortunes of their country. 
 The circumstances in which they have been ever placed since the refor- 
 mation, in a great manner induced that unbending integrity and truth 
 which so euiinently distinguished them, 'i'hese were the great bonds 
 which bound them to the people — which made the ktter bow to their 
 authority and obey their instructions. It was this christian courage, 
 which no disa'iters of their country -could shake, that has irade them so 
 powerful and influential among their flocks, and. which since the revolu- 
 tion has made the best men in the whole circle of society the most for- 
 midable to governments of intolerance. It is qualities like those which 
 suggested to the narrow and prejudiced the necessity of a contioul to 
 counterbalance their authority; such a controul as would lead to the 
 gradual corruption of the priest and the certain overthrow of his pro- 
 per influence. 
 
4S8 
 
 he miglit possibly enjoy with his English reader. Such is 
 the foundation or authority on which Mr. Leland builds 
 his charges against the Irish, during the reign of James II. 
 With respect to archbishop King's book, called " The 
 State of the Protestants in Ireland, during the Reign of 
 James II." Mr. Leslie gave it the following character in 
 1692. "I cannot say that I have examined into every 
 single matter of fact, which this author relates ; I could 
 not have the opportunity : but I am sure I have looked in- 
 to the most material, and by these you may easily judge of 
 his sincerity in the rest : but this I can say, that there is 
 not one I have inquired into, but I have found false in the 
 whole, or in part aggravated or misrepresented, so as to 
 alter the whole face of die story, and give it perfectly an- 
 other air and turn, insomuch that though many things he 
 says are true, yet he has hardly spoken a true 'word; that is, 
 told it truly and nakedly without a warp." And Mr. Les- 
 lie farther adds, that " when Dr. King seems most exact, 
 and sets his quotations in the margin, that his reader may 
 suspect nothing, then he is to suspect most, and stand up- 
 on his guard." The archbishop survived the publication 
 of Mr. Leslie's reply for thirty years, and continued dur- 
 ing that long period unmoved by the triumphant refutation 
 of his slanders against the Irish. 
 
 The earl of Clarendon has, in his letters, refuted most 
 of the calumnies of archbishop King. As lord lieutenant, 
 he had the best opportunity of seeing the conduct and 
 ascertaining the disposition of the catholics during this pe- 
 riod of their history. Were we to credit King, we should 
 conclude that the moment the catholics got into power 
 they commenced an atrocious legal persecution against the 
 unfortunate protestant. That there were bitter resentments 
 rankling in the bosom of the Irish catholics ; that many of 
 them would have seized this opportunity of wreaking their 
 vengeance on their old oppressors ; that they would have 
 sought the restoration of those properties of which they 
 thought themselves most unjustly deprived; that many 
 
439 
 
 of them considered the protestants tlieir most inveterate 
 enemies — are facts which require no evidence to demon- 
 strate the truth of. He wlio has gone through the pages 
 which precede tliis reign, will not wonder that human 
 nature should have so felt or so acted. It is tlie miserable, 
 but necessary consequence of the cruelties and perse- 
 cutions they experienced ; and one which should have 
 taught all future governments, that sooner or later the 
 despot meets his punishment in the unpitying veno-eance 
 of the persecuted. Yet we have the best authority for 
 stating that the catholics of 1685 did not turn upon their 
 old pursuers, as archbishop King describes ; and that the 
 most enlightened and distinguished among them were 
 disposed to demean themselves by their protestant coun- 
 trymen, with the mildest spirit of toleration. The earl 
 of Clarendon has vindicated the Irish catholics aaainst 
 the caluninies of their enemies; and his authority will 
 not be denied who was considered, by the protestants of 
 Ireland, their most anxious patron. Archbishop Kincp 
 states, that " when the papists," as he is pleased to call 
 the Irish catholics, " got judges and juries that would be- 
 lieve them, they began a trade of swearing and rippino- up 
 what they pretended their protestant neighbours had said 
 of king James, when duke of York, on the time of the 
 popish plot ;" and that of those protestants " many were 
 found guilty and excessively fined, and some of them im- 
 prisoned for their fines, not being able to satisfy the king, 
 who seized both their body and estates:" so vrrites the 
 archbishop; but what says the earl of Clarendon? He 
 tells us, that " when catholic judges went to the assizes, in 
 the counties of Down and Londonderry, where many cor;- 
 siderable persons M^ere to be tried for words formerly spok- 
 en against James, they took as nmch pains as was possible 
 to quiet the minds of the people v>-herever they went, and 
 that they toolc care to have all the juries mingled half 
 English and half Irish." Is it thus justice is administered 
 to the cathohcs, even at the present day ? Are protestant 
 
/ 
 
 440 
 
 judges found recommending the equitable principle that 
 the catholic should be tried by a jury, half English and 
 half Irish, or in other words, half protestant and half ca- 
 tholic. ? But archbishop King particularizes the county 
 Meath as the principal theatre on which the catholics dis- 
 played their persecuting spirit. Lord Clarendon's account 
 is somewhat different ; and his lordship too, with respect 
 to the county Meath, is not less particular than the arch- 
 bishop. He says, "that judge Daly, one of the ca- 
 tholic judges, did at the assizes of that county, enlarge 
 much on the unconscionableness of indicting men upon 
 ■words spoken so many years before ; that he told the jury, 
 that most of those then charged before him in court, could 
 give a good account of themselves, and were well known 
 in the counties where they lived, and that thereupon the 
 jurors, the major part of whom were Irish, acquitted 
 them. Mr.-' justice Nugent (another cathohc judge) made 
 the same declaration at Drogheda, where several persons 
 were tried for Avords upon brills found at the former' assizes, 
 and they were all acquitted, except one man, who was 
 found guilty and fined in five pounds." 
 
 But the earl Clarendon mves a stronger insta'nce of the 
 spirit of equity and moderation which influenced the con- 
 duct of the principal Irish catholics, of the men who had 
 the power to injure and oppress if they were inclined. 
 This single instance is a sufficient reply to the archbishop's 
 entire book. Lord Clarendon, in a letter to lord Sunder- 
 land, die confidential minister of James, writes as follows : 
 ** It is thought fit I should recommend men to some towns 
 for mayors, sheriffs, and common council men. In such 
 cases I advise with those who are best acquainted with those 
 towns, particularly with Mr. justice Daly* (a catholic 
 judge) and others of the king's council of that persuasion, 
 and the lists of the names those men give me are always 
 
 • It is hoped that the protestant justice Daiy of 1813, will take a note of 
 this passage ; he will not he the worse for it. 
 
441 
 
 «qual, half English and half Irish, which they say is th« 
 best way to unite and make them live friendly together." 
 
 Mr. Leland has artfully set down the intemperance of 
 the earl of Tyrconnel for the settled principles of the en- 
 iigiitened catholics, who occupied the highest situations 
 of honor and profit under the crown. He speaks in terms 
 of contempt of those distinguished lawyers and judges of 
 whom the earl of Clarendon, who daily experienced the 
 greatness of their talents and the purity of their principles, 
 constantly speaks with respect and veneration. At the 
 same time that he deprecates the violence of Tyrconnell, 
 he feebly admits the claims which the vmost leading ca»- 
 tholics had on the respect of their protestant countrv- 
 men. The earl of Clarendon was obliged to give way to 
 the earl of Tyrconnel. The ministers of James suspect- 
 ed that Clarendon was not sufficiently zealous in the 
 cause of their master, and that the royal interests, even ■ 
 in his short administJ'ation, might be much better se- 
 cured. The people of England had now been convinced 
 of the real views of James ; that he had determined to 
 put himself above the lav/s of their country; to change 
 their religion, and with their religion those precious 
 privileges for which they had so long struggled. The king, 
 on the other hand, saw the public mind receding fi-om him, 
 and considered the importance of effecting a secure , re- 
 treat in the affections of his Irish subjects. He had com- 
 pletely broken with the church, and new endeavored to 
 play off the presbyterians and catholics against his eccle- 
 siastical enemies. He had resolved to give the fullest to- 
 leration to the catholics, and declared his hostility to all 
 those persecuting laws which,_ from the influence of the 
 church, had been enacted both against the dissenters and 
 catholics. " Not content," says Mr. Hume, " v,'hh grant- 
 ing dispensations to particular persons, ho assumed the 
 power of issuing a declaration of general indulgence, and 
 of suspending at once all the penal statutes by which a 
 cpnforniity was required to the established religion. Jamef 
 
 H h h 
 
442 
 
 determined, if possible, to conquer the free spirit of Eng- 
 lishmen ; he tram})lecl on those securities which they con- 
 sidered the bulwarks of tlieir hberty; and thus admitted 
 into the bosom of the constitution that party who would 
 not hesitate in co-operating with James to destroy it." 
 The people of Ireland, the great majority of whom were 
 catholic, naturally glowe-d with enthusiastic gratitude to 
 that monarch who had so generously struck off .the bolts 
 pf the penal laws, and had admitted every man in Ire- 
 land, without any restraint on his conscience or violation 
 of his religious principles, to enjoy the highest privileges 
 of the state. They rejoiced to see their countryman, the 
 earl of Tyrconnel, invested with full powers to put into 
 execution the roj'al wishes; and though the enemies of 
 Ireland have represented this Irish nobleman as violent, 
 tyrannical, furious, and precipitate, yet he succeeded, in 
 a short time, so to new model every branch of political 
 power in Ireland, that the Irish nation was, in the hour 
 of James' adversity, the last and strongest pillar of his 
 power. The law, the army, and the corporations, were 
 soon filled with catholics, and the parliament shortly par- 
 took of the character of the corporations. That the pro- 
 testants, wlio had so long maintained an exclusive mono- 
 poly of all the emoluments and honors of office, who were 
 the legislators and administrators of law, who enjoyed an 
 undivided controul over the property and industry of the 
 country, should now be loud in their complaints against 
 the audacious innovation which admitted the people of 
 Ireland to a participation of the constitution, is to be ex- 
 pected by every man who reflects for a moment on the ra- 
 pacity of that political ambition which never can loe sa- 
 tiated ; which sees the destiuction of its power in the com- 
 munication of the privileges it enjoys, and which is per- 
 petually insulting the victims of its oppression by their 
 clamorous panegyrics on their free constitution. The pro- 
 testants of this day loudly clamored against the tolerant 
 spirit of their king; and as the English were the enemies 
 
443 
 
 of James, because he contemplated the estabhslmient of 
 unhmited monarchy, the Irish protestants were his ene- 
 mies because he resolved on the destruction of their mo- 
 nopoly. 
 
 The earl of Tyrconnel had nearly accomplished the ob- 
 ject of his sovereign in Ireland, when the news arrived 
 that the prince of Orange had determined to invade Eng- 
 land, and drive the English monarch from his throne. 
 The rumor flew through Ireland, and all classes of the 
 people were thrown into confusion. The protestants, who 
 were no longer the governors of Ireland, panted for a re- 
 turn of their monopoly, and the catholics trembled for 
 the safety of that king from whom they had experienced 
 such protection. The Irish nation were immediately in 
 arms to defend their sovereign ; and from, the zeal and the 
 determination which the Irish, in 1688, manifested in favor 
 of James' cause, may the kings of England learn how easy 
 it is to command their fidelity and allegiance. ]Mr. Le- 
 land says an armed rabble arose at the call of the Irisli 
 priests ; but the same historian is obliged to confess that 
 this same armed rabble had nearly disputed with success 
 the rights of sovereignty Avith William. It is acknowledg- 
 ed, that if conducted with the spirit and the energy of 
 such a commander as the English army enjoyed, the result 
 of the struggle would have been the victory of Irish valor. 
 Various expedients were adopted to rouse the apprehensions 
 of the protestants of Ireland. Anonymous letters were 
 industriously circulated, announcing a general massacre; 
 and the deception so far succeeded, as to work upon the 
 fears of the protestant inhabitants of Derry to such a de- 
 gree, that they shut its gates against the king's troops, and 
 determined to wait the arrival of the English rebels, to 
 whom they inmiediately sent their ambassadors. Ennis- 
 killen followed the example of Derry, and parties arose in 
 all the northern counties, declaring their determination to 
 co-operate with the Enghsh in defence of the constitution 
 and the protestant rehgion. The city of Dcn-y and the 
 
444 
 
 town of Enniskillen sent forward their commissioners to 
 lord Clarendon, in whom they reposed their confidence^ 
 praying him to lay their grievances and present situation 
 before kins William. The latter received their ambas- 
 sudors with the warmest promises of his protection, and 
 assured them that he would take care of the Irish pro- 
 testant." In the mean time Tyrconnel was encoaraged 
 by a message from James, who had fled to France, that he 
 would shortly assert his rights in person, and that he would 
 make Ireland the theatre of the struggle. Lord Inche- 
 quin headed the protestants of Munster, and lord King- 
 ston those of Connaught. Animated by the hope of aid 
 from England, the north eastern towns of Ireland pro- 
 claimed William and Mary. An energetic movement of 
 the Irish goverment soon dissipated this little spirit of re- 
 sistance. The rebel* were driven frojn town to town, and 
 the city of Derry alone was able or willing to defy the me- 
 naces of the viceroy. In the mean time James arrived 
 from France to contend for his crown and dominions. It 
 appears that ekher the pride or the ambition of Jame* 
 completely damped the ardor of the French minister in 
 the cause of tlie Irish nation. Louvois, who was at tliis 
 time the minister of Lewis XIV., prolicred ample supplies 
 of men, nK)ney and arms, to James ; but connected his of- 
 fers of aid with a request that the expedition for Ireland 
 should be commanded by his son, that he might have the 
 honor, as he observed, of preserving one crown for his 
 "majesty. This James in an unhappy moment refused. 
 The friendship of Louvois changed to an implacable hos- 
 tility, Avhich he gratified to the defeating of the best in- 
 terests of Lewis, and the fatal effects of which James ex- 
 perienced in an ample degree in some time after. The 
 ervl of Tyrconnel could not be intimidated by the threats . 
 iior seduced by the promisesof William, to abandon bis 
 master ; he preserved the sovereignty of James entire and 
 imdisturbcd, except in one corner of the kingdom ; and an 
 uiifortmiate policy alone contributed to make this the 
 
445 
 
 most fatal resistance to the arms of James. James sailed 
 from France with fourteen ships of war, six frigates, and 
 three fire ships. Twelve hundred of his own native sub- 
 jects, and one hundred French officers, fofmed his army. 
 fie arrived at Kinsale on the 12th of March. Tyrconnel 
 immediately went to Cork, where he was created a duke. 
 
 The people made extraordinary demonstrations of joy 
 in all parts, having never seen a king in the kingdom since 
 Henry II. The duke of Berwick, in his memoirs, says 
 that addresses poured from all parts ; that the king re- 
 ceived equal attention from all classes, protestant and ca- 
 tholic. He issued his proclamation for the meeting of 
 parliament in Dublin on the 7th of May, 1689. He 
 then sent forw^ard detachments of his army to reduce the 
 rebels of the north, and particularly the city of Derry, 
 which was then the great depot of rebellion. The besieg- 
 ed prepared for a vigorous defence. Walker, a protectant 
 clergyman, was chosen governor. This divine distinguish- 
 ed himself by the intrepidity of his spirit, and the judici- 
 ousness of his arrangements. He left no expedient untried 
 to animate his fellow soldiers in the defence of the last re- 
 treat of the friends of William. He appealed to their 
 religious feelings, and boldly called upon them to defend 
 their free constitution against the threats of despotism, and 
 the protestant religion against the abominable superstitions 
 of catholicity. In Berwick's memoirs, we read that eigh- 
 teen clerg'j'men of the established church shared the dan- 
 gers of the siege, and harangued their flocks. Every ef- 
 fort which human courage, or the militar}^ knowledge of 
 that day could suggest, was adopted to force the gallant 
 men under the command of Walker to surrender; every 
 privation was borne by the besieged with a'fortitude which 
 challenges our credulity, ^nd the most desperate expe- 
 dients of the Irish commanders were defeated by a heroism 
 which is not surpassed in ancient or modern days. 
 
 There was one threat held out to intimidate the besieged, 
 disgraceful to the general wdio conceived it. It was as 
 
44(3 
 
 barbarous as it was foolish, and recoiled on the hand who 
 had the cruelty to put it in execution. ISIarshal de Rosen, 
 who commanded the besieging army, threatened to drive 
 all the protestants who Hihabited the surrounding country 
 under the walls of Derry, naked and defenceless, unless 
 its defenders immediately surrendered. The garrison re- 
 mained unmoved by the barbarity of this cowardly menace. 
 The threat of de Rosen was enforced ; but, by the express 
 order of James, the unhappy victims of this infamous idea 
 w ere rescued from the most distressing situation. Soon 
 after, this brave garrison was relieved by the presence of 
 an English convoy, who succeeded in entering the city, 
 and suppl3'ing the almost exhausted inhabitants with every 
 necessary they required. De Rosen seeing the garrison 
 relieved, immediately returned to Dublin, leaving a strong 
 force in Charlemont. Every reader must admire the bold 
 intrepidity Avith which Dr. Walker and his brave compa- 
 nions defended the city against the great force which 
 James was able to bring against them. Mr. Leland and 
 other colonial writers are loud in the praises of this eccle- 
 siastical hero, wlio thus preserved the cause and the reli- 
 gion of the protestants in Ireland. We join most willingly 
 in the general acclamation; but we cannot here refrain 
 from callino- to the reader's recollection how different an 
 opinion Mr. Leland entertains of those illustrious catholic 
 clergymen, who, under circumstances somewhat similar to 
 those of Dr. Walker, sacrificed their lives in defence of 
 their religion and their liberties. With Mr. Ldaiul, such 
 clergymen, so acting, merited the scaffold. It is in such 
 instances Mr. Leland's sectarian prejudices are most un- 
 just and ungenerous. 
 
 When Dr. Walker and his eighteen clerical companions 
 in arms animated the protestant inhabitants of Deiry to 
 arms, they acted under the conviction that they were de- 
 fending the cause of liberty as well as religion. Dr. Walk- 
 er could not distinguish the little circle in which the Irish 
 protestants moved, from the great circle of Ireland, in 
 
447 
 
 which the catholic people were the majority. Dr. Walker 
 conceived that protestant liberty consisted in catholic dis- 
 honor and degradation, and that the ascendancy of his 
 religion in the state was essential to the safety of liis poli- 
 tical freedom. He acted under this conception, however 
 erroneous, and he acted with a spirit and a heroism wor- 
 thy of a more generous cause. Every enlightened reader 
 must applaud the man, though he may at the same mo- 
 ment lament that so much valuable blood was profusely 
 shed in support of a monopoly which, in the following 
 years, withered the rich and fertile fields of our country. 
 The Irish army being obliged to abandon the siege of 
 Derry, James returned to Dublin, in 1689, where he as- 
 sembled the parliament ; he also published his declaration 
 in favor of liberty of conscience, promising to the protes- 
 tant as well as the catholic, an equal and impartial share 
 of the royal protection. It appears that no sentiment at 
 this period could be more ungrateful to protestant ears 
 than the sentiment of universal toleration. There was no 
 political liberty, in the opinion of that age, which did 
 not create a torturing ascendancy ; and those principles 
 which would conciliate the hearts and affections of all en- 
 lightened protestants of the present day, were the most 
 efficient means of generating distrust and hostihty in the 
 bosoms of their ancestors. James' declaration therefore in 
 favor of toleration, was the signal which united protestant 
 England against his pretensions to recover his throne. 
 The Irish parliament now proceeded to the adoption of a 
 measure which threatened to overturn the English interest 
 entirely ; namely, the repeal of the act of settlement.* 
 
 * We believe it may with justice be asserted, that there cannot be found 
 in the annals of political depravity a more abandoned act of legislation 
 than the act of settlement to which Charles II. gave his consent, 
 and which went not only to plunder the most constant and incorrupti'ole 
 friends to his restoration, but enrich and aggrandize their most invet- 
 erate enemies. 
 
 That Ireland should have seized the first opportunity to assert her 
 rights, to close the yet bleeding wounds of her children, is the first 
 iinpulse of ^ur nature ; and it not embraced when fortune favored. 
 
448 
 
 Such a proceeding, however ruinous it must be to a large 
 portion of innocent and unoffending persons, who then 
 held their properties under the act of settlement, it must 
 be confessed to be a natural and obvious act of retribution 
 to the thousands who had been beggared by that act, and 
 who were now shedding their blood in the cause of James 
 
 her, v.'ould be unaccounlable for by any rule whereby hu^an conduct is 
 generally directed. Mr. Leland, and all other colonial writers who 
 have preceded him, always take a part for the whole of the Irish nation; 
 they talk of the few, and forget the many; they cling to their darling 
 ascendancy, and plunge into oblivion the great mass of catholic popu- 
 lation by which they were surrounded. Such writers misled and de- 
 ceived ; the system of policy which they retommead an English govern- 
 men: in Ireland to adopt, is narrowed to the wretched foundation 
 which they have laid, as if the materials which might be suited to the 
 building of a cabin, could by any possibility be ever applied to the 
 building of a castle. The perfection of Irish government, in the opinion 
 of such writers, is the swoln and bloated corpulency of ascendancy, and 
 an imp(>verished and worn down people. If the doors are well barred, 
 and the prisoners well bolted, if the jail be secure, this is the summit 
 of good government, and the great secret by which Irish affairs can 
 best ihe aaministered. The act of settlement robbed the Irish people, 
 to enrich (comparately speaking) a handful of miserable adventurers 
 from England. Ireland, when her arms were unbound, in 1687, claim- 
 ed her property, and expelled the invaders of her rights, no matter 
 what religion these invaders professed. This was as it ought to be; 
 but time, which is the grand disposer and settler of all human affairs, 
 has given a stability and duration to this act, which obliterates all the 
 ideas of injustice that justly exasperated the Irish catholic of I6S7. Lord 
 Clare, in the year 1789, thus spoke of the act of settlement; and 
 when the reader considers the fatal politics of this very remark- 
 able Irish senator, he will perhaps more highly estimate the opinions 
 which lie has delivered on Irish affairs. The constant reviler of his 
 country, he employed his great talents to effect its complete subjuga- 
 tion to England ; he laughed at the policy which so long contributed 
 to ennoble and enrich Ireland, and at last succeeded in accomplishing 
 her humiliation and his own ruin. When his country was prostrate J>t 
 the feet of the English minister, he found, when it was too late, that 
 he lost the firm footing on which all his greatness stood. The first 
 man in Ireland made but a sorry figure in the imperial senate, where 
 he was doomed to be reproached by the noble advocates of English 
 liberty, with being the willing instrument of his country's degrada- 
 tion. The rebuke preyed on his ambitious spirit, and the tomb soon 
 concealed him from the pity ,or the detestation of the empire. This un- 
 fortunate nobleman thus spoi^e of the sict of settlement, in 17S9. " Give 
 me leave to say sir, when we speak of the people of Ireland, it is a 
 melancholy truth that we do not speak of the great body of the people. 
 This is a subject on which it is extremely painful to me to speak in this 
 assem.bly ; but when I see the right hon. member, (Mr. Grattan) driv- 
 ing the gentlemen of Ireland lo the verge of a precipice, it is neces- 
 ssaryto speak out. Sir, the ancient nobility and gentry of this king- 
 dom have been hardly treated. Tkat act by which most of us hold our 
 
449 
 
 and the crown of England. Tbat such men should be at- 
 tended to, when they remonstrated against the injustice 
 under which they and their tiimilies had sujEfered for twen- 
 ty years, is not surprising, when we consider that the re- 
 lations and the friends of these very men who then possessed 
 large and extensive properties under the act of settlement. 
 
 estates, was ^n act of violence, an act palpably subverting the first 
 principles of tlie common law of England and Ireland. I speak of the 
 act of settlement passed in this country immediately after the rcttor- 
 ation, which vests the estate of every man who had been dispossessed du- 
 ring the rebellion of 1641, absolutely in the crown; and puts the old 
 proprietors to the necessity of proving that they had not been guilty of 
 high treason, in order to avoid the penalties of confiscation ; V>'iuclx 
 by the sacred and fundamental principles of the common Jaw, can 
 be incurred only upon conviction and attainder. And, that gentle- 
 men may know the extent to which this summary confiscation is gone, 
 I will tell them that every acre of l.tnd in the country that pavs quic- 
 rent to the crown, is held by title under the act of settlement; so thit 
 I trust the gentlemen on the ojiposite benches will deem it a subject 
 worthy of their consideration, how far it may be prudent to pursue 
 the successive claims of dignified and untquivocal independence made 
 for Ireland by the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Grattan.)" 
 
 Here stands the opinion of an Irish protestant of the highest rank 
 and talent in the legislature, of the merits of the act of settlement, and 
 that opinion delivered one hundred and twenty years after this infamous 
 act was passed. If such were his feelings and sentiments with regard 
 to its merits, what must have been the feelings of those whose famdies 
 were beggared by its enactment, and who in 1687 enjoyed the oppor- 
 tunity of repealiug it ? Yet the colonial writers of Irish liirtory de- 
 claim in furious and abusive languaee against the injustice of restaring 
 pr6perty to its rightful owner. The protesta«t of the present day i« 
 too enlightened and too liberal to refuse his acknowledgment of the 
 cruelty of the act of settlement, and the right which the Irish nation 
 had to resume their plundered property. 'l"he catholic reads the sufier- 
 ings of his ancestors with an honest and generous sympathy, but he 
 sees that whatever property he himself now enjoys, is depending on 
 the duration of this very act which the Ipish parli'ament of 1(>S7 re- 
 pealed. One hundred years have made the protestant and catholic title 
 the same. Both are equally interested in each other's security. 'I'he 
 liberal and enlightened policy of the last thirty years his thrown iu'.o 
 oblivion the oppression of fanaticism, and the suspicions of the pro- 
 testant no longer interrupt that contidence which all sects should re- 
 pose in each other. Mr. Grattan, in his profound and.,btatfcsman- 
 like speech of 1792, for ever silenced the objections grounded on the 
 supposed event of the Irish catholic repealing the act of settlement. 
 " Whatever, theiefore (says our great countryman) may be the crime of 
 the catholic 'to ground a code of disability, there is one offence of 
 which he is not, and of which he cannot now be guilty — disaffection ; 
 because the ol^jects and the resource of disaffection, and with them the 
 principle itself, must have departed. His offence is therefore reduced 
 to two heads — his nativity, as connected with claims of property, and 
 bis religion, as distinct from views of politics; as to the first, he 
 
 111. 
 
450 
 
 were in arms against their lawful king, and struggling to 
 drive him from his throne. With regard to Ireland, it 
 was at this period a proceeding of great public justice to 
 repeal the act of settlement to which the perfidious Charles 
 assented ; but with regard to England, it might have been 
 more judicious not to adopt a measure which might have 
 created such inveterate hostility. James was against the 
 repeal; but the voice of the nation was irresistible, and 
 the act of settlement was overturned, with few dissenting 
 voices. They then proceeded to attaint all absentees who 
 would not return to their country and join the royal stan- 
 dard. But let us now pass on to the more grateful office 
 of recording those acts, in which this catholic and protes- 
 tant parliament (for it was a mixed assembly) have mani- 
 fested a true Irish independent feeling ; where we see our 
 countrymen lifted up into the proud character of Irish 
 legislators, making laws by which the independence of 
 their country is asserted, and their past humility to Eng- 
 land blotted from the records of an Irish parliament. 
 
 The laws which were enacted by this distinguished as- 
 sembly of Irishmen, whom Mr. Leland and other Irish 
 calumniators are pleased to denominate a pretended par- 
 liament, were the true and genuine offspring of a sincere 
 patriotism, not regulating its feelings by the measure of 
 
 strongly and immediately meets the charge ; he denies the possibility 
 of their existence. He denies that he could benefit or you lose by the 
 repeal of the act of settlement ; he relies upon it that your title is by 
 time, as well as by act of parliament; he insists that a greater number 
 of Roman catholics take under the act of settlement, than could prefer 
 claim en the repeal of it ; that such claims, if any, are commoa to 
 you, as your title under the act of settlement is common to him ; 
 and he offers you any assurance, not only for your titles, which 
 he reveres, but for your fears, which be respects; and he alledges that 
 the whole 'stholic body are ready and desirous to take the same oath 
 to secure the act of settlement, which you have thought sufficient to 
 secure the succession to the crown. He desires you to name your own 
 conditions and terms of abjuration, touching any imputed claim oa 
 this subject. Thus the code of disabilities, as far as they arc maintain- 
 ed on this ground, is reduced to an act of power, which disables 
 tiiree riiilions of people for the unallov/able dissent of a few, grounded 
 on the apprehension of claims imputed to that few, which they can- 
 not trace, whicii tJone can make, and which all abjure." 
 
451 
 
 English toleration, but boldly and unequivocally asserting 
 the rights and privileges of a free people. They first de- 
 clared that the parliament of England cannot bind Ire- 
 land, and that the ultimate appeal should for the future be 
 placed in the Irish house of lords. They passed an act 
 in favor of liberty of conscience, and for repealing all 
 acts, or clauses in any act of parhament, which are incon- 
 sistent with the same. They passed an act for the encour- 
 ao-ement of stranirers of all sects and denoniiuiitions to in- 
 habit and plant in the kingdom of Ireland. They also 
 passed an act for the advance and improvement of trade, 
 and for the encouragement and increase of shipping and 
 navigation. These were the great leading and distinguish- 
 ed works of the Irish parliament which met in the year 
 1689. Let this parliament, then, be judged by its acts ; let 
 it be compared with that assembly which, under the direc- 
 tion of Mr. Grattan's eloquence, established a free consti- 
 tution for the protestants of Ireland, in 1782. The reader 
 will see the great superiority of the acts of parliament of 
 1689, in the single consideration that Mr. Grattan's par* 
 liament legislated for a part — the parhament of 1689 legis- 
 lated for the whole. Mr. Grattan, no doubt, established 
 a free trade, and thus gave liberty to the industry of Ire- 
 land, without distinction of religion ; but he could not, 
 even in his iHdependent parliament, communicate to the 
 catholics of Ireland, the free constitution he procured for 
 the protestants. He could not estabhsh the great compre- 
 hensive principle of liberty of conscience, nor overturn 
 that religious monopoly, under whose withering influence 
 the free trade and the free constitution of Mr. Grattan 
 little more than illuminated the prison of the catholic. la 
 that Irish parliament which passed the acts we have recited, 
 we see no effort to plunder the protestant by law, to de- 
 prive him of education, to set the protestant child against 
 his ftither, to encourage perjuiy, to demoralize society, and 
 to barbarize the country : those sacred labours were re- 
 served for the loyal parhaments which were to follow. Let 
 
453 
 
 Tto man therefore insult the Irish understanding by his 
 idle declamation against the 'bigotry of the Irish parlia- 
 ment of 1689. They broke the chains with which the in- 
 tolerance of the reformers bound down the energies of our 
 country ; and set an example of public spirit, which was 
 followed at an hiunble distance by the powerful genius of 
 Grattan. Far be it from our intention to disparage the 
 acts of this great and illustrious Irish senator. We hope 
 we look back upon his labors with the reverence due to the 
 superiority of his genius, and the inflexibiUty of his integ- 
 rity. But Mr. Grattan could do no more with the materi- 
 ,als he had to work with ; he looked forward with gener- 
 ous enthusiasm to that hour when he could take under the 
 protecting shelter of his free constitution, the catholic as 
 well as the protestant. He thought he had raised a flame 
 of patriotism in the protestant bosom, which might, in 
 no very remote day, communicate its light to the most dis- 
 tant c6rner of his country. He raised a vast superstruc- 
 ture on a small foundation ; and in his endeavours to en- 
 large the base, the insidious artifices of monopoly ovei'- 
 threw the dazzling edifice, and buried his labors in the ru- 
 ins. This Irish parliament of 1689 was composed of pro- 
 testants and catholics. It may not be uninteresting to 
 the descendants of those men who took a part in the as- 
 sertion of national freedom, to read over the names of their 
 ancestors ;* they will there find a full reply to the impudent 
 accusation, that the liberal and enlighteijed catholic was 
 the advocate of passive obedience. They will observe in 
 the proceedings of this calumniated assembly, the true spi- 
 rit of independence, taking such broad and firm groisnd as 
 would have rendered it invincible under a monarch of 
 courage or of talent. Mr. Leland has industriously la- 
 bored to perpetuate the slanders of archbishop King, and 
 sets down such palpable absurdities as must excite the 
 indignation of every reader. It will not be supposed that 
 
 • See appendix. 
 
453 
 
 at the very moment the Irish protestant was sitting on the 
 same benches with his cathohc countryman, making and 
 administering the laws of his country, asserting the hber- 
 ties and the rights of conscience, the cathohc counsellors 
 of king James should have been recommending his majesty 
 t» order a public plundering of the bakers throughout the 
 metropolis, in order that the prctestants might be starved ; 
 yet Mr. Leland feels it his duty as an honest liistorian to 
 re-echo the vicious fabrication of King. " Yet certain it 
 is," says Mr. Leland,- " that during that melancholy in- 
 terval in which the popish laity were predominant, protes- 
 tants felt all the distresses arising from a state of war and 
 disorder, aggravated by the wanton insolence of their ad- 
 versaries. If they attempted to purchase corn, or other 
 provisions, with the brass coin, these were instantly seized 
 for the king's use, and the proprietors imprisoned as men 
 who intended to supply the enemy. * We Were at a loss' 
 saith archbishop King, ' what the meaning of taking away 
 corn from protestant farmers, housekeepers and bakers, 
 should be, when there was no scarcity in the kingdom ; 
 but sir Robert Parker and some others blabbed it out in 
 the coffee-house, that they designed to starve one half of 
 the prctestants and hang the other, and that it would never 
 be well till this was done. We were sensible that they 
 were in earnest by the event ; for no protestant could get a 
 bit of bread, and hardly a drop of drink, in the whole 
 city of Dublin. Twenty or thirty soldiers stood constant- 
 ly about every bake-house, and would not suSer a protes- 
 tant to come in." Mr. Leland is not content with takinor 
 this infamous and audacious falsehood from Kino-; ]ie con- 
 sents to endorse it with his own opinion of its truth, and 
 asserts its credibility without producing a single witness to 
 confirm it. His observation is as follows : " Such repre- 
 sentations are sometimes derided as the fictions of an in- 
 flamed fancy. But however improbable those instances of 
 senseless tyranny may appear, they are confirmed by un- 
 doubted traditions received from the sufferers, and trans' 
 
454 
 
 mltted with every circumstance of credulity." The Irish 
 catholic should no longer wonder, that the protestant 
 youth who has been obliged to read the pages of Mr. Le- 
 land, should have gone into the world with the prejudices 
 of his preceptor. This single fact, to which neither the 
 religion nor the patriotism of Mr. Leland could prompt 
 him to refuse his assent, is sufficient to corrupt the heart 
 and bias the understanding of him who is taught to con- 
 sider i\Ir. Leland as an authorit}' on whom he can rely — 
 •who swallows his calumnies as facts, and his destructive 
 principles as the future guide of his political conduct. 
 The march of education in this country has in a great 
 measure dissipated the vicious labors of the bribed his- 
 torian. The Irish mind investigates, reflects, and com- 
 pares. The understanding is no longer outraged by the 
 artifices of fraud, or the credulity of prejudice; the whole 
 scene is carefully examined, and justice is at length per- 
 forming her duty to an abused nation. 
 
 The Irish parliament had now (1689) proceeded a good 
 way in laying the groundwork of Ireland's future indepen- 
 dence and happiness, when the duke of Schomberg, at the 
 head of ten thousand men, invaded their country. He 
 arrived at Carrickfergus on the 13th of August, 1689, 
 which, after some resistance, was obliged to yield to the 
 su]3erior power of the invader. The duke of Berwick 
 collected all the troops he could procure, and proceeded 
 towards Newry to interrupt the progress of Schomberg. 
 The duke was soon followed by the earl of Tyrconnel with 
 twenty thousand men : Schomberg retreated, and fortify- 
 ing himself in his camp, waited the advance of the Irish 
 army. The generals of the latter preferred relying on the 
 possible losses which the English might sustain in an un- 
 wholesome position, to any experiment by force to expel 
 them their country. Half the English troops fell victims 
 to disease ; and Schomberg thus suffered the winter months 
 to pass in an inglorious inactivity. Flis army however 
 was soon reinforced in the spring of the following year. 
 
455 
 
 Seven thousand Danes joined the Engh'sh \rith an abun- 
 dant supply of military stores for the use of Schoniberg's 
 troops. Schomberg immediately opened the campaign; 
 and the fort of Charlemont, in the north of Ireland, was 
 forced to surrender, after a bravely contested siege, under 
 the command of Teague O'Regan. The slowness of Schom- 
 berg's progress in Ireland roused the impatience of Wil- 
 liam and the English nation, and he determined to put 
 an end to the campaign in his own person. The English 
 sovereign landed at Carrickfergus, at the head of a large 
 force, accompanied by the young duke of Ormond, thd 
 earls of Oxford, Scarborough, and Manchester. Harris, 
 in his life of William, says, " the English army, when 
 mustered at Loughbrickland, were at the lov/est estimate 
 thirty-six thousand strong, English, French, Dutch, Danes, 
 and Brandenburghers, all well appointed in every res- 
 pect." William immediately proceded to arrange the o- 
 perations of the campaign ; for, says this active soldier, " I 
 have not come to Ireland to let grass grow under my feet." 
 James left Dublin the 16th of June, at the head of six 
 thousand men, and proceeded to join his army, then en- 
 camped at Castletown Bellew, near Dundalk. Never was 
 a monarch supported in a contest for empire with more ea- 
 thusiasm than James was by the Irish ; and never was a 
 victory more certain to Ireland, if it had pleased Provi- 
 dence that the director of her resources and her spirit had 
 possessed the talents and the vigor necessary in so great a 
 struggle. 
 
 While William halted at Newry three or four days, 
 waiting for his artillery, and deliberating whether he 
 should march straight to Dundalk or take the road by 
 Armagh, one of his reconnoitring parties was observed 
 every night to insult a guard of cavalry posted at the pass 
 of Half-way bridge, between Dundalk and Newry. A de- 
 tachment of horse and foot was placed in ambuscade, un- 
 der colonel Dempsey and lieutenant-colonel Fitzgerald, to 
 cut it off, and succeeded. The party, consisting of two 
 
456 
 
 lumdred foot and sixty dragoons, fell into ambuscade at 
 day break, and was almost entirely cut off or taken, with 
 very little loss on the side of the Irish. As the army of 
 William advanced, that of James retreated, to Ardee on 
 the 23d of June, to Dumlave the 27th, and on the 28th 
 passed the Boyne and encamped opposite the bridge, with 
 the right towards Drogheda, and the left extending up the 
 river. This appeared to James and his generals the best 
 position in the country. He therefore resolved to con- 
 tinue there and wait his enemy's approach, though his ar- 
 my did not amount to more than twenty thousand, and 
 that of William was nearer to forty thousand. It would 
 have swelled the pages of this compendium to have enter- 
 ed minutely into the details of all the battles which we 
 have recorded ; nor shall we now attempt to describe the 
 fluctuating fortune of this great day, the 1st of July, 
 1690, which decided the power of James and the liberties 
 of Irishmen ; which once more gave up Ireland to a gov- 
 ernment of intolerance and the avarice of England ; which 
 sacrificed the great majority to the monopoly of the few, 
 and made that sect of our fellow Christians, (who would 
 in the present day communicate the blessings they enjoy) 
 the task-masters rather than the fellow-subjects of their ca- 
 tholic countrymen. 
 
 We shall not fight the battle of the Boyne in this com- 
 pendium ; but we will repeat the saying which is reported 
 to have fallen from the Irish army when their monarch 
 (though abandoning the field of battle and flying his coun- 
 try) complained of their inferiority to his English subjects. 
 " Exchange commanders," said the Irish, " and we will 
 fight the battle over again ;" a proud testimony to the valor 
 and the conduct of William, and an ample commentary 
 on that of his unfortunate competitor. The miserable re- 
 sults of this day's struggle seemed to have "totally unman- 
 ned the vanquished James. He fied precipitately to Dub- 
 lin, under the protection of his most illustrious general, 
 Sarsfield, and from thence to Cork, where he embarked for 
 
457 
 
 France, leaving liis faithful and brave people to struo-o-le, 
 as they might, with their common enemy. Such a king 
 deserved the fate he experienced ; he lost his empire, and 
 he deserved to lose it. When this dastardly monarch ar- 
 rived in Dublin he assembled the magistracy, and declared 
 his inability to defend them. Flight seemed to be his only 
 object; and that consideration which should be his first, 
 namely, the safety of his people, who stood by him in all 
 his adversity, seemed to be the last sentiment of his coward 
 he»!.rt. The Irish army, who now repaired to Limerick, 
 still had leaders in whom they could confide. Sarsfield, 
 the dukes of Berwick and Tyrconnel, with the French ge- 
 neral M. de Lausen, still remained to contend with Wil- 
 liam for the rights and privileges of Irishmen. 
 
 William, immediately on his arrival in Dublin, divided 
 his army and pursued the Irish. Wexford declared for 
 him. Cionmel was abandoned, and Waterford soon fol^ 
 lowed. Douglas, one of William's generals, advanced to 
 Athlone with ten regiments of foot and five of horse ; 
 he laid waste the country through which he passed. After 
 many desperate efforts to take Athlone, which was bravely 
 defended by an Irish officer of the name of Grace, this san- 
 guinary Englishman was compelled to retire in disgrace. He 
 joined the army of William in August, who was advancino- 
 to Limerick, the great seat of the Irish forqe. 
 
 Accoi'ding to the duke of Berwick's memoirs, the city 
 of Limerick had no fortification but a wall without ram- 
 parts, and some miserable little towers without ditches. 
 A sort of covered way was made all round, and a kind of 
 horn-work palisaded before the great gate, but the town 
 was not attacked on that side. Twenty thousand Irish in- 
 fantry, of \\'hom however not more than half were armed, 
 formed the garrison, while three thousand five hundred 
 Irish cavalry, stationed at five miles distance, on the Con- 
 naught side of the Shannon, maintained a free com- 
 munication with the town. The French troops retired 
 to Galway on the appearance of the English. The skill 
 
 Kk k 
 
458 
 
 rnd valor cxliibited by Sarsfield and, the duke of Berwick, 
 ill the defence of this celebrated city, was worthy of all 
 their former fame. Their example animated every bosom ; 
 even v/emen forgot their sex, and flew to arms in defence 
 of the liberties of their children. A successful breach be* 
 ing made in the walls by the besieging army, served but 
 to increase the ardor of the besieged; they filled up the 
 breach with their bodies, and thus exposed an impregnable 
 rampart to the enemy. With what sensations must Wil- 
 liam, who had been ever opj^osed to oppression and intol?r- 
 aTice, have viewed the glorious struggles which this brave 
 Iristi ai'my were making for the civil and religious free- 
 dom of their country ? The Englis«h monarch was forced 
 to raise the seige, and bow his head to the superior prowess 
 and s;.)irit of his eneni}'. It was inconsistent in the 
 character of William to attribute his failure to any other 
 cause than the invincible courage of his opponents ; he 
 sliould not have told the English {parliament that the heavy 
 rains alone caused him to raise the sie^'e of Limerick. 
 The duke of Berwick, an eye-witness, asserts, that not a 
 drop of rain Ml for above a month before, nor for three 
 weeks after.' It is not ver}' wonderful that Limerick, this 
 sacred theatre of Irish valor, en which the best blood 
 of her children was sned, should now be viewed by Ire- 
 land with feelings of solemn veneration ; nor should it be 
 matter of sui^prise, that the Irishman who is at this day o» 
 hliged to recapitulate the wrongs of his country, should 
 speak in tlie bold terms of remonstrance, when standing on 
 the ground where his ancestors fought for that liberty he 
 is oniy petitioning for. They are bad statesmen who 
 would not highly estimate that honest pride that can 
 trace its origin to so glorious a source ; and the spirit 
 of Irishmen will never "be vanquished, while they have eyes 
 to contcuiplate the graves of those brave and honorable 
 dead, who so signally struggled for their freedom. Soon 
 alter this inisuccessfiil efibrt on the part of William against 
 
459 
 
 the brave defenders of Limerick, he retired to Watcrfgrd, 
 antl from tlicnce embarked for England. 
 
 The Irisii war liad now cost him much anxiety; hiA 
 finest troops were wasted, and his best generals opposed 
 with unprecedented success. Schomberg found a rivaf in 
 iSarsfield ; and WilHam felt that a nation fiohtinfy for its 
 libertj', will sell that liberty at a dear rate to the conqueror. 
 Pie therefore instructed his generals to strike to the terms 
 of the Irish, whom he found he could not subdue, and to 
 put (by the most honorable, and of course tlie most salis- 
 iactory means,) a termination to a conflict in which he 
 had already exhausted so much blood and treasure. 
 William invested general Gincle and count holmes with 
 the command of his army, now quartered at Clonraeh 
 In the mean time Cork and Kinsale surrendered to the 
 rapid and decisive movements of the earl of Marlborough. 
 This achievement was accompiislied by the English gene- 
 ral in the space of twenty-three days, and was in E:ig!and 
 a source of great national pride and exultation. Athlone 
 also fell into the hands of the English army, who display- 
 ed in the attack the most imdaunted heroism. St. Ruth, 
 who commanded the town, was a victim to his ctjnscious- 
 ness of security against any effort of the enemy. Elis 
 situation was most formidable, and the obstacles to the 
 English general apparently invincible. The capture of 
 this place was one of the most brilliant achievements by 
 William's army during the entire campaign. That tlie 
 Iri.-,h had taught their enemies to respect and to dread the 
 effects of their couraoe and the skill of their iienerals, is 
 tolerably clear from a letter then written by the secretary 
 of the lords justices, lord Sydney and Thomits Coningsby, 
 to Gincle, the English general: "I did very much hope, 
 that after the taking of Athlone, some favorable decla) a- 
 tion might have been sent forth to break the Iri^h army, 
 and, save the expence of a field battle; but I see our civil 
 officers regard more adding fifty pounds a year to the Eng- 
 lish interest in this kiuirdom, than saviuij England the ex- 
 
460 
 
 j5en*e of fifty thousand. I promise myself it is for the 
 king's, the allies', and England's interest, to remit most 
 or all of the forfeitures, so that we could immediately 
 bring the kingdom under their majesties' obedience." 
 Gincle, who was a much better judge of his own situation, 
 and a much better estimator of the strength and talents of 
 the enemy with whom he had to contend, than the civil 
 officers of the Irish government, who were then perhaps 
 concealing themselves in their lurking places in Dublin, 
 trembling even at the reports of the battles which the Irish 
 were fighting, was so convinced of the immediate necessity 
 of a proclamation of honorable terms to the Irish, that he 
 published one on the 8th day of July, 1691, which was 
 in a few days confirmed by the deliberate wisdom of the 
 Irish government. The proclamation held out seducing 
 tem.ptations to the Irish to put an end to the war. It offer- 
 ed all commanders full possession of their estates; it offered 
 liberal rewards to those who had no landed property ; and 
 guarantied to all a free exercise of their religion. Here was 
 the best evidence of Irish valor; the honorable homage 
 to the skill and spirit of their generals. " As we find" said 
 Gincle " that we cannot conquer the Irish by our arms, 
 let us seduce them by their rights." It was a noble and 
 generous determination; but the policy, however pro- 
 found, did not succeed, and the Irish army under St. Ruth 
 and Sarsfield remained firm and undivided. 
 
 Gincle immediately concentrated his force, and march- 
 ed from Athlone. On the 12th of July the English army 
 advanced to the attack at Au<>hrira. One unfortunate 
 blow decided the celebrated battle of Aughrim. A can- 
 non ball struck St. Ruth early in the action, and thus de- 
 ranged those plans which that able man had so judiciously 
 laid, and which promised to insure victory to his army. 
 The Irish suffered so considerably, that we now find them 
 taking their last refuge in Limerick. Though the battle 
 of Aughrim was fatal to the Irish, yet the terms obtained 
 soon after by Galway, are another proof of the deep im- 
 
461 
 
 prcssion which their valor made on tlie mind of the Eng- 
 iish general. He saw and admitted the folly of prolonrr- 
 ing a contest which must cost his monarch so much blood. 
 He therefore offered such terms to Gahvay, as, under all 
 existing circumstances, must be admitted by every candid 
 reader, to be a full recognition of the rights for Avhich the 
 Irish were contending. They vvcre as follow — we shall o-ive 
 them as reported by Mr. Leland. 
 
 *' William was now anxious to be relieved from the op- 
 'pressive burden of his Irish struggle ; to prevent another 
 year of bloodshed in a country already wasted by dis- 
 tress ; to extricate the kingdom at once, from difficulties 
 grievous and dangerous. He resolved to grant such con- 
 ditions to Gahvay as might convince the whole Irish peo- 
 ple of the infatuation of their perseverance in a desperate 
 cause, and dispose them to an immediate submission. 
 The garrison was allowed to march out with all the honors 
 of war, and to be conveyed to Limerick ; with liberty to 
 .those who desired it, to continue in the town, or to repair 
 to their respective habitations. A free pardon was orant- 
 ed to the governor, magistracy, freemen and inhabitants, 
 with full possession of their estates and liberties, under 
 the act of settlement and explanation. The Romish cler- 
 gy and laity were allowed the private exercise of their re- 
 ligion, their lawyers to practise, and their estated gentle- 
 men to bear arms. Nor were those favorable terms with- 
 out their effect. Several considerable parties daily revolt- 
 ed from the Irish, and were either entertained in the army, 
 on taking the oaths to the king and queen, or dismissed 
 peaceably to their habitations." 
 
 To those who will assert that Ireland was conquered, 
 after reading the concessions which were here made to her 
 valour, do not stop to reflect on the cause which first 
 prompted her to take up arms. It was not the cause of 
 James, or Lewis, or the pope. It was their rights for 
 which Irishmen struggled, and at length they suceossfullj 
 fought their way to their r«-establishment. Sheath vour 
 
462 
 
 sword (says the English general) and you shall have the 
 price of all the blood that has been shed. Galway accept- 
 ed his terms and rescued her rights. Galway reposed in 
 that honor which was basely violated, and which exhibits 
 the power that was guilty of the violation more as a robber 
 than a conqueror. 
 
 The Irish tlius disputed every inch of their country with 
 the spirit of men deserving the rights which her op^ionents 
 agreed to concede: and when we consider the conduct of 
 that monarch for whose restoration Ireland was willinijf to 
 shell her best blood, we should suppose that the general 
 sentiment would rather be in favor of acknowledging the 
 sovereignty of William, on the honorable conditions 
 which we have seen granted to Galway. Limerick now re- 
 mained the last and most formidable depot of Irish intre- 
 ' pidity. Sarsfield, who determined to maintain the rights 
 of his country while he had life, was the intrepid com- 
 mander of this city. The English general now had the 
 experience of his master's defeat when he attempted the 
 capture of Limerick. He then witnessed the spirit of the 
 Irish soldier and the skill of his commander. It was not 
 surprising, therefore, that general Gincle, an officer of 
 the highest merit, should have had the good sense to pause 
 and reflect on the wihlness of that experiment which 
 would demand from such an enemy an unconditional 
 surrender of their city. He had granted to a place of less 
 consideration the rights of freemen. Limerick had the 
 example of Galway to animate her. We therefore find 
 that Gincle proposed similar terms to the people of Lim- 
 erick, by which wise policy he put an end to a war that 
 promised a long duration, when, fed by the resources of 
 foreign powers, and su};.ported by the unconquerable valor 
 of the Irish. Mr. Macpherson, in his history of Eng- 
 land says, that " the particulars of the second siege of 
 Limerick are neither important nor distinctly known. Six 
 weeks were spent before the place without any decisive ef- 
 fect; the garrison was well supplied with provisions; they 
 
463 
 
 were provitled with all means of defence ; the season had 
 now tar advanced ; the rains had set in ; the \\ inter itself 
 was near; Gincle had received orders to finish the war 
 u[)t)n any terjns. The Enghsh general offered conditions 
 whicli the Irish, had they even been victors, could scarcely 
 refuse with prudence. These terms were the liberties for 
 which they were fighting; the privileges which they en- 
 joyed in the reign of Charles II. and of which intolerance 
 M'ould have stripped them. Dr. Curry thus mentions the 
 surrender of Limerick to the English forces : " On the 3d 
 October, 1691, was surrendered to general Gincle, and 
 the loixis justices of Ireland, upon the articles of capitu- 
 lation here following, freely and solemnly entered into, the 
 city of Limerick, together with ail other garrisons then 
 held by the catholics of that kingdom, for king James* 
 These articles were ratified and exiemplified by their majes- 
 ties,- king William and queen Mary, under the great seal of 
 England, and in the year 1692, ratified by an act of the Irish 
 parliament." As many of the most fronlless enemies of the 
 liberty of the catholic have had the hardihood to assert, 
 that the }X)litical, civil, and religious privileges of the Irish 
 catholic were not guarantied and secured by the articles 
 of Limerick, we shall, even in a compendium of Irish his- 
 tory, set forth at length, and without mutilation, those 
 two articles by which the rights of Ireland were so une- i 
 quivocally conditioned for. These articles were lagrantly 
 violated by tire English and the Irish parliament. A c6w- 
 ardiy war of sophistry was waged by the devouring spirit 
 of confiscation against the naked and unarmed people of 
 Ireland. It is a o-reat lesson of instruction to the Irish 
 nation, and it is hoped will sufficiently demonstrate the ne- 
 cessity of everlastingly keeping up that firm imposing 
 countenance, which says to a rival nation, " We are al- 
 ways ready to resent oppression. Act with honor and with 
 justice, and wo will make common cause with you against 
 the world ; but attempt to plunder us of our property, 
 deprive us oi" our rights, or to throw us back into a state 
 
464 
 
 of barbarism, and we will no longer acknowledge our al- 
 legiance. The bond which cemented us is dissolved, and 
 in proportion to the strength of the obligation by which 
 you were bound to act fairly and coiTcctly, in the same 
 proportion do we feel indignant that you should be the ac- 
 tive instrument of our degradation." This is the lanouag-e 
 of truth, and the only language which is ever heard by 
 a government of intolerance ; it touches the sensitive chord 
 of selfishness, and makes the oppressor look in upon the 
 prudence or the common sense of his oppression. The ar- 
 ticles of Limerick were violated because the Irish nation 
 -was disarmed and divided — their spirit was broken, and 
 the English nation played the tyrant because she knew she 
 could trample on her victim with impunity. The great e- 
 vents of a century, however, have raised up Ireland from 
 her humbled station ; and England now dare no longer 
 think it wisdom to make experiments on the patience and 
 the feelings of the Irish people. The latter look back 
 with indiirnation on the base record of dishonor and inius- 
 tice which the violated articles of Limerick exhibit ; they 
 eall to their recollection the glorious efforts of their ances- 
 tors, and in the stern accents of an abused and insulted 
 creditor, demand from the English nation, the faithful 
 payment of that debt which their favorite monarch pledged 
 his honor to discharge. The articles which secured the 
 rights of Ireland, and for the obtaining of which, Sars- 
 iield and the brave men who fought by his side agreed to 
 sheath their swords, were as follows : 
 
 " 1st. The Roman catholics of this kingdom shall enjoy 
 such privileges, in the exercise of their religion, as are 
 consistent with the laws of Ireland, or as they did enjoy 
 ip the reign of king Charles II. and their majesties, as 
 soon as their affairs will permit them to summon a parlia- 
 ment in this kingdom, will endeavour to procure the said 
 Roman catholics such further security in this particular, 
 as may preserve them from any disturbance upon account 
 of their said reliiiion. 
 
465 
 
 2cl. All the inhabitants or resideiits of Limerick, or r.ny 
 other garrison now in the possession of the Irish ; all offi- 
 cers and soldiers now in arms under any commission of 
 king James, or those authorised by him to grant the same, 
 in the several counties of Limerick, Clare, Kerry, Cork, 
 and Mayo, or any of them ; and all the commissionetl 
 officers, in their majesties' quarters, that belong to the Irish 
 regiments, now in being, that are treated with, and who 
 are not prisoners of war, or have taken protection, and 
 ■who shall return and submit to their majesties' obedience, 
 and their and every of their heirs, shall hold, possess and 
 enjoy all and every their estates of freehold and inheritance, 
 and all the rights, titles, and interests, privileges and 
 immunities, which they and every or any of them held, 
 enjoyed, or were rightfully and lawfully entitled to, in the 
 reign of Charles II. or at any time since, by the laws and 
 statutes that were in force in the said reign of Charles 11. 
 and shall be put in possession by order of the government, 
 of such of them as are in the king's hands, or the hands of 
 his tenants, without being put to any suit or trouble 
 therein, and all such estates shall be freed of crown debts, 
 quit rents, and other public charges incurred and become 
 due since Michaelmas, 1688, to the day of tlie date here- 
 of; and all persons compreliended in this article shall have, 
 hold and enjoy all their goods and chattels, real and per- 
 sonal, to them or any of them belonging, and remaining 
 either in their own hands or the hands of any persons 
 whatsoever in trust for them, or for the use of them or 
 any of them ; and all and every ri^e said persons, of what 
 profession, trade or calling soever they be, shall or may 
 use, exercise, and practise their several and respective pro- 
 fessions, trades and calhngs, as freely as their use and ex- 
 ercise, and enjoy the same in the reign of king Charles II. 
 provided that nothing in this article contained be constru- 
 ed to extend to, or restore any forfeiting person, now out 
 of the kingdom, except what are hereafter comprised ; 
 provided also, that co person whatsoever shall have or 
 
 L a 
 
466 
 
 enjoy the benefit of this article, that shall neglect or refuse 
 to take the oath of allegiance made by an act of parlia- 
 ment in England, in the first year of the reign of their 
 present majesties, when thereunto required." 
 
 The ninth article conditions, that the oath to be ad- 
 ministered to such Roman catholics as submit to their 
 majesties' government, shall be the oath of allegiance, and 
 no othei". 
 
 If any man is to be found, in the present day, anned 
 T^ith sufficient front to deny that the rights of Ireland 
 were secured by the articles of Limerick, let the ar- 
 ticles themselves be stated, and the assertor will not repeat 
 the falsehood. He may say with the mercenary enemies 
 of Irish libert}', that king William had no power of per- 
 forming the promise which he made, of keeping sacred 
 his plighted faith ; that he should obey the will of the 
 English parliament, and that this parliament resolved to 
 dishonor their monarch, by forcing him to violate his faith 
 with the Irish nation. As this has been once urged, or some>- 
 thing that amounts to it, so may it be urged again ; but 
 it is not in the power of the sophist to disproA'e the fact, 
 that the Irish were a plundered and deceived nation ; 
 that tlw powers which could not conquer did betray, and 
 the heart which could not bend to force, was at length 
 obliged to surrender to fraud.* Harris, in his life of 
 
 * That the fnith which was solemnly pledg-ed to Ireland liy William, 
 was as solemnly violated, and that the infansuus violaiion was aggra- ' 
 vated by the insolent sophistry of cinfi.-icators, who struggled to bend 
 the plain and intelligible language of a clear and intelligible treaty, to 
 the mean and mercenary purposes of national plunder, is known to 
 every man who has read the history of Ei)o;land, however indifferent he 
 niav be to the fate and fortunes of Irishmen. Mr. Burke, who is ait 
 authority before whom the enemies as well as the friends of Ireland 
 are accustomed to bow with equal veneration, has left to the people 
 of the British empire and to the world, his opinion of this miserable 
 feau.re in the Uie of William, that monarch ot immortal memory, in 
 the opinion of every trading Irishman, speculating on the degradation 
 ot his country. 
 
 Among the many valuable legacies which that great and extraordinary 
 man, Edmund Burke, has bequeathed to his countrymen, there is none 
 perhaps so prt^gnant with solid and substantial advantage as his 
 •'Tracts on the Penal I>aws," published after his decease. They are deci- 
 sive against all the frothy declamation with which monopoly ba» ever- 
 
467 
 
 William, writes, that his majesty was so sensible of tho 
 necessity of colloctiiii^ and uniting his whole force ag-ainst 
 tlie formidable power of France, that in order to put a 
 speedy period to the Irish war, he had sent instructions 
 to the lords justices to issue a proclamation, assuring th« 
 Irish of much more favorable conditions than they after" 
 
 insulted our understantlin" and spirit, and alily vindicate that proud 
 tone of remonstrance by which every Irishman, who speaks on the 
 subject of Irish rig'hts, should he distinguished. Its solid and substan- 
 tial excellence will excuse its length ; its eloquence will delight, whil* 
 its masterly reasoning will instruct aud convince the reader, ijpeakiug 
 of the Vdnous plans of oppression and systems of torture practised by 
 England against I eland, he is carried to ttie articles of Limerick, 
 which clossd the Irish war of 1691. 
 
 " When," writes Mr. Burke, " by every expedient of force and 
 policy, by a war of some centuries, by extirpacing a number of th» 
 old, and by briHging in a numUer of new people, full of thoie opinions, 
 and intending to propagate them, they had fully compassed their ob- 
 ject, they suddenly took another turn, commenced an opposite perse- 
 cution, made heavy laws, carried on mighty wars, inflicted and suf- 
 fered the worst evils, extirpated the mass of the old, brought iu new 
 inhabitants; and they continue, at this day, an oppressive system, and may 
 for four hundred years to come, to eradicate opinions whicii by tha 
 same violent means they had been for four hundred years endeavouring by 
 every means ro establish. They compelled the people to submit, by 
 the forfeiture of ail their civil rights, to the pope's authority, in its 
 most extravagant and unbounded sense, as a giver of kingdoms : and 
 HOW they refuse even to tolerate them in the most raederate aud chas- 
 tised sentiments concerning it. No conmry^ I h.'lieve, since the tvorld bc^an, 
 kas siiffered so much on account of religion, or has ie^a so iiarioiuitj harassed 
 ift/t Jo I popery and protestantism, 
 
 " It will now be seen, that even if these laws could be supposed 
 agreeable to those of nature in those particulars, on another, and al- 
 most as strong a principle, they are yet unjust; as b;;ing contrary to posi- 
 tive compact, and the public taith, most solemnly plighted. 
 
 *' On the surrender of Limerick, and some other Irish garrisons, iu 
 the war of the revolution, the loids justices of Ireland, and the com- 
 mander in chief of the king's forces, signed a capitulation with tli« 
 5rish, which was afterwards ratified by the king himself, by insfeximut 
 vuider the great seal of England. It contains some public articles rela- 
 ti-ve to the whole body of the Roman catholics in that kingdom, and 
 some with regard to the security of the greater part of tiie luhabitants 
 of five counties. What the latter were, or in what maauer they wer« 
 observed, is at this day of much less public concern. The former v« 
 two, the first and ninth. The first of this tenor. ' The Roman catho- 
 lics of this kingdom (Ireland) shall enjoy such privileges, in the exercise 
 of religion, as are consistent with the laws of Ireland, or as they did 
 enjoy in the reign of Charles II.; aud their majesties, as soon as their 
 affairs will permit them to summon a parliament in this kingdom, will 
 endeavour to procure the said Roman catholics still further security in 
 that paiticular, as may preserve them from any disturbance on account 
 of religion.' The ninth article is to this effect. 'The oath to be ad» 
 aunistexed to such Roman catholics as submit to their snajeities' gOTcrnii* 
 
46S 
 
 wards obtained by the articles of Limerick. The jus- 
 tices formed those instructions into a proclamation, af- 
 terwards stiled the secret proclamation, because though 
 printed it was never published ; for their lordships, find- 
 ing Limerick reduced to the condition of capitulating, 
 Smothered the proclamation, and hastened to the camp,, 
 
 jnent, shall he the oath aforesaid and no other, viz. the oath of allegi- 
 ance made by act of parlianient in England, in the first year of their 
 ihen niaji-sties, as required by the second of the articles of Limerick.' 
 Compare this latter article with the penal laws, and judge whether they 
 seem to be the public acts of the same power, and observe whether 
 other oaths are tendered to them, and under what penalties. Compare 
 the former with the same laws, from the beginning to the end, and 
 judge whether the Roman catholics have been preserved agreeably to 
 the sense of tlie article, or rather whether, on that account, there is 
 a single right of nature, or benefit of society, which has not been either 
 totally t:iken away or considerably impaired. 
 
 " But it is said that the legislature was not bound by this article, as it 
 had never been ratified in parlianieiit. I do admit, that it never had 
 that sanction ; and tliat the parliament was under no oiiligation to ratify 
 those articles by any express act of theirs. But still I am at a loss how 
 they came to be the less valid in the printipes of our constitution, by being 
 •without that sanction. They certainly bound the king and his suc- 
 cessors ; the words of the article do this, or they do nothing; and so 
 far as the crown had a share in passing these acts, the public faith was 
 unquestionably broken. In Ireland, such a breach on the part of the 
 crown was much more uupardonable in administration than it would 
 have been here. They have, in Ireland, a way of preventing any bill 
 even from approachitig tlie royal presence in matters of far less im- 
 portance than the honor and the faith of the crown, and the well being 
 of a great body of the people For, besides that they might have op- 
 posed the fi.-st suggestion of it in the house of commons, it could not 
 be framed into a bill without the approbation of the council in Ireland. It 
 cculd not be returned to them again without the approbation of the king 
 and council here. They might have met it again in its occond passage through 
 thatliuuseof parhament in which it was originally suggested, as well as 
 in the other. If it had escaped them through ail these mazes, it was again 
 to come before the lord lieutenant, who might have sunk it by a re- 
 tusal of the royal assent. The constitution of Ireland isuerposed all 
 those checks to the passing of any constitutional act, however insig- 
 nificant in its own nature. But did the administration in that reign 
 avail themselves of any one of those o[)portnnities ? They never gave 
 the act of the 11th of queen Anne the least degree of opposition in 
 any one stage of its progress. What is rather the fact, many of 
 Rh- queen's servants encouraged it, reconnnended it, were in reality the true 
 authors of its passing in parliament, instead of recommending and using 
 their utmost endeavour to establish a law directly opposite in its tenden- 
 cy, as they were bound to do by the express letter of the very first 
 article of the treaty of Limerick. I'o say nothing of the ministry, who 
 • ju this instance shamefully betrayed tliC faith ct' government, may it 
 not be a matter of some degree tjf doibt, whether the parliament, who 
 do not claim a right of dissolving the furce of moral obligation, did 
 not make themselves a party in thia breach of contract, by presenting. 
 
* 469 
 
 that they might hold the Irish to as hard terms as the 
 king's affairs would permit — this they effected, and al- 
 though (says Mr. Harris) they deserved the thanks of 
 every protestant in Ireland, yet a party soon sprung up 
 that inveiglied loudly against these articles. The desio-n- 
 iug men of this party quarrelled with them only because 
 
 a bill to the crown in direct violation of those articles so solemnly and 
 so recently executtrd, which by the constitution they had lull autho- 
 rity to execute ? 
 
 " It may be further objected that when the Irish requested the rati- 
 fication of parliament to those articles, they did, in effect, themselve* 
 entertain a doubt concerning their validity without such a ratification. 
 To this I answer, that the collateral security was meant to bind the 
 crown and to hold it firm to its engagements. They did not therefore 
 call it a perfecting of the security, but an additional security, which it 
 could not have been if the first had been void ; for the parliament 
 could not bind itself more than the crown had bound itself. And if 
 all had made but one security, neither of them could be called addi- 
 tional witli propriety or common sense. But let us suppose that 
 they did apprehend, there might have been something wanting in this 
 security without the sanction of parliament. They were however 
 evidently mistaken ; and this surplusage of theirs did not weaken the 
 validity of the single contract, upon the known principle of law, 
 A'cj tolent, qute abundant^ •vitiare scriptural ; for nothing is more evident 
 than that the crown was bound, and that no act can be made without 
 the royal assent. But the constitution will warrant us in gu'wrr a 
 great deal further, and in affirming that a tretty executed by the 
 crown and contradictory of no preceding law, is full as binding on the 
 whole body of the nation as if it had twenty times received the sanction 
 of parliament ; because, the very same constitution which has given 
 to the houses of parliament their definite authority, has also left on the 
 ctown the trust of making peace, as a consecjuence, and much the 
 best consequence, of the prerogative of making war. If the peace 
 was ill made, my lords Galway, Conningsby and Porter, who signed, 
 were responsible, because they were subject to the community. But 
 its own contracts are not subject to it; it is a subject to them ; and the 
 compact of the king, acting constitutionally, was the compact of the 
 nation. 
 
 " Observe what monstrous consequences would result from a contrary 
 position. A loreign enemy has entered, or a strong domestic one has 
 arisen in the nation. In such events the circumstances may be, and 
 often have been, such that a parliament cannot sit. T/iis -uas precisely 
 the case in that reletlion in Ireland. It will be admitted also, that their 
 power may be so great, as to make it very prudent to treat with them 
 in order to save effusion of blood, perhaps to save the nation. How 
 could such a treaty be at all made, if your enemies or rebels were fuliy 
 persuaded that, in those times of confusion, there was no authority in 
 the state which could hold out to them an inviolate pledge for their 
 future security, but that there lurked in the constitution a dormant but 
 irresistible power, who would cot think itself bound by the ordinary 
 subsisting and contracting authority, but might rescind its acts ai.d ob- 
 ligations at pleasure. This would be a doctrine made to perpetuate and 
 exasperate war; «nd on that principle it directly impugns the law of 
 
470 
 
 their expectations were disappointed of raising large for-* 
 tunes out of the forfeitures. Those designing men to 
 whom ]Mr. Harris, the biographer of Wilham, alludes, 
 are exactly similar to the orangemen of our day, who 
 "uill not be satisfied with less than a monopoly of the con- 
 stitution, and all the advantages which those who are 
 brought under its shelter must necessarily enjoy. But 
 the wibdom of the conduct adopted by the English gen- 
 eral and to which the English monarch gave his most 
 
 nations, which is built upon this principle, that war should be soften- 
 ed as much as possible, and th;U it shimld cease as soon as possible 
 between contending parties arid communities. The king has a power to 
 pardoii individuals. If the king holds out his fa'th to a robber to come 
 in on A promise of a pardon of life and estate, and in all respects of 
 a tull indemnity, shall the parliament say, that he must nevertheless be 
 executed, that his estate must be furftited, or that he ^hall be abridged 
 of any of the privileges which he btfore held as a subject ? Nobodj 
 will iitiirm it. In such a case, the breach of faith would not only be on 
 the part of the king who assented to such an act, but on the part of 
 of the parliament who made it. As the king represents the whole con- 
 tracting capacity of the nation, so far as his prerogative, unlimited, 
 (as I said betort) by any precedent law, can extend, he acts as the 
 national procurator on all. such occasions. What is true of a robber, 
 is true of a rebel ; and what is true of one robber or rebel, is as true, 
 and it is a much more important truth, of one hundred thousand. 
 
 " To urge tliis part of the argument further, is indeed, I tear, not 
 necessary, lor two reasons. First, that it seems tolerably evident in 
 itself; and next, that there is but too much ground to apprehend that 
 the actual ratification of parliament would, in the then temper of parties, 
 liave proved but a very slight and trivial security. Of this there is a 
 very strong exainpic in the history of those very articles. For though 
 the parliament omitted, in the reign of King William, lo ratify the 
 first and most general of them ; they did aciuallv confirm the second 
 and more limited, that which related to the security of the inhabitant* 
 of those five coun'ies which were in arjus when the treaty was made." 
 Is has been so often urged by the enemies of the pfO|)le of Ireland, 
 that the privileges which they are now claiming, are more a question of 
 expediency than of right; we felt it our duty to put the reasons on 
 which tlieriglUsof our country are grounded, in the strongest and most 
 unanswerable ii;anner that the great powers of Burke could exhibit 
 them. That this task has been performed with his usual strength, will 
 jiot be denied by any attentive reader. That the sophist who ha» 
 the audacity to defend theoutrai,eous violation of the articles ot Limerick, 
 should yield to the reasoning of Eurke. will now be admitted by the 
 most ardtnt supporters of monopoly. The people of Ireland, whea 
 restored to the full and unconditional possession of the constitution, 
 shall only l>e recovering the rights ot which they were basely plun- 
 dered ; which they purchased by their blood, and for the enjoyment 
 of which they at length agreed to lay down their arms. The un- 
 conditional repeal of the penal laws against the catholics, would be no 
 more than tjie faithful fulfilment of that contract which king William, 
 •f " immortal memory," most basely violated. 
 
47 1 
 
 hearty assent, is best shown by a statement 'of the events 
 which occured soon after those articles we have recited 
 were sii^ned by all the parties. Macpherson, in liis liis^ 
 tory of England, thus writes : 
 
 " The Irish liavin<j obtained such g-ood terms with such 
 facihty, imbibed an opinion that they might have extort- 
 ed conditions still more favorable from an enemy so ex- 
 hausted. The arrival of the French fleet, two days after 
 the capitulation, with arms, stores, provisions and ammu- 
 nition, confirmed them in their sentiments on this subject. 
 But that circumstance, in conjunction with many otlier 
 -obvious reasons, justified William for putting an end to 
 the war. Many millions had already been expended in 
 the reduction of Ireland. The army, though victorious 
 in the field, were exhausted with fatigue — winter was ap- 
 proaching — the siege of Limerick must in all probabili- 
 ty have been raised ; a second dissapointment before that 
 place would have been equal to defeat. The spirits of 
 the Irish would rise, and the Frenclj, encouraged by their 
 Success, would have aided their allies with effect." 
 
 Notwithstanding the solemnity with which the articles 
 of Limerick were signed, and notwithstanding the misera- 
 ble alternative which it is (;bvious William had to make 
 choice of, (either the granting to the Irish the rights for 
 which they had so bravely fought, or if refusing these, 
 the miserable prolongation of a contest in which William 
 might have lost this valuable portion of his empire,) in the 
 face of such considerations, the n)inister of the gospel, 
 the bishop of Meath, felt it his duty to recommend, with 
 christian and evangelic mildness, the immediate violation 
 of the articles which had been granted to the barbarous 
 Irish. This pious divine, this herald of peace to mankind, 
 was not attended to at pi-esent. Policy, if not justice, 
 ordered him to be silent ; and with pleasure we record, 
 that his inflimous doctrines were ojiposed, in the true spi- 
 rit of a christian minister, by Dr. Morton, the bishop of 
 Kildare. 
 
 When the fears of monopoly subsided, when the Irish 
 
47^ 
 
 catliolic was disarmed, tlie English adventurer and the 
 Irish task-master commenced their sacred work ot' plunder. 
 All the obligations of truth, justice, honor and humanity 
 vanished, and no sound was heax'd but the yells of intole- 
 rance and the cries of brave and suffering innocence. 
 No wonder that the Irish heart should swell with indigna- 
 tion when going over those dismal scenes of cowardly op- 
 pression and rapacious profligacy. No wonder that a long 
 period of mild and parental government should be requir- 
 ed to obliterate from the memory of Irishmen the record 
 of such odious and vulgar treachery. The Roman con- 
 queror left to the countries he conquered, their laws, their 
 religion, and their rights. He did not break faith with 
 the vanquished, and thus proclaim war against humanity. 
 His policy was as generous as wise; it facilitated the march 
 of his armies, and taught mankind to believe, that the 
 Roman conquests were not incompatible either with their 
 security or their happiness. The great champions of Eng- 
 lish freedom, will hereafter be found the busy forgers of 
 Ireland's chains; the panders to the religious as well as 
 national prejudices of their countrymen ; the encouragcrs 
 of the wor.-t species of tyranny, the tyranny of a few over 
 the many, and the injudicious and short sighted extin- 
 guishers of the genius and industry of our country. 
 
 The great Englishmen who contributed to the comple- 
 tion of that proud edifice of human liberty, of which 
 England can now -boast, were the most remorseless tyrants 
 in Ireland. Their ingenuity was directed to prokmg the 
 toi'tures of their victim, and to demonstrate to the world 
 how inferior the pagan tyrants of antiquity were to the 
 modern tyrants of our christian age. The readei* will 
 commence the following reigns with a heavy and afflicted 
 heart, because he has to witness each day exceeding the 
 other in the magnitude of human depravity, and the men, 
 whom the English historian holds up to his admiration, 
 the active and fanatical instruments of unexampled oppres- 
 sion and miserv. He will see how much more cruel is the 
 
475 
 
 avarice of monopoly than the sword of the conqueror. 
 He will see the confiscator of his country, shrouded in the 
 garb of religion, seeking whom he may devour, his rapa- 
 city encrcasing with his impunity, and his oppressions mul- 
 tiplying with the weakness of his victim. He will see the 
 miserable people thus abused, insulted with the praises of the 
 free constitution under which they were living; and, -while 
 their wounds were still fresh from the las^h of intolerance, it 
 will be no uncommon spectacle to behold their executioners 
 crying out for new tortures and new jienalties. What en- 
 lightened reader, who has read the history of Ireland from 
 the reformation, who has followed her sufferings through 
 the sanguinary' period of Elizabeth, James, and Cromwell, 
 who has observed the dreadful revolutions of her property 
 and devastation of the inhabitants, will hesitate to say that 
 it was the duty of Irishmen to stand by James II. with the 
 same zeal with which Englishmen opposed him? He was 
 the friend of their religious and civil liberty. England 
 was his enemy, because he tolerated the religion of Ireland. 
 .It was not for Ireland to consider his motives or his ulti- 
 mate objects; they might have been despotic, he might 
 have sought the extinction of British freedom through the 
 medium of Irish liberty ; yet still it was the obvious line of 
 Ireland's duty to act as she did; to defend her rights and 
 her religion against a nation which -so long laboured to 
 destroy both. The bravery with which they fought the 
 battle should be the best recommendation of the people of 
 Ireland, to an enlightened monarch of the British empire; 
 it demonstrates the advantage of that jiolicy which gives 
 to a nr-ition such a cause as is worth their defending. The 
 strength of those deductions from the facts we have 
 been recording do not require support trom any opinion, 
 however eminent or distinguished. They are self evident 
 truths, which flash on every honest unsophisticated under- 
 standing ; yet it will not he considered any breach of his- 
 torical correctness to introduce here the sentiments of pei* 
 haps the most illustrious and able senator that ever adorU'^ 
 
 M m m 
 
474 
 
 ed the British senate, whose philosophic eloquence has left 
 to succeeding times the most profound and enlightened 
 political lessons of instruction. Our great countryman, 
 Edmund Burke, in a letter to his son, in the year 1793, 
 thus gives his opinion of the conduct of the Irish cathohc 
 durino- the reign of James II. : 
 
 " Let us come to a later period of those confiscations, 
 with the memory of which the gentlemen who triumph 
 in the acts of 1782 are so much delighted. The Irish 
 again rebelled against the English parliament, in 1688, 
 and tlie English parliauient again put up to sale the 
 greatest part of their estates. I do not presume to de- 
 fend the Irish for this rebellion, nor to blame the Eng- 
 lish parliament for this confiscation. The Irish, it is 
 true, did not revolt from king James's power. He 
 threw himself upon their fidelity, and they supported him 
 to the best of their power. Be the crime of that ob- 
 stinate adherence to an abdicated sovereign against a 
 prince whom the parliaments of Ireland and Scotland 
 had encouraged, what it may ; I do not mean to justify 
 this rebellion more than the former; it might however 
 admit some palliation in them. In generous minds some 
 small degree of compassion might be excited for an error, 
 where they were misled, as Cicero says to a conqueror, 
 ** quadam specie et similitudine pacis^^ — not without a mis- 
 taken appearance of duty, and for which the guilty have 
 suffered by exile abroad and slavery at home, to the 
 extent of their folly or their offence. The best calcula- 
 tors compute, that Ireland lost 200,000 of her inhabi- 
 tants in that struggle. If the principle of the English and 
 Scotch resistance, at the revolution, is to be justified (as 
 sure I am it is) the submission of Ireland must be some- 
 what extenuated. For if the Irish resisted kinij Wil- 
 liam, they resisted him on the very same principle that 
 the English and Scotch resisted king James. The Irish 
 catholics must have been the very worst and the most 
 truly unnatural of rebels, if they had not supported a 
 
475 
 
 prince whom they had seen attacked, not for any design* 
 against their religion or their liberties but for an extreme 
 partiality for their sect; and who, far from tresspassing 
 on their liberties and properties, secured both them and 
 the independence of their countiy, in much the same 
 manner that we liave seen the same things done at the 
 period of 1782." 
 
 Here is the commentary of one of the greatest states- 
 men who appeared in the eighteenth century, on that 
 part of our history which is held up by the ignorant 
 and the mercenary, as the greatest stain in our national 
 character; which is denominated an act of rebellion, rather 
 than an honorable exertion of men struggling for their 
 freedom and their religion. The great calunmiators of 
 the L'ish catholic have sunk into the tomb, and the few 
 who remain arc no longer attended to. Truth is at 
 length gaining the ascendant. The catholic of the pre- 
 sent day may now confidently trace his freedom to the 
 ;recollection of that courage which in 1691 so bravely 
 defended it. 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 William and Mary, 
 
 A.D. 
 
 1691. 
 
 The surrender of Limerick, on the condition 
 of Irish freedom, closed the struggle between this 
 country and England. The right of William to 
 the Irish throne was ackno\fvledged and submitted to, 
 and the establishment of the civil and religious liberties 
 of Irishmen was expected to have succeeded to the in- 
 tolerance of fanaticism and the rapacity of monopoly. 
 The battle was bravely fought by the Irish people ; and 
 from the character which their illustrious opponent enjoy- 
 ed in his own country, they most reasonably hoped that 
 they might repose with confidence on the faithful fulfil- 
 ment of any treaty to vvhich the necessities of the Eng- 
 lish monarch might have compelled him to accede. Ire- 
 land therefore sheathed her sword in the ingenuous con- 
 fidence of having an honorable enemy to treat with. How 
 those expectations were fulfilled — how that confidence was 
 preserved — how the honor of the English nation has been 
 maintained in her solemn treaties with Ireland, let it be 
 the office of history to record. It has hitherto been our 
 duty to relate the struggles of an armed though abused 
 nation, with the jealousy, the bigotry and the rapacity of 
 En2;land. Ti.2 reader has waded throuoh scenes of 
 slaughter and desolation. He has followed the Irishman 
 in his various efforts to defend the relision and liberties 
 
477 
 
 of his country. During this sad melancholy progress, 
 he was sometimes relieved by the spectacle of successful 
 retaliation or unprovoked aggression, and he has been 
 often consoled by the temporary exhibition of a couraf^e 
 which would add lustre to the proudest achievements of 
 ancient or modern days. Until the period to which we 
 liave now arrived, we had never to contemplate the cow- 
 ardly exercise of a tyranny which trampled on the man 
 it deceived; which tortured the victim it disarmed; which 
 pledged its faith in order to betray ; and with all the 
 contemjytible malice of a voracious jealousy, was perpetu- 
 ally plundering the courage which it feared. 
 
 That revolution which was the fj-uitful parent of so 
 many blessings to England, was the copious source of 
 Ireland's bitterest sufferings ; the great event which com- 
 pleted the establishment of Britisli freedom, confirmed tlie 
 slavery of Ireland.* The links of that chain which were 
 struck from the English nation were more than doubled 
 on the mind and the arm of Ireland. The accumulated 
 vengeance of the last two hundred years, was poured on 
 the devoted head of our country by the monarch of " im- 
 mortal memory." Even the miserable instruments of 
 English despotism were chained to the oar ; they should 
 
 • The excellent Dr. Curry commences his liistory of the Iiish per- 
 secutions from the revolution in tlie following fteling and pathetic 
 Strain. 
 
 " After a tedious and melancholy narrative of the state of fhe Irish 
 catholics at different periods, for the space of more than one hundred and 
 fifty years, I should have no occasion to relate the following, had their 
 sufferings ended at the surrender of Limerick. Then indeed they might 
 subscribe with others in jjroclaiming the change a glorious revolution. 
 But the conditions they had by that surrender obtained (I may say 
 sealed with tlieir blood) though agreed u|)on and signed by both parties, 
 in the most solemn manner, and afri rwards ratified and approved by 
 both their majesties, king William and qu-'en Mary, under the great 
 seal uf Eiigland were soon after basely infringed, contrary to the law of 
 nature, the law of nations, and the public faith. The infringement of 
 those articles on the part of government commenced very early after 
 they were signed ; and it was afterwards repeated from time to time, 
 in such a manner as to prepare the minds of the people to receive 
 with less surprise the total violation of them, by aces ♦ to prevent the 
 further growth of popery," which were then in contemplation." 
 
478 
 
 strike at the will of their masters, and truckle to their pas- 
 sions, if they hoped to preserve their confidence. The little 
 miserable monopolists whom the reader will see exhibit- 
 ing from time to time on the political stage of Ireland, 
 were little more than the well paid executioners of their 
 fellow citizens; their duty was to wield the lash and tor- 
 ture the victim ; their employment was the degradation 
 find impoverishment of their country ; their wages, the 
 government of that country which their folly or their 
 treason or their avarice had wasted. Every revolution 
 .experienced by Ireland, from the invasion, but left a 
 new ingredient of bitterness in the cup of misfortune. 
 Every chang^wijs from bad to worse; so that the Irish 
 patriot who sym.pathized with her fortunes, might have 
 lamented that the sword of annihilation had left a subject 
 on which her future tyrants could indulge their malice. 
 A celebrated writer on the English constitution, speaking 
 of the various revolutions which took place in England, 
 Jias the following observation : — 
 
 " If we peruse the history of England" says De Lolme 
 *' we shall be peculiarly struck with one circumstance to be 
 observed in it, and v/hich distinguishes most advantage- 
 .ousiy the English government from all other free gov.^ 
 vernments, I mean the manner in which revolutions and 
 public commotions have always been, terminated in Eng- 
 land. If we read with some attention the history of other 
 free states, we shall see the public dissentions that have 
 taken place in them, have constantly been terminated by 
 settlements, in wliich the interests only of a few were 
 j-eally provided for, while the grievances of tlie many 
 were hardly, if ever, atlended to. Li England the very 
 reverse has happened, and we find revolutions always to 
 have been terminated by extensive and accurate provi- 
 sions for securing the general liberty." 
 
 In Ireland we iiave hiiherto found that revolutions 
 terminated in the forging of new chains and the multiplica- 
 tion of new tortures. The hberty of England and the 
 
479 
 
 slavery of Ireland have invariably proceeded together', 
 Ireland going down as England ascended. Posterity 
 have justly concluded that the rights of Irishmen and 
 the prosperity of England cannot exist together — a me* 
 lancholy truth which the eVents of the present day only 
 contribute to confirm, and which is still left to the en* 
 lightened English government of future days to refute. 
 The lights of history cannot be extinguished, nor her power- 
 ful voice silenced. The conclusions we have drawn are irre- 
 sistible, and the idle violence which attempts to punish 
 their publication only impresses those truths more deeply 
 on the mind. The glories of William and of Anne — 
 the victories of Marlborough, and the universal conquests 
 of Chatham, have been the most disastrous epochs of 
 Ireland. Never was the heart of our country so low 
 as when England was the envy and the terror of her 
 enemies. The sounds of English triumphs were to her 
 the sounds of sorrow — the little tyrants who ruled her 
 Were inflamed with courage, and urged on with increas- 
 ed rancor — the unhappy catholics of Ireland, who al- 
 ways constituted the nation, were doomed to be again 
 insulted and tortured with impunity — and the protestant 
 parliaments of our country, as if their existence depended 
 on their servility, willbe seen sacrificing even their own pro- 
 perties, as well as those of their catholic countrymen, to 
 the insatiable monopoly of England — ^yet all those scenes 
 were the ofispring of that revolution in which Englishmen 
 most justly triumph — a revolution which De Lolme savs 
 terminated by a series of public acts in which no in- 
 terests but those of the people at large were considered 
 and provided for. The series of public acts which the 
 same revolution produced in Ireland, were directed to 
 sacrifice the peace, happiness and security of Irishmen to 
 the establishment of a contemptible monopoly which ren- 
 dered them for seventy years the degraded slaves of a 
 system that beggared and insulted them. The euligliten- 
 ed pi'otestant of the present day, looks back with liorror 
 
480 
 
 on that profligate folly which gratified the malignity of a 
 foreign country, in the enactment of a system of legis- 
 lation which puts into the shade the more humane, be- 
 cause less lingering despotism of the inquisition. He 
 shudders at the recollection of that infatuated spirit of 
 ascendancy which chained the hand of industry, barbar- 
 ized the inlknt mind, broke up all the social feelings, 
 bribed the child to betray his parent, and the peijured 
 apostate to plunder the innocent and conscientious. The 
 protestants of the present day hasten with one voice to 
 cancel the odious record and to bury it in eternal 
 oblivion. The English revolution of 1688, for the anni- 
 versary of which the bells of ascendancy ring the annual 
 peal, was the consummation of Irish suffering — it should 
 be therefore looked on by tlie honest Irishnian, as a 
 theory from which he might derive gratification in the 
 contemplation, but as a practical curse with which his 
 unfortunate country was visited at the very moment she 
 ought to have shared in its blessii^gs. The protestant of 
 the present day thus reasons ; he adopts the language and 
 the opinions of that great man, whose towering genius first 
 contributed to dissipate the fog of religious prejudice and 
 expose the miseriesr vvhich it concealeti. C heerfully does 
 lie bow to the reasoning of the great Edmund Burke, when 
 he thus describes the constitution of 1688, as practised 
 in Ireland by the parliamentary "task -masters. 
 
 " I cannot" says our great countryman, in his letter to 
 $ir Hercules Langrishe, " possibly confound in my mind all 
 the things that were done at the revolution, with the prin- 
 ciples of the revolution ; as in most great changes, many 
 things were done from the necessities of the time, well or 
 jU understood, from passion or from vengeance, which 
 were, not only not perfectly agreeable to its principles, but 
 in ihe most direct contradiction to them. 1 shall not think 
 th:;t the deprivation of some millions of all the rights of 
 citizens, and all the interest in the constitution, in and to 
 which they were born, was a tiling conformable to the de- 
 
481 
 
 dared principles of the revolution. This I am sure h 
 true, relatively to England ; (where the operation of these 
 antiprinciples comparatively were of little extent) and some 
 of our late laws, in repealing acts made immediately after 
 the revolution, admit that some things then done were not 
 done in the true spirit of tlie revolution. But the revolu- 
 tion operated differently in England and Ireland, in many, 
 and those essential particulars. Supposing the principles 
 to be altogether the same in both kingdoms, by the appli- 
 cation of these principles to very different objects, the 
 whole spirit of the system was changed, not to say reversed. 
 In England it was the struggle of the great body of the 
 people for the establishment of their liberties against the 
 efforts of a vei-y small faction who would have oppres- 
 sed them. 'In Ireland it was the establishment of the pow- 
 er of the smaller number, at the expence of the civil liber- 
 ties and properties of the whole. It was, to say the truth, 
 not a revolution, but a conquest ; which is not to say a 
 great deal in its favor. 
 
 " To insist upon every thing done in Ireland at the re- 
 volution, would be to insist on the severe and jealous policy 
 of a conqueror in the crude settlement of his new acqui- 
 sition, as a permanent rule for its future government. 
 This no power, in any country that I have ever heard of, 
 has done or professed, except in Ireland, where it is done, 
 and possibly by some people will be professed. Time has 
 by degrees, in all other places and periods, blended the 
 conquered and the conquerors. So after some time, and 
 after one of the most rigid conquests that we read of in 
 history, the Normans softened into the English." Mr. 
 ]Burke then proceeds to trace to their true and proper 
 source, the causes of that infamous code of laws which 
 ■was enacted during the reigns upon which we are now 
 entering. To do justice to Mr. Burke, the entire of his 
 admirable letter should be copied into this compendium ; 
 but the limits of our work forbid so large a quotation. 
 The following observations, however, are so good an intro- 
 
 N n n 
 
482 
 
 duction to the reiirn of that sovereion who first commenced 
 the statute war against the cathohcs of Ireland, that we 
 shall make no apology for requesting the readers atten- 
 tion to their truth as well as to their philosophy : 
 
 " For a much longer period than that," says Mr. Burke, 
 " which had sufficed to blend the Romans with the nation 
 to which, of all otiiers, they were most adverse, the pro- 
 testants settled in Ireland, considered themselves in no 
 other light than that of a sort of colonial garrison to keeu 
 the natives in subjugation to the other state of great Bri- 
 tain. 1 he whole spirit of the revolution in Ireland was 
 that of not the mildest conqueror. In truth, the spirit of 
 those proceedings did not commence at that asra, nor was 
 religion of any kind their primary object. What was 
 done, was not in the spirit of a contest between two religi- 
 ous factions, but between two adverse nations. The sta- 
 tutes of Kilkenny show tliat the spirit of the popery laws, 
 and some even of their actual provisions, as applietl be- 
 tween Englishry and Irislny, had existed in that harassed 
 country before the words protestant and papist were heard 
 of in the world. If we read baron Finglass, Spencer, 
 and sir John Davis, we cannot miss the true genius and 
 poiicy of the English government there, before the revo- 
 lution, as well as during the whole reign of queen Eliza- 
 b 'th. Sir John Davis boasts of the benefits received by 
 the natives, by extending to them the English lav,-, and 
 turning the whole kingdom into sliire grounfl. Put the 
 appearance of things alon-e was changed. The original 
 scheme was never deviated from a sinole hour. Unheard 
 of confiscations were made in the nortlicrn parts, upon 
 grounds of plots and conspiracies never proved upon their 
 supposed author?. The war of chicane succeeded to the 
 v^ar of arms, and a regular series of operations were cai'- 
 licd on, particularly from Chichester's time, in the ordi- 
 nary courts of justice, and by special commissions and in- 
 quisition^:, first binder pretence of tenures, and then of ti- 
 tle* In the crown, for the puq^ose of the total extirpation 
 
483 
 
 of the interest of th(j natives in their own soil, until this 
 species ot" subtle ravage being carried to the lust excess of 
 oppression and insolence under lord Strafl'ord, it kindled 
 the flames of that rebellion which broke out in 1641. By 
 ihe issue of that war — by the turn which Clarendon gave 
 to things at the restoration, and by the total reduction of 
 the kingdom of Ireland in 1691, the ruin of the native 
 Irish, ami in a great measure too of the first races of the 
 English, was completely accomplished. The new Eng- 
 lish interest was settled with as solid a stability as any thing 
 in human affairs can look for. All the penal laws of that 
 unparalleled code of opjiression which were made after the 
 last event, were manifestly the effects of national hatred 
 and scorn towards a conquered people, whom the victors 
 delighted to trample upon, and were not at all afraid to 
 provoke. They were not the effect of their fears, but of 
 their security. They who carried oh this system, looked 
 to the irresistible force of great Britain for support in their 
 acts of power. They were quite certain that no complaint 
 of the natives would be heard on this side of the water, 
 with any other sentiments than those of contempt and in- 
 tlignation. Their cries served only to augment their tor- 
 ture. Machines which could answer their purpose so Meli, 
 must be of an excellent contrivance. Indeed in Enijland 
 the double name of the com])lainants, Irish and pajiists, 
 (it would be hard to say, singly, which was the most odious) 
 f;hut up the hearts of every one against them. Whilst 
 lliat teiiiper prevailed, and it prevailed in all its force to a 
 time witlun our men)ory, every measure was pleasing and 
 popular, just in proportion as it tended to harass and ruin 
 a set of people who were looked upon as enemies to God 
 and man, and indeed as a race of biooted savaoes, Vvlio 
 were a disgrace to human nature itself." 
 
 Every transaction during the succeeding reigns, con- 
 firms the truth and justice of Mr. Burke's o[5Tnion, that 
 the sufferings of Ireland proceeded as much, if net more, 
 irom national than religious animosity. Vve shall here* 
 
4&4 
 
 aftei* see the miserable parliament of the pale, or the cold- 
 nial garrison, as Mr. Burke more appositely calls it 
 obliged to crouch to the orders and the wishes of their 
 jealous mercantile rivals. The servitude of those par- 
 liaments to their English masters was compensated for, 
 by allowing the former to wreak their merciless vengeance 
 on their unoffending catholic countrymen. They were the 
 destructive medium which collected the rays of that smi 
 that burned up the industry and genius of our country. 
 
 The disposition on the part of England to abuse the 
 authority which she now saw no great probability of being 
 controuled or resisted, soon displays itseif in the fury of 
 its resolutions against the property and the liberties of the 
 Ii'ish catholic. They boldly remonstrate with their sovereign 
 on the too great indulgence the Irish catholics experienced 
 in that treaty which put an end to the Irish war. With all 
 the cowai'dly vengeance of fanaticism they call upon him to 
 violate the royal honor which had been pledged to Ireland — 
 to minister to their passions for conliscation and plunder, 
 and leave the unoffending and disarmed people of Ireland to 
 the savage mercy of an English tribunal.* The king replied 
 
 * Mfi Matthew O'Connor, a respected member of the catholic board, 
 and relative of the illastrious Charles O'Connor of Ballinagar, to whom 
 Ireland owes so much of her present consequence and happiness, has 
 lately given to his countrymen a very valuable view of the state of 
 Irisli catholics from the settlement in 1691. Speaking of the princi- 
 ples and conduct of king William, Mr. O'Connor has the following 
 observations, 
 
 " The admirers of that prince will find in his lenient administra- 
 tion a subject of panegyric. To whatever cause it was owing, whether 
 to ianate humanity or to the wise policy of concihating his subjects of 
 every ptrsuasion, or to his fears, from perpetual discomfiture in his 
 continental wars, certain it is, that for the first four years of his reign in 
 Ireland, he proved a mild a^id beneficent sovereign. He extended the 
 protection of the law to all cksses of his subjects, without distinction 
 of sects, and screened the catholics from the insolence, rapacity, and 
 tvranuy, of the party that had been triumphant." And in another 
 place Mr. O'Connor says, " in matters of religion king William was 
 liberal, enlightened and philosophic. Ecjually a friend to religious as 
 to civil liberty, he granted toleration to dissenters of all descriptions, 
 regardless of their speculative opinions. la the early part of his reign, 
 the Irish catholics enjoyed the full and free exercise of their religion. 
 ^1 hey w ere protected in their persons and properties ; their industry 
 Was encoui a^ed ; and Udder his mild and fostering administration, the 
 
485 
 
 to the English commons, in such a tone and langnase 
 as strongly manifested the royal indignation at the un- 
 principled tendency of their address, and in this instance 
 displayed that character for toleration and humanity which 
 distinguished him on the continent. In truth we are 
 not to expect that this monarch, however liberal or en- 
 lightened, could long resist the perpetual pressure of that 
 prejudice which characterized the English. He held his 
 crown by the consent of that very people who called upon 
 him to act with injustice and dishonor by Ireland. We 
 must therefore acknowledge that his natural disposition had 
 but little opportunity of displaying itself ; and that how- 
 ever ruinous the laws which were passed during the reign 
 of William, were to the liberties of Ireland, we should 
 in candor, rather attribute their enactment to the ascend- 
 ancy of English councils, than the wish of the English 
 sovereign to violate those principles, the practice of which 
 had made him so dear to his native country. The Eng- 
 lish parliament did not stop here ; they lost no time in as- 
 serting their superior authority over Ireland, by a legi- 
 slative exclusion of the catholic from a seat in either 
 houses of the Irish parliament ; a sufficient evidence of 
 the contempt with which they viewed any possible resist- 
 ance which Ireland might make to recover her liberties. 
 Nor did the Irish protestant parliament experience much 
 indulgence from the proud usurping parliament of Eng- 
 land. It was not so much tho exclusion of the catholic 
 as the extinction of an Irish parliament, which the 
 whigs of England aspired to ; and therefore, with a 
 most contemtuous indifference, the English sovereign, 
 continued to regulate and control the civil, military 
 and ecclesiastical departments of Ireland, as if no Irish 
 parliament had been in existence. So truly ridiculous 
 
 desolation of the late war began to disappear, and prosperity, peace 
 and confidence to smile once more on the country." It may be asked 
 kere, are chose the qualities for which the memory of king William i» 
 styled by the orangeman "the immortal memery"? 
 
486 
 
 13 the strugi^le of a faction with the strength of a nation. 
 The catholics were excluded and disarmed ; they were 
 hated and suspected; the result was, that the ascendant 
 reli'Tion of protestantism exhibited all the impatience of 
 intolerance and all the insignificance of an insulted and 
 feeble sect. The Irish prote^tant of that day, conceived 
 that his power v/as advanced by the slavery of the catholic ; 
 that England would suffer him to play the tyrant if he 
 would submit to be her slave ; but the degradation which 
 he soupht affainst his catholic countrvmen, was in tlie 
 very outset of his foolish triumphs, his most bitter 
 punishment. " It was" as Mr. Grattan some where 
 beautifully observes, " liberty without energy or power. It 
 presented the protestant with a monopoly, with the image 
 of a monster, in a state when the heart gives no circula- 
 tion and the limbs no life — a nominal representative and 
 a nominal people. Call not this your misfortune, it is 
 your sentence, it is your execution. Never could the 
 law of nature suffer one sect of men to take away the 
 liberty of another, and that of a numerous part of their 
 people, without feeling a diminution of their own strength 
 and freedom." The Irish protestant parliament of 1692, 
 v/ho so piously triumphed in the disfranchisement of their 
 catholic countrymen, were in their turn trampled on by 
 the feet of an English parliament. 
 
 The Irish protestants most wisely threw down the pillar 
 on which they could have leaned, and were soon seen 
 creeping through the ruins of that temple which their 
 foolish policy contributed to destroy. The unfortunate 
 catholics were no longer regarded by the government of 
 Ireland, but as subjects on which prejudice and avarice 
 mifs-ht exercise their ingenious malice. The orangemen of 
 this period, estimated their loyalty or their sycophancy 
 by the bitterness of their hostility to the civil and religi- 
 ous liberty of their catholic countrymen. ' Their ambition 
 was to rule in a land of slavery, and tlie little efforts 
 whicli they sometimes made to rise from the degraded 
 
487 
 
 character of mere slave drivers, oiily exhibit tlieir impo- 
 tence and iiubecility. Lord Sydney, sir Charlt-s Porter, 
 and Thomas Coningsby, were first lords Justices of Ireland 
 in the reign we are now recording. Syihiey was created 
 lord lieutenant, and proceeded, in 1692, to convene the 
 first parliament which, with the exception of king James' 
 parliament, sat in Ireland for twenty-six years. 
 
 This parliament had the courafje, after excluding the 
 strength of the country, to aspire to the character of an 
 independent legislature. They disputed the right of the 
 English parliament to legislate for Ireland ; they rejected 
 a money bill because it did not originate with the Irish 
 parliament, and put on record their strong reprobation of 
 the smallest infringement on the ancient rights of the Irish 
 legislature. The lord lieutenant was not to be intimi- 
 dated by words ; he was well aware that a legislature of 
 monopolists sliould not be reading lectures on parliamen- 
 tary independence, and his answer to their high sound- 
 ing assertion of " rights" was a good lesson of instruction" 
 to point out the importance of that principle which ex- 
 cluded the spirit as well as the strength of the nation. 
 When the Irish parliament was a mixed assembly, pro- 
 testant and catholic, the lord lieutenant might practise his 
 power and his artifice, divide and distract, but he never 
 presumed to utter the language of lord Sydney, who told 
 this protestant parliament of the pale, " that they ought 
 to go to England to beg their majesties' pardon for their 
 seditious and riotous assemblies." Lord Strafford, in the 
 period of his greatest power, dare not use such language 
 to the parliament of his day ; because the people were 
 interested in the support of its character, and wt)uld not, 
 as in the instance before us, take pleasure in being the 
 witness of its degradation. 
 
 The proceedings of lord Sydney offended some of the 
 leading men among the protcstants, and every effort was 
 made to procure his removal. A promise of more sub- 
 missive conduct (if we are to judge by the future proceed- 
 
4S8 
 
 ings of the Irish parliament) succeeded in procuring the Re- 
 moval of Sydney ; and his lordship's successor, lord Capel, 
 was appointed in 1695, as being the best qualified to exe- 
 cute the wishes of his master in the English cabinet. The 
 Irish parliament seemed now to be of opinion, that the 
 price of the few humble privileges which they might be 
 allowed by England to enjoy, would be the multiplica- 
 tion of penal statutes against their catholic brethern, 
 and that the best proofs they could give of the sincerity 
 of their loyalty, was the unpitying fury with M'hich they 
 pursued their unoffending countrymen. They therefore be- 
 gan, with a pious and loyal ardor, the glorious work of 
 that penal code which now strikes mankind with horror — 
 which would justify any resistance however violent, any 
 vengeance however dreadful. This penal code, for the 
 repeal of which Ireland has had the unexampled patience 
 to petition, would have armed every hand in England. 
 Englishmen would have again appealed to the spirits of 
 their iron barons. Their Russels, their Hampdens, and 
 their Sydneys would have rallied whatever of honor or 
 patriotism was in the land; and the blood of the per- 
 secutors, who could have enacted such laws, should have 
 washed out the odious record, and thus have atoned for 
 their crimes against justice and humanity : yet Ireland has 
 carried her chains year after year ; she has manifested more 
 than Christian fortitude under somewhat more than Chris- 
 tian suffering; she has served the hand whicli so often 
 plunged the dagger in her bosom, and she has been in- 
 sulted, during the dreadful scene, with the title of rebel 
 to her king and constitution. The catholics of Ireland 
 have petitioned — the people of England would have re- 
 belled. The reward of the Irish nation has been partial 
 freedom ; that of England has been the first constitution 
 in the world. The tyrants of Ireland were the champions 
 of Brkish liberty, who have so often refused to the hu- 
 mility of the Irish petitioners, what they extorted from 
 their kings by the terror of their swords. Those histori- 
 
489 
 
 cnl facts require no comment. The mind of the reader 
 will draw its own conclusions ; and v/hether protestant, or 
 catholic, or prcsbyterian, he will ask liimself how a people 
 should speak or act, when they are about to seek the resto- 
 ration of their rights, the more performance of a contract 
 which has been infamously violated. Is it in the tones of 
 lady-likc meekness, that Englishmen assert the rights of 
 their country ? Is it in the language of hollow, hj'pocriti- 
 cal sycophancy, the people of England address their rulers, 
 when they complain of their privileges violated, or their 
 freedom impaired? Do they measure their words, or do^ 
 they ever suppose tliat woicis can be too iitrong to give ex- 
 jjression to their honest indignation ? This then should 
 ever be the tone and language of the liish nation ; no 
 other is either audible or intelligible in the parliament of 
 England ; you are heard because you are respected, and 
 you are respected because you are not afraid to express 
 your resentment. Those observations most naturally pre- 
 cede the recital of the laws which we are now abopt to set 
 down — laws which made the protestant despicable, and 
 the catholic a slave; which made Ireland a prison, and 
 the Irish protestant nothing better than the, jailer. 
 *' Never" saj,s Mr. Grattan, the profound and eloquent 
 advocate of religious and political freedom, "could 
 the law of nature suffer one sect of men to take away 
 the liberty of another, and that of a numerous part 
 of their people, without feeling a diminution of their own 
 strengtli and free<iom ; but in making laws on tiie subject 
 of religion, we forget mankind, until their own distraction 
 admonishes statesmen of two truths; the one, that there 
 is a God, the other that there is a people; never was it 
 peruiilted to any nation — they may perplex their under- 
 standing ;.vith various apologies — but never long was it 
 permitted, to exclude from essential, from what tliey them- 
 selves have pronounced essential blessings, a great portion 
 of themselves, for periods of time, and for no reasoji, or 
 what is wor^se, for such reason as you have advanced. 
 
 O O 
 
490 
 
 Conqueror?, or tyrants proceeding from conquerors, have 
 scarcely ever, for any length of time, governed by those 
 partial disabilities. " But a people so to govern itself," 
 says Mr. Grattan, "or rather under the name of govern- 
 ment, so to exclude one another; the industrious, the opu- 
 lent, the useful; that part that feeds you with its industry, 
 and supplies you with its taxes, weaves that you may wear, 
 and ploughs that you may eat; to exclude a body so use- 
 ful, so numerous, and that for and in the mean time, tOy 
 tax them ad libitum^ and occasionally to })ledge their lives 
 and fortunes, for what? for their disfranchisement ; it can- 
 not be done, continue it and you expect from j'our laws 
 what it were blasphemy to ask of your Maker. Such po- 
 licy always turns on the inventor, and bruises him under 
 the stroke of the sceptre or the sword, or sinks him under 
 the accumulation of debt and loss of dominion." Yet such 
 was the fatal and disastrous policy which the protestant 
 parliament of king William felt it necessary to adopt, for 
 the security of church and state; it established the ascen- 
 dancy, but it laid waste the country ; and the Irish mon- 
 opolist, who was daily insulted by the haughty mandates 
 of his English task-master, might console himself for the 
 loss of his proper station as an Irishman, by the wretched 
 sentiment of pride, with which he might parade through 
 the desert fields, and haggard population of his unfortu- 
 nate country. The Irish parliament of 1695, proceeded 
 to the great work of enlightened legislature, whose effects 
 have been described by the glowijig pencil of our Grattan; 
 and it must be admitted, they proceeded most methodical- 
 ly in their honorable office. They began by striking at 
 the root of human power or human feeling. They passed 
 an act for the establishment of general ignorance among 
 the catholics of Ireland; or in the words of the act, to res- 
 train foreign anddomestic education ;* asort of legislative hu- 
 
 • ATr. Matthew O'Cormor, speaking of this proceeding of the Irish 
 parliament, has the following observations : 
 
 " In the plenitude of the power now granted to them, they passed 
 fhe act to rescraio foreign education, ritsigiiing ihereljy nothing lejs than 
 
491 
 
 innnity, which enacted that the mind hereafter to be enslav- 
 ed, should be as insensible as possible of its degradation ; or 
 as Mr. Burke finely describes the act, — " While this res- 
 traint upon foreign and domestic education was part of an 
 horrible and impious system of servitude, the members 
 were well suited to the body. To render them patient, un- 
 der a deprivation of all the rights of human nature, every 
 thing which could give them a knowledge or feeling of those 
 rights was rationally forbidden. To render humanity fit 
 to be insulted, it was fit that it should be degraded. In- 
 deed I have ever thought the prohibition of the means of 
 improving our rational nature to be the worst species of 
 tyranny that the insolence and perverseness of mankind 
 ever dared to exercise. This goes to all men, in all situa- 
 tions, to whom education can be denied." 
 
 This loyal parliament then jiassed an act for banish- 
 ing all papists exercising any ecclesiastical jurisdiction, 
 and all the regulars of the popish clergy, out of Ireland, 
 contrary to the express letter of the articles of Limerick, 
 which secured the toleration of the catholic religion and 
 the safety of the priesthood. They then passed an act 
 to prevent protestants intermarrying %v4th papists. Such 
 were the acts which the glorious revolution of 1688 gave 
 to Ireland. But this loyal parliament of Lord Capel* 
 
 to brutalize the Irish. The apology for this violation of the laws of 
 God and man, rests on the danger that resulted to the state from the 
 many seminaries of learning which the Irish had in France, Spain, 
 Italy and Germany ; but the provisions of the act restraining foreig:i 
 education, evidently demonstrate that its aim was not to gui^ d against 
 the alleged danger, but to root out the seeds of knowledge, and to ex- 
 tirpate the catholic religion altogether." 
 
 Mr. O'Connor has, in a former part of his work, represented king 
 William as the friend of the Irish catholics. Was William of so liend- 
 ing a disposition as to yield to the wishes of his Irish parliament, if they 
 did not completely correspond with his own ? We fear that the infamous 
 code of laws to which he has given his consent, is sufficient to give a 
 very different species of immortality to king William, th-ui the Irish 
 monopolists are in the habit of bestowing on him. Indeed every enlight- 
 ened protestant as well as catholic, must abhor the memory of a 
 monarch, who, willing to give frcedprn to liis own country, could so 
 easily consent to the slavery and the laKry of Ireland. 
 
 • The Irish house of lords did not surrender to the unprincipled ra- 
 pacity of the commons without a struggle : they manifested some regard 
 lor their Louor and their character, in the resistance which they lUiids 
 
492 
 
 could not refrain from mocking the nation they thus had 
 injured — they blended tlieir humour wilh their ferocit\', 
 and in a jocular way passed an act for the confirmation of 
 the articles of Limerick. The reader will suppose, that 
 the English goveinment should not have been very jealous 
 of any power with which the protestant ascendancy might 
 be armed, when tb.ey so faithfully turned those arms a- 
 sainst the civil and religious liberties of their catholic 
 countrymen. The Irish parliament, however, presumed 
 rather too much on their past services to England. I hough 
 they were so obedient as to forge chains for the catholic?, 
 they should not flatter themselves with the liberty of 
 makinjJT their own laws or res'ulatino- their own slaves. 
 They Mere for the future to consider themselves as the 
 humbled agents of an English government, prompt at 
 every call which national jealousy would give to inflict or 
 to suspend the torture. The case of Mr. Molyneux, the 
 distinguished author of the book styled " The cause of 
 Ireland's being bound by acts of parliament in England, 
 
 tv) til's insulting outrag-e' on the feelings of the Irish nation. .Seven 
 sriirhiial ai.ci five temporal peers have put on record their abliOrrence 
 ct' this perfidious vioiaiion of a solemn compact, aggravated by the 
 niocktrv, that it pretended to confirm what tt purposed to destroy. It 
 is concluiive on the merits of this infamous transaction ; and worthy 
 the attention of those who conte.ud that the articles of Limerick were 
 not vioiated by the Irish legislature. The protest ot the Irish lords is 
 as foUuws : 
 
 " 1. Because the title did not agree with the body of the bill; the 
 title b'-ino- an act for the confirmation of the Irish articles, whereas no 
 one of said articles was therein fully confirmed. 2. Because the articles 
 were to be confirmed to them to whom they were granted ; but the 
 confirmation of them by that bill "was such, that it put them in a wor-e 
 condition than they were in before. S. Because the bill omitted the 
 material words " and all such as are under their protection in the said 
 counties," which were by his majesty's titles patent, declared to be part 
 of the second article i and several persons had been adjudged within 
 said articles who would, if the bill passed into a law, be entirely bar- 
 red and excluded, so tliat the words omitted being so very material, 
 and coiifirmed by his ii ajesty after a solemn debate in council, some 
 express reason «ught to^be assigned in the bill, in order to satisfy the world 
 in that omission. 4. Etcanse several words were inserted in the bill which 
 were not in the articles, and others omitted, which altered both the sense 
 and meaning thereof. Lastly, because they apprehended that many pro- 
 testants might .and would siuTer by the bill in their just rights and 
 pretensions, by reason of their having^ purchased, and lent money, 
 lipon the fiith of said article." 
 
493 
 
 {Stated," is a proof in point. This book asserted the le- 
 gislative independence oi" Ireland. It talked of the rijjjbts 
 of Irishmen ; but the author forgot that he was struggling 
 for the independence of a monopoly, and that in such a 
 contest the people took no part. The catholics of Ireland, 
 who were the great majority, must have snuled at the im- 
 potence of that sect which were so infatuated as to strip tlicir 
 natural ilefenders of their arms ; they must have triumph- 
 ed in the degradation of such foil}', and secretly delight- 
 ed in the humiliation of their native tyrants. The promp- 
 titude with which king William declared his determina- . 
 tion to secure the dependence of the Ii ish parliament, is 
 perhaps one of the many reasons why his " immortal 
 memory" is so often celebrated by that description of 
 Irishmen called orangemen. Ihe Irish house of commons, 
 . in one of their intervals from the persecution of their ca- 
 tholic countrymen, had the imprudence to make some little 
 effort on behalf of their own legislative independence; 
 their great zeal for king William, they credulously sup- 
 posed, would have been a sufficient atonement for such an 
 experiment. The fate of Mr. Molyneux's book dissipated 
 all their hopes, and all the power they would be allowed 
 to wield was the power of putting to the torture those of 
 their countrymen who now lay at their feet unable to re- 
 sist their oppressors. The English parliament voted an 
 address, desn-ing he would give directions for the disco- 
 very and punishment of- the author. They implored liis 
 majesty that he would take care to see the laws which 
 direct and restrain the parliament of Ireland punctually 
 observed, and discourage every thing which might have 
 a tendency to lessen the dependence of Ireland upon 
 England. How was this remonstrance of the house of 
 commons received by king William of " immortal 
 memory ? " His mnjesty most gra'ciously promised, that 
 lie would make every exertion to promote the wishes of 
 his parliament, or in other words, that he would put 
 - down the legislative independence of the Irish parliament. 
 
 V 
 
494 
 
 The Irish protestant, who reads this transaction, cannot 
 but feel indignant at the ignorant audacity of those per- 
 sons who are annually holding up king William as the 
 great patron of Irish liberties; he cannot refrain from 
 recalling to his recollection the proceedings of the Irish 
 parliament during the government of king James, which 
 asserted the independence of the Irish legislature ; passed 
 one act in favor of liberty of conscience, and another 
 in support of the industry and the trade of Ireland. He 
 will take down with pride and gratification, that this Irish 
 parliament, who so acted in support of Irish freedom, was 
 a parliament composed of protestants and catholics ; that 
 the interest and the glory of each was the interest and 
 glory of all ; and that the parliamentary independence of 
 Ireland was considered by them as best and most firmly 
 secured by maintaining the rights and the privileges of 
 all classes and denominations of Christians. 
 
 The catholics of Ireland most naturally looked around 
 for refuge against the merciless persecution of intolerance. 
 They appealed in vain to the letter of a solemn treaty 
 which secured their liberties and properties ; they appealed 
 in vain to the honor of the immortal king William, to 
 stand betv/een them and the never-ceasing fire of the Irish 
 parliament. They therefore made their last appeal to the 
 powers of the continent; to Charles II. of Spain, and 
 Leopold IV. of Austria, the then catholic allies of Great 
 Britain. The overwhelming ambition of Le^vis XIV. 
 united the arms of England, Austria, and Spain : but had 
 Austria or Spain interfered for the catholics, the friends of 
 religious liberty in England, the whigs of England, would 
 have been slow in giving to the British monarch the neces- 
 sary supplies to support him in his favorite object. They 
 rcquired, as the condition of their zeal in his support, full 
 and uncontrouled permission to torture the Irish catholic ; 
 and the strange spectacle was now exhibited to the reflec- 
 tion and the indignation of all enhghtened men, namely, 
 a miserable competition between the great advocates of 
 
495 
 
 British liberty and the French monarch, Lewis XIV. who 
 would be the greatest tj'rant over the human -mind; who 
 would be the most zealous oppressor of conscience; 
 or who would most boldly set at defiance the laws of 
 God and the rijrhts of human nature. Lewis XIV. 
 banished 800,000 protcstants, who were embellishing and 
 enriching his empire by their genius, their industry, and 
 their virtues. He repealed the edict of Nantz which the 
 enlightened policy of Henry IV. gave to suffering huma- 
 nity. This does not astonish, because it was the act of an 
 ignorant, rapacious and xuiprincipled monarch ; but that 
 he should find a rival in the British parliament, which 
 boasted of establishing in their own country the finest con- 
 stitution on earth, must excite the surprise and sorrow of 
 every reader. That parliament, and their creatures in the 
 Irish parliament, banished millions from Ireland, because 
 they committed the atrocious crime of persevering in a 
 religion professed by the great majority of the christian 
 world, wliich was once the religion of England, and was 
 then the hope and consolation of every Irishman.* 
 
 • Mr. Burke, in his admirable tracts on the penal laws, (perhaps one 
 of the most valuable productions which came from that great man) 
 draws the following parallel between t',:e conduct of the French despot 
 and bigot with that of the English and Iiish protcstants and presbyterians, 
 in the reign of William. The profound views of this great statesman 
 are so likely to be read with interest, and to be estimated with vene- 
 ration by the majority of those into whose hands this compendium will 
 fall, that we feel it an important part of our duty to make such extracts 
 as bear upon the period and the events which we may happen to be 
 recording. Speaking of that perfidious act of Lewis the XIV. namely, 
 the repeal of the edict of Nantz, Mr. Burke thus observes: — "This 
 act of iiijnstice, which let loose on that monarch such a torrent of in- 
 vective and repro;*ch, and which threw so dark a cloud over all the 
 splendor of a most illustrious reign, falls far short of the case in Ireland. 
 The privileges which the protcstants of that kingdom enjoyed antece- 
 dent to this revocation, were far greater than the Roman catholics of 
 Ireland ever aspired to under a contrary establishment. The number 
 of their sufferers, if considered absolutely, is not the half of ours ; if 
 considered relatively to the body of each community, it is not perhaps 
 a twentieth part ; and then the penalties and incapacities, which grew 
 from that revocation,are not so grievous in their nature, nor so certain 
 in their execution, nor so ruinous by a great deal to the civil prosperity 
 of the state, as those which were established for a perpetual law in our 
 iinhappy country; It cannot be thought to ari»e from ^affectation thit 
 
49G - 
 
 We have seen that king William', of " immortal memo- 
 ry," readily assented to the kind and sisterly sensibilities 
 ef England towards our insulted country ; he promised, 
 with all due submission to the higher pov/er of Enp-lish 
 prejudice, and Engli:ih avarice and injustice, that the Irish 
 parliament should be kept down ; well and faithfully did 
 
 I call it so. 'What other name can be given to a country which contains 
 so many hundred thousand human creatures reduced to a state of inoit 
 abject servitude. 
 
 " In putting this parallel, I take it for granted that we can stand for 
 this short time very clear of our party distinctions. If it were enough, 
 by the use of an odious and unpopular word, to determine the question, 
 it would be no longer a sniiject of rational disquisition ; since that very 
 prejudice which gives those odious names, and which is the party charged 
 tor doing so, and for the consequences of it, would then become the 
 judge also. But 1 flatter myself, that not a few will be found who do not 
 think that the names of protestant and papist can make any change in 
 the nature of essential justice; such men will not allow that to be pro- 
 per treatment to the one of those denominations which would be cruel- 
 ty to the other, and whicli converts its very crime into the instrument 
 of its defence. They will hardly persuade themselves, that what was bad 
 policy in France can be good in Ireland, or that what was intolerable 
 injustice in an arbitrary monarch, becomes, only by being more extend- 
 ed and more violent, an equitable procedure in a country professing to 
 be governed by law. It is however impossible not to observe with 
 some concern, that there are many also of a different disposition ; a 
 number of persons whose minds are so formed that they find the com- 
 munion of religion to be a close and endearing tie, and tlieir country to 
 be no bond at all; to whom common altars area better relation than 
 common habitations and a common civil interest; whose hearts are touch- 
 ed with the disLre?ses of foreigners, and are abundantly awake to ail the 
 tenderness of huuum feeling on such an occasion, even at the moment 
 Jliat they are in.flicting; the very same distresses, or worse, on their 
 fellow citizens, without the least sting of compassion or remorse, lo 
 commiserate the distresses of all men suffering innocently, perhaps meri- 
 toriously, is generous, and very agreeable to the better part of our 
 nature ; a disposition that ought by all means to be cherished. But to 
 transfer humanity from its natural basis, our legitimate :!nd home bred 
 connexions; to lose all feeling for those who have grown up by our 
 .^ides, in our eye, the benefit (;f whose cares and labors we have partaken 
 Irom our birth, and B\eretriciously to hunt abroad after foreign ajfdctiom, 
 is such a disarrangement of the whole system of our duties, tiiat 1 do not 
 know whether benevolence so displayed, is not almost the same tiling as 
 destroyed; or what effect bigotry could have produced that is more 
 fatal to society. This no one couid help observing, who has seen our 
 doors kindly and bountifully thrown open to foreign sufferers for coui 
 science, whilst through the same, ports were issuing fugitives of our own, 
 driven from their country, for a cause, which to an indifferent per- 
 son would seem to be exactly similar; whilst we stood by without any 
 sense of the impropriety of, the extraordinary scene, accusing and prac- 
 tising injustice. For my part there is no circumstaKce in all the contra- 
 •iiction of our most mysterious nature, that appears to be more humiliat- 
 
497 
 
 this monarch of " immortal memory" keep his word At 
 this period the woollen manufacture of Ireland was suf- 
 iiciently prosperous and important to rouse the jealousy 
 of our sister; with Ireland it was a profitable branch of 
 commerce. Before the time of Charles I. we endraped 
 our wool, and exported what we did not consume to fo- 
 reign markets. Of this privilege of export we were de- 
 prived by several acts of parliament, more especially one 
 enacted in tiie reign of Clijlrles II. which was deeply 
 marked with the most unjust severity; all this would not 
 satisfy king William, of " immortal memor}^." The 
 woollen manufacture of Ireland sliould be extinguished ; 
 so great and ardent was William's affection for the Indus- 
 try and the prosperity of our country. Indeed this trans- 
 action is of so black and impudent a color, that it would 
 be doing sad injustice to the " immortal memory" of our 
 king William, if we did not set down the exact words of 
 solemn introduction with which William and his auda- 
 cious parliament had the hardihood to preface this un- 
 precedented outrage on our country. The Irishman 
 who reads this, and who witnesses the annual commemora- 
 tion of that very king who thus trampled on the liberties 
 
 ing than the use we are disposed to make of those sad examples, which 
 seem purposely marked for our correction and improvement. Every in- 
 stance of fury and bigotry in other men, one should think, would na- 
 turally fill us with an horror of that disposiiion. The eflect, however, 
 is distinctly contrary. We are inspired, it is true, with a very sufficient 
 hatred for the party, but with no detestation at all of the proceeding ; 
 nay, we are apt to urge our dislike of such measures as a reason for imi- 
 tating them, and by an almost incredible absurdity, because some powers 
 have destroyed their country by their persecuting spirit, to argue, that 
 we ought to retaliate on them by destroying our own. Such are the 
 effects, and such, I fear, has been the intention, of those numberless 
 books which are daily printed and industriously spread, of the persecu- 
 tions in other countries and other religious persuasions." 
 
 In the reign of which we are now writing, the persecution of the 
 French protestauts was the constant theme of every Englishman; it ex- 
 cited pity in every bosom, and sharpened the vengeance of that war 
 which England then waged against the French nation ; yet those same 
 English who thus sympathized with the French protesiant, could look 
 on the tortures of their catholic fellow subjects without a single emotioa 
 of compassion, or the slightest manifestation of sympathy. Such, however, 
 has ever been the blindness of all sects to their own bigotry. 
 
 1> p p 
 
499 
 
 and the rights of Ireland, cannot suppress his indignation 
 against that impertinent faction who presume to style 
 themselves the friends of Ireland. Irishmen may measure 
 the wisdom and the kindness of their rulers by the frequen- 
 cy or the unlreqiiency of those exhibitions which some- 
 times parade our metropolis, rouse the irritability of in- 
 sulted virtue, expose the best men of our country to the 
 insults of a mercenary yeomanry or soldier}-, promote 
 drunkenness and abandonment among aldermen, and en- 
 courage the vicious and the corrupt to make experiments 
 on the patience of the arm which if once roused could 
 so easily extinguish them. The alderman and the corpo-^ 
 rations of Ireland will not forget, when they are drinking 
 " the immortal memory" of their demigod and hero, that 
 the destruction of the woollen manufacture is not the 
 least among the topics of recommendation which may be 
 m'ged in his favor. As this miserable transaction at once 
 displays the tyranny of king William and his parliament^ 
 and the fallen and wretched state of the Irish parlia- 
 ment j as it'exhibits the playful mockery with which Ire- 
 land was then treated by her bitterest enemy, it would 
 be an act of justice to set down the memorable words , 
 in which the English parliament thought proper to pre- 
 vail on an Irish parliament to rob their own country. We 
 request the reader to pay particular attention to the fol- 
 lowing specimen of English justice, during the reign of 
 the immortal king William. In 1698, the English house 
 of commons addressed his majesty to tiie follow ii^g effect : 
 *•' Tliat being very sensible, the wealth and power of 
 England do in a great measure depend on the preserving 
 the woollen manufacture, as much as possible, entire to 
 this realm, they thought that it became them, like their an- 
 cestors, to be jealous of the establishment and increase 
 thereof elsewhere ; and to use their utmost endeavours to 
 prevent It. That they could not, without pain, observe 
 that Ireland, which is dependent on and protected bjr 
 
499 
 
 England (what an impudent mockery!) in the enjoyment 
 of all she has, and which is so proper for the linen manu- 
 iucture, the establishment and growth of which would be 
 ■so enriching to themselves and so profitable to England, 
 . should of late apply itself to the woollen manufacture, to 
 the great prejudice of the trade of this kingdom, and so 
 unwillingly promote the linen trade, which would benefii 
 both nations. That tlse consequence thereof would ne- 
 cessitate his majesty's parliament of England to interpose, 
 to prevent the mischiet" unless his majesty" of immortal 
 memorij^ " by his authority and great wisdom, should find 
 means to secure the trade of England, by making his sirb- 
 jects of Ireland preserve the joint interest of both king- 
 doms, wherefore they implored his majesty's protection 
 and favor in this matter, and that he would make it his 
 royal care, and enjoin all those he employed in Ireland, 
 to use their utmost endeavours to hinder the exportation of 
 ■wool from Ireland (except it be imported hither) and for 
 the discouraging the woollen manufactures and encourao-inf 
 the linen manufactures, to which the commons of Eng- 
 land should always be ready to give their utmost assist- 
 ance." 
 
 This is so delightful an instance of English kindness to 
 the Irish people, that we thought it would be a pity to lose 
 one word of it. There is so much humor in the manner 
 with which they plunder Ireland of her property, and so 
 candid a care of the industry and the j>ropcrty of England, 
 that we do not wonder a drunken corporation should riot 
 in ecstacj- of joy when they are pouring out libations to 
 the "immortal memory" of the monai'ch who so faithfully 
 promised to put in execution agamst Ireland the utmost 
 wislies of the English parliament. What did the immor- 
 lal sovereign reply to the above pai'ental address of th« 
 commons ? He made answer tliat he should do all that in 
 liim lay to promote the trade of England, and to discour- 
 age the woollen manufacture of Ireland. He also promis- 
 ed to give all }>ossibie encouragement to linen miOJuiiictu^g* 
 
SCO 
 
 This is one among the many reasons why the corporations 
 of Ireland, the last remaining depots of every thing which 
 tlie enlightened protestant and catholic consider ignorant 
 and contemptible, so perpetually oifer up their incense to 
 this sainted monarch. 
 
 To him who will estimate the qualities of king William 
 by the infamous acts to which he was obliged to give his 
 consent, the character of this monarch, in the exercise of 
 his royal power in Ireland, must appear odious and de-, 
 testable. Those of the Irish people who are so clamorous 
 in his praise, found their veneration for king William on 
 those passages of his life which excite the indignation of 
 every honest Irishman. But justice to the memory even of 
 a recorded enemy of Ireland, obliges us to admit that 
 William had to contend with a rancorous malignity, which 
 national jealousy has always excited arrd kept alive in the 
 bosom of England. In the front of the acts which we 
 have recited, acts which might have satisfied English ra- 
 pacity, it is pleasant to find a catholic, (and a catholic too 
 who should feci for the suffering of his country, and often 
 reflect on the fame of the venerated family of which he is, 
 a member) bearing testimony to the liberality of the mon- 
 arch in whose reign the war of penal law m.ost bitterly 
 commenced against his liberties and his religion. In a 
 late publication of Mr. Mathew O'Connor, we find the 
 following observations; they may palliate the crimes of 
 king William against Ireland, but they add nothing either 
 to the strength or th^ firmness of his understanding. 
 They make him a passive and pliable instrument; obedient 
 to the suggestions of the most vicious passions ; the execu- 
 tive of any measure of legislation which the jealousy or 
 tlie avarice of commercial monopoly might please to dic- 
 tate. Surelv such a character is not that of a ffreat kinff. 
 Mr. O'Cormor thus writes : 
 
 " In Holland this generous prince, unfettered and un- 
 eontrouled, displayed the full blaze of his shining qualities. 
 \it Eur^and. where his throne Mas blockaded and his 
 
501 
 
 power contracted ; where he wa^ forced to capitulate to 
 faction and dismiss his guards ; where he was stript of all 
 the substantial powers, and left only the pageantry of 
 royalty, he was forced into measures which threw a shade 
 on the lustre of his character." (This is rather a light 
 description of the acts we have recited, and to which 
 king William (rave his consent. Those acts were measures 
 of vital importance to the comfort and happiness of 
 four-fifths of the Irish people. Those measures into 
 which Mr. O'Connor says William was forced, were 
 flagrant and infamous violations of that honor which this 
 immortal sovereign pledged to Ireland.) However Mr. 
 O'Connor proceeds : " Yet on many occasions his firm- 
 ness and wisdom, and long adversity, burst all restraints, 
 and displayed themselves at the commencement of his 
 reign, in the avowed protection, and towards the close, 
 in underhand countenance and partiality to the catholics. 
 He endeavoured to atone for the acts of severity and 
 injustice to which he was compelled to assent by the 
 clamor of faction and the calls of necessity. 233,106 
 acres were restored to catholics, adjudged to be comprized 
 within the articles of Limerick and Galway. , Those articles 
 had been exjpounded beneficially in favor of the Irish 
 by the commissioners of claims, and 74,733 were restor- 
 ed to persons pardoned, or whose outlawries were re- 
 versed by the special favor and protection of William. 
 This partiality became a subject of the bitterest invec- 
 tive in the English commons, and forms a permanent 
 feature in the report of the commissioners appointed to in- 
 quire into the value and disposal, of the forfeited estates." 
 Supposing even this defence to be accurate in point of 
 fact, and Mr. O'Connor has taken it from the partial 
 authority of king William's biographer, it must be ad- 
 mitted, that the monarch who had not the firmness to refuse 
 putting his hand to laws which amounted to an extirpa- 
 tion of the religion, and an extinction of the rights of 
 Irduud, was either a very weak or a very unprincipled 
 
502. 
 
 sovereign ; nor can we see how the partial protection* 
 mentioned by Mr. Harris, his panegyrist and biographer, 
 can atone for the sweeping destruction of a v»'hole nation, 
 to which king William gave his prompt and efficacious 
 assent. Speaking as Irishmen and upon Irish hberty, we 
 cannot admit that this king of " immortal memory," should 
 find an advocate in an}' })en devoted to the rights of our 
 country. The ignorant Irish corporator toasts the " im- 
 mortal memory," because his father and grandfather show- 
 ed him the example; but the enlightened protestant or ca- 
 tholic Irishman who reads the Irish statute-book, turns from 
 the record with indignation, and laments that the great 
 champion of constitutional liberty should be the submis- 
 sive instrument of Irish slavery. 
 
 The Irish parliament were taught, in the instance of 
 Mr. Molyneux's book in defence of their legislative in- 
 dependence, how to demean themselves on the great ques- 
 tion of the woollen trade of Ireland. Poor creatures !* 
 the wretched victims of their own barbarous and besotted 
 policy, they were obliged to kiss the rod, and bow in 
 silence to the mandate of the English parliament. The 
 lords justices called upon the Irish legislature to put down 
 
 * Mr Curran (the present master of the rolls) has given to posterity 
 a fine picture of the situation of the parliameatary monopolists of 
 JrelanJ, during the existence of their penal laws. It is one of those 
 Kiasier touches that so often fell from the pencil of our eloquent Irish- 
 man, which succeeding orators have a hundred times repeated, and 
 %vhich none have improved. The reader of this passage is able to take 
 sn ail the melancholy circumstances which followed in the train of the 
 penal laws. The figure presented by the orator, comprehends all the 
 horrors of unjust laws, and he turns with pity and disgust from the 
 consideration of a system which could generate such a monster. 
 
 •' Let me ask you," said Mr. Curran to the Irish parliament of 17S5» 
 *• how have those laws affected the protestant subject and protestant con- 
 itifution ? In that interval, were they free ? Did they possess that liberty 
 vliich they denied to their brethren ? No : where there are inhabitants, but 
 no people, a free government cannot be kept steady or fixed in its seat. 
 You had indeed a government, but it was planted in civil dissention and' 
 watered in cipil blood ; and whiUt the virtuous luxuriance of its branches 
 avpired to heaven, its infernal roots shot downwards to their congenial 
 regions, and were intertwined in helh Your aucestors thought them- 
 stives the oppressors of their fellow subjects — but they were only their 
 };iilors; and the justice of Providence would have been frustrated, if their 
 A-wii sbvery had uot been the punishment of their vice and their folly." 
 
503 
 
 the woollen manufacture. They most respectfully answer^ 
 ed in the affirmative; or, as Dean Swift observed, they 
 resolved that they would rather live on salt herrings than 
 the best beef ; and therefore faithfully promised to encour- 
 age the linen manufacture of Ireland. 
 
 On the tenth of October, 1 698, the Irish commons re- 
 solvedt hat the woollen trade of Ire! find should be regulated. 
 The reader will attend to the mild phrase of regulation 
 and then recollect the plan of regulation this honest par- 
 liament adopted. They imposed a duty of four shillings 
 on every twenty shillings value of broati cloth exported 
 fi:ora the 25th of March, 1699, ^ and two shillings on e- 
 very twenty shillings value of all serges, bays, kersics, or 
 any other sort of new drapery made of wool, or even 
 mixed with wool, friezes only excepted. Here was the 
 regulation, or rather, here was the " act of suicide" which 
 was insultingly denominated regulation, and which m.ost 
 effectually succeeded in its object, namely, the destruction 
 of the woollen manufactories and manufactures of Ireland. 
 But even this did not satisfy England^ The English 
 parliament passed an act prohibiting the export directly 
 or indix-ectly from Ireland after the 24th of June, 1699, 
 except to England or Wales. 
 
 Those infamous proceedings against our devctod coun- 
 try were accompanied by an act which prohibited to 
 papists the profession of the law. The b-'ographer of 
 king William says, that "no transaction, during the reign 
 of this monarch, so pressed upon his spirits, or so humbled 
 his pride, as the resumption of the grants of the forfeited 
 estates in Ireland by the English parliament." Of this 
 we can have little doubt; and it is to be remarked, 
 we find no such opinion from king Vv'iiliam's biograph- 
 er, when that monarch was setting his seal to the atro- 
 cious violations of lavr and jnstice, which we have already 
 enumerated. The reason is obvious ; king William was 
 distressed that he could not parcel out Irish property 
 to his Dutch ^nd German adventurers, as he thought 
 
504 
 
 proper, and the pride of the monarch was wounded in 
 the contest with the rapacity of his parliament. Ireland 
 was too precious a field for the complete satiety of the 
 English plunderer; and therefore Mr. O'Connor may 
 here say, that William was forced to give up all his old 
 loving and affectionate Dutch auxiliaries. It is said, that 
 the violence done to the king's feelings by this act of 
 the British parhament, made an impression on his mind 
 and spirits from which he never rallied to the hour of 
 his death. Muc;h has been said of the spirit of tolera- 
 tion which governed the conduct and characterized the 
 disposition of king William. We shall put the legislative 
 acts of his reign against the conjectures or the assertions 
 of his panegyrists. W"e shall open the Irish statute book, 
 where every Irishman may read the character of this 
 monarch of " immortal memory" written in the blood of 
 our country. \Ve should therefore consider his Irish 
 admirers as the enemies of Ireland, and estimate their ab- 
 horrence of every liberal and enlightened principle in pro- 
 portion to the degree of enthusiasm with which they re- 
 vive the memory of king William, when considered as 
 monarch of Ireland. As the indefatigable opponent of 
 foreign despotism, we will join in generai admiration of 
 Wilham's memor}^, but as the sovereign of our country, 
 whose rights, civil and religious, he basely trampled on, 
 after giving his solemn pledge to support and protect 
 them, we must, in common with nineteen-twentieths of 
 our country, lament that he ever existed. 
 
THC 
 
 lilSTOIlY OF IRELAND, 
 
 Anne. 
 
 A.D. 
 
 1702. 
 
 1 HE reader of the preceding reign would be in- 
 clined to conclude, that sufficient zeal had been 
 manifested by the advocates of what was now de- 
 nominated "protestant ascendancy," to destroy the reli- 
 gion and violate the rights, as well as insult the feelings, 
 of their catholic countrymen. The pages which are to 
 follow,"* will display the eccentric ingenuity of malice and 
 cowardice — of malice to torture and cowardice to triumph 
 over an innocent and unoffending nation, which had won, 
 by the sacrifice of its best blood, the enjoyment of those 
 privileges that the confiscating spirit of monopoly had 
 dared to withhold. Efe who is acquainted with the splen- 
 did events which distinguished the reign of Anne, who 
 has followed the rapid and astonishing progress of English 
 arms, under the directing genius of Marlborough, who 
 has stopped to reflect on that constellation of talent and 
 learning which illuminated the Augustan period of British 
 history, will turn with wonder and astonishment from the 
 vandal scene of infamous oppression under which our peo- 
 ple were then doomed to suffer. He will no longer wonder 
 at the feeling which prompts the honest Irish heart to re- 
 pine at the fluctuation of England's fortune ; nor will he 
 m future join in that hj-pocritical exultation which the 
 »5'cophants of power would pretend to feel at the victoriei 
 
 Q q q 
 
506 
 
 and glory of the nation who persecutes them. There 
 can be no better evidence of the successful debasement of 
 the pubhc mind by the perpetual infliction of ignominy, 
 than the hollow and affected loyalty which too often dis- 
 tinguished the class of the unprivileged Irish, who were 
 nearest to the seat of power ; whose humiliation Vv'as con- 
 spicuous in proportion to their rank and fortune among 
 their oppressed fellow citizens ; who fawned, and flattered, 
 and professed, though the public eye turned from the 
 scene with indignation; and talked of loyalty, and con- 
 tent, and satisfaction, under the chains whose clanking 
 still rung in the ear of every Irishman. Nothing can be 
 more contemptible, nor more destructive to the fair honest 
 claims of the people, than this aristocratic insincerity, 
 /which Ireland too often witnesses. The government of 
 the country are deceived by an appearance of attachment 
 and of loyalty, where such feeling neither can nor ought 
 to exist. The people are abused by the specious display cf 
 a spirit which only covers the wound that ought to be 
 probed and examined. The catholic aristocrat, who talk- 
 ed of his loyalty under the laws of William or of Annr, 
 deceived the prince as well as the people. His hypocrisy 
 was rewarded by additional degradation, and his excla- 
 mations of loyalty were answered by the ferocious denun- 
 ciations of monopoly. The people, who reflected on the 
 meanness of such duplicity, triumphed in the ignominious 
 repulsion of the sycophant, and the pride of the monopo- 
 list was fed and nourished by the precious incense cf his 
 noble slave. We are now come to that period when the 
 integrity of nations to each other was fully and unequivo- 
 cally developed; when national liberality might have been 
 practised with magnanimity ; when England, if inchned 
 to administer Irelar.d with justice, might have ruled witli 
 diguity and with safety ; wlien the hostile arm was in the 
 grave, and the susceptible and affectionate ht»art of Ireland 
 could have been gained by kindness and protection ; when 
 England might boast of liaving reached the highest chmax 
 
507 
 
 of human greatness; when she presented her firm and un- 
 daunted countenance, and shook to the foundi^ion the 
 only power which menaced tlie hberties of Eupdpe ; when 
 every breeze which could disturb limi^M^esperity was hush- 
 ed to silence, and the mind of her monarch reposed in 
 the victories which astonished and intimidated the world. 
 This surely might liave been the period of concession to 
 Ireland ; yet this was the period which England chose to 
 select, when Ireland could be put to the torture with 
 impunity ; insulted for her unthinking confidence in a 
 nation's honor, and stript of the last sad remnahl: of that 
 covering which sheltered her from the scorn and con- 
 tempt of nations. 
 
 Let no Irishman ever forget that this proud day, when 
 England raised her forehead to the skies, Ireland, bathed 
 in tears, sunk in despondency to the earth, the sport 
 of every fool, the subject of every ruffian hand to prac- 
 tise its tricks of torture, and the melancholy spectacle of 
 a confiding, innocent and betrayed country. No wonder 
 that the voice of every muse, on the sad subject of 
 Ireland, should be that of sorrow and despair ; no wonder 
 that the Irish harp should sound its deep and melancholy 
 tone, when the sufferings of ^uch a people are the subject 
 of its strain. Our poetry and our music make their power- 
 ful appeals to the heart, and the dark mournful hue of 
 oppression increases the interest, and adds to the beau- 
 ties of the finest productions of Irish genius. In the 
 reign of William, the sword of oppression and violence 
 was sometimes suspended. Unschooled in the arts of per- 
 secution, that illustrious monarch sometimes retreated 
 from tlie task which national prejudice assigned him. He 
 re(}nired some time to reconcde him to the work of intol- 
 erance, but was at length a successful pupil to the instruc- 
 tions bf monopoly. But the reign we are now recording, 
 commenced in despotism, and ended as it began. The op- 
 pressor is generally systematic in the work of torture ; he 
 is delighted with ihe capabilities of snftering wliicli his( 
 
508 
 
 victim may possess, and if the latter can survive the ex- 
 periment, he would prefer his gradual destruction to im- 
 mediate annihilation. The laws enacted in Ireland, 
 under the parental protection of the " immortal William" 
 might have appeased the vengeance of monopoly, during 
 the rein-n of that illustrious monarch; but succeedinjjf 
 tyrants of Ireland wanted some new wound with which 
 they might feast their eyes, and the " good queen Anne" 
 most kindly consented to their gratification. The Irish 
 monopolists imagined new danger to the constitution in 
 church and state, and called for new powers to avert 
 them. The catholic priest, though exiled from his country, 
 still appeared formidable. Even the memory of his re- 
 ligious and moral example should be provided against, 
 and the last mind which remained in the country, that 
 might perhaps have retained a single principle which the 
 catholic priest had planted, must be banished, before the 
 constitution in church and state could be considered se- 
 cure against its enemies. Were the catholics, or in 
 other words, were the people of Ireland guilty of any 
 acts which could have exasperated the hand of power? 
 Were they inclined to rebel against this tyranny ? No ; 
 history says they were not ; and the observation of man- 
 kind attests, that the sanguinary code of Anne would 
 never have been enacted — that no government would 
 have so dared to violate the rights of human nature, if a 
 spirit had existed in the people or their leaders, which 
 would have had the courage to resist the oppression. 
 
 England lound Ireland prostrate, and she trampled on 
 her. Had even a breathing of indignation been perceiv- 
 ed, that same England would not have dared to make 
 the experiment. Let it be a lesson to the future -iuen 
 of our country ; let them meet the approaches of tyran- 
 ny with a steady and determined tone, or the same scenes 
 may again be acted, which disgrace the pages of our 
 history at the commencement of the eighteenth century. 
 Tile constitution has now armed the people of Ireland 
 
509 
 
 with the strong and irresistible power of pubhc remon- 
 strance. Let that remonstrance be as firm 'as the grievance 
 of \vhich it comphiins is severe ; and though the retreat 
 of intolerance may be slow, yet the light of reason and 
 Christianity will illumine the progress of the petitioner. 
 
 It is painful to recall the human mind to the contem- 
 plation of those laws which were conceived by the malig- 
 nant genius of monopoly : for the interest of mankind 
 it would perhaps be better to bury these examples of 
 public infamy, the very mention of which must more or 
 less contribute to the degradation of public morals ; but 
 the duties of the historian silence the voice of the phi- 
 lanthropist ; and the loathing narration of every villany, 
 as well as the record of every virtue, are equally the 
 labors and the office of impartial history. 
 
 We have already detailed the splendid labors of king 
 William " of immortal memory," against this country. 
 It was he who gave the first grand and master stroke - 
 it was he who first plundered the mind of Ireland. It 
 was he who legalized national ignorance and national 
 immorality. He banished the instructor of youth, and 
 the preacher of religion. He exposed the people to the 
 arms of the midnight robber. He forbade the Irish ca- 
 tholic the possession or the use of arms. He estabhshed 
 a never failing source of perpetual discord and suspi- 
 cion among the different sects of Christians. He pre- 
 vented intermarriage between the protestant and catholic ; 
 and threw up a perpetual bar to the concord or happiness 
 of the nation : but that law which the " immortal king" 
 thought proper, in his affr-^tion for Ireland, to give his 
 consent to, and which was the natural prelude to all the 
 oppression which followed, was that with which he com- 
 menced his reign, namely,* the act which excluded the 
 
 • Among the many productions which the genius and spirit of the 19th 
 century has produced on the melancholy subject of the sufferings ot 
 the Irish catholics, there is none perhaps which merits so high a piacts 
 Q the estimation of «v«ry honeit and enlightened mind, as that work 
 
510 
 
 catholics of Ireland from seats in the legislature, by im- 
 posing on them the necessity of taking those oaths which 
 amounted to a renuntiation of their religion. King 
 William, of immortal memory, did all this ; yet the cor- 
 porations and the aldermen of Ireland will wonder that 
 the Irish catholic should be insulted by the annual cele- 
 bration of his memory. 
 
 which its distinguished author has styled, " A statement of the penal 
 laws which aggrieve the cathohcs of Ireland." Were we in want of a 
 measure of the value of this performance, we should immediately find it 
 ill the effi)rts of the enemies of public liberty to diminish its effects hy 
 the conibined struggles of power, corruption, and sophistry. It would 
 indeed be a work of supererogation to panegyrize a performance which 
 the splendid eloquence of Bushe has already immortalized. Extortmg 
 praises trom its enemies, what must be the admiration of its friends.' 
 What must be the strength of that arm under which tiie vrhole embat- 
 tled host of the British government in Ireland is obliged to crouch ? What 
 must be the strength of that reasoning which makes even intolerance 
 tremble ? and when, in order to be heard with temper, before no very 
 friendly tribunal, the prosecutor is obliged to acknowledge the great 
 pretensions of the man whose book he would endeavor to stigmatize ? 
 Ireland smiles at all th'S theatrical tumbling in the court : she admires 
 the brilliancy of those powers which dazzle, even on the side of falsehood, 
 but retires from the exhibition with contempt for the judgment which 
 could waste its time in an idle struggle with reason, justice and truth. 
 Public fame has attributed to counsellor Scully, a distinguished member 
 of the catholic board, the execution of tliis most useful and necessary 
 work to his country. Malignity would not be content unless the wreath, 
 which Ireland would weave round the brow of its author, was rendered 
 doubly precious by its calumny. His enemies have exhausted their fancy 
 and their folly. Sophistry lies wearied with its unprofitable struggles; 
 and the able expositor of the indignities under which his country suffers 
 in the beo'inuing of the nineteenth century, is enthroned on the ruins of 
 his enemies. This book, of course, is sought for by every mind : it is to 
 be found in every library ; and promises, by the clearness and candor of 
 lis reasonino^, to be the leading light to our legislators in their progress to 
 the temple of justice. We have thus gratified our feelings in bearing our 
 homage to the labors of our celebrated countryman. We hope that into 
 whatever hands this compendium may fall, the observations we liuve made 
 wili induce them to read a work, which should be admired by the friends, 
 because it has been persecuted by the enemies of Irish liberty. 
 
 Having siid so much of the author, and of the great value of the prO' 
 duction, we shall now take from his pages that passage which induced us 
 to call the reader's attention to him. Speaking of the injuries which must 
 flow to the catholic body, by their exclusion from the legislature, the au- 
 thor of the " Statement" makes the following unanswerable observa- 
 tions : 
 
 " On the other hand, were catholics eligible to seats in the legislature ; 
 were there only ten catholics in the upper house, and twenty in the lower 
 house, (which is a profitable estimate for the first ten years) how many 
 mischiefs and errors might be avoided, how many useful projects framed 
 
511 
 
 The " good queen Anne" endeavoured to exceed his 
 majesty in her affection for her Irish subjects. She there- 
 fore commenced her administrati(m of Ireland, with a 
 perfidious violation of every law, divine and human. Hav- 
 ing had the unprincipled courage to break the solemn 
 obligations into which the English nation had entered 
 with Ireland, when the latter agreed to lay down her 
 arms at Limerick, the English government could with 
 less difficulty proceed to the commission of every outrage 
 which its avarice, or its spirit of despotism, might chance 
 to suggest. Queen Anne introduced her ferocious system 
 of government in Ireland, by an act which went to ex- 
 pel the inhabitants of Ireland from the lands of their 
 fathers. She enacted that no catholic should have the power 
 of purchasing any part of the forfeited lands ; and that all 
 leases which might have been made of such lands, shall be 
 annulled, except those leases which might have been made 
 to the poor cottagers of two acres ; thus giving to the 
 Irish such privileges as might best secure their vassalage 
 to their taskmasters. *' A law so barbarous, "■ says Mr. 
 
 and accomplished. No protestant member, Iiowfver upri-ht and enliffht- 
 eiied, can be expected by the catholics to he constantly prepared to pro- 
 tect their propertjr from unequal impost in parliament, their rights from 
 aggression, their fame from calumny, or their religion from gross misre- 
 presentation. Catholic members, and they alone, would prove compe- 
 tent to those tasks. A member of this description, duly qualified, speak- 
 ing upon the affairs, complaints and interests of his own community, 
 could readily falsify the fabricated tale, refute the sophistical objection 
 unravel the apparent difficulty, state the true extent of what is desired 
 what is practicable. Such a catholic, actually knowing^ the condition of 
 his fellow sufferers, could put down a calumny in the instant of its utter- 
 ance, and this not merely by contradicting, but by referring with promp- 
 titude to existing documents, facts, and authorities; by quoting time 
 place, and circumstance, and bringing within the immediate view of the 
 house and the public, the necessary materials of refutation." 
 
 " Finally, " says this enlightened writer," the statesman may truly ob- 
 lerve of this exclusion of the catholics from both houses of the legislature 
 ' Continue this exclusion of the catholics, and the removal of all the 
 other grievances will be of little value, and of no permanent security to 
 the catholics, or to the empire. Remove the exclusion, and other griev- 
 ances cannot long survive.' " 
 
 Such, no doubt, is the importance of a seat in the legislative assemble • 
 and king William, " of immortal memory," was so sensible of this that 
 he commenced his war against the Irish catholic by plundering him of 
 hi« great and paramount privilege. 
 
512 
 
 O'Connor '^' has no parallel in the records of nations ;" 
 yet the genius of the " good queen Anne" could surpass 
 the barbarity, as we shall see hereafter. No lapse of 
 time could purge the catholic of the hideous crime of 
 fidelity to his religion, and attachment to his country. Never 
 could he have the power, by the honorable labors of in- 
 dustry, of recovering those lands which were forfeited by 
 the intemperate spirit of his fathers. He should consent 
 to abandon every principle of honor and morality, before 
 he could be qualified to be received into the bosom of the 
 glorious constitution. Such an act might have for some 
 time satisfied the craving appetite of rapacity ; but so 
 long as the victim had life, so long had the oppressor a 
 propensity to indulge in cruelty. The act, therefore, which 
 in its vicious perfection seems to reach the very summit 
 of monopolizing malignity, is the act " for preventing the 
 further growth of popery," by which the presbyterian and 
 the catholic were equally levelled to the ground ; in which 
 the advocates of the church took their merciless ven- 
 geance on their old republican persecutors, whose indus- 
 try and genius were then raising the north of Ireland 
 into wealth, numbers and consequence. This wealth 
 misht have circulated amono; the catholics of the west and 
 the south ; and the spirit of political liberty, which eveir 
 found an asylum in the bosom of the presbyterian, might 
 have communicated its contagion to the almost extin- 
 guished embers of catholic patriotism. The bill above- 
 mentioned, so celebrated for its. infamy, v/ent to the total 
 expulsion of the catholics from any right or property in 
 land. It disabled them from purchasing either lands oi 
 tenements, or taking by inheritance, devise or gift, any 
 lands in the hands of protestants ; making all estates 
 y*'hich they might then hold, descendable by gavelkmd, 
 except in case of the conformity of the eldest son ; ren- 
 dering the father a mere tenant for life, dq.>riving him 
 of the power of alienating, mortgaging or encumbering, 
 even for th.e support or the advancement of younger chil- 
 
dren, except under the controul and discretion of the 
 chancellor." Had the " good queen Anne" and her 
 Irish monopolists passed an act, which would have ban- 
 ished the entire catholic population of Ireland to some 
 foreign though hospitable country, humanity might have 
 had some consolation on which it might have reposed. 
 But this would not have been the complete and finished 
 work of despotism, which the advocates of the free con- 
 stitution of England so fondly meditated in Ireland. The 
 catholic slave would no longer have ministered to the 
 pastime of his taskmaster ; the torture would have been 
 removed and the groans of a suffering though unoffending 
 people, w^ould have no longer soothed their tyrants to the 
 sweet sleep of peace and security. The catholic histo- 
 rians have echoed the hypocrisy of protestant writers, in 
 praising the loyalty of the Irish nation, while this work 
 of legal slaughter was carrying on. Far be it from us to 
 praise that submission which the tyrant and the hs^pocrite 
 will ever dignify with the name of loyalty. We would 
 have felt pleasure in recording the struggle of a brave 
 nation with their cowardly and unprincipled tyrants, and 
 have been consoled by the appeals of our oppressed coun- 
 try to the venerated shades of her O' Moore and O'Neil. 
 What Englishman, who has reflected on the struggles of 
 Ills ancestors, and who is now reaping the harvest which 
 was sowed by the hand of freedom, must not have rejoiced 
 if Ireland had risen like a giant and shook off the con- 
 temptible tyranny which thus dared to oppress her ? We 
 have said that this grand desolating act for " preventing 
 the farther growth of popery," was aUke aimed at the pres- 
 byterian as the catholic It was not so much the offspring 
 of sectarian bigotry as national jealousy and tyranny : it 
 was not so much the act of a protestant as the act of a na- 
 tion ; it was not to put down the catholics; it was to extin- 
 guish our country, and render, in future, the protestant^, 
 catholics, and presbyterians of Ireland, the humble 
 vassals, the hewers of wood and drawers of water to their 
 
 A r r 
 
614 
 
 enlightened and liberal sister country. For this puiposff 
 the English tory government introduced a provision into 
 the act, by which all persons in Ireland were rendered 
 incapable of any employment under the crown, or of be- 
 in o- magistrates in any city, who should not, agreeably to 
 the test act, receive the sacrament according to the usage 
 of the church of Ireland, thus calling upon the presby- 
 terian to renounce his religion if he wished to enjoy the 
 protection or the privileges of the constitution. 
 
 The resistance made by the Irish presbyterian to the 
 introduction of such a provision into an act which he 
 had conceived was solely levelled against his catholic 
 countrymen, should have been to the future presbyterian 
 of Ireland a fruitful source of instruction on the folly as 
 well as the malignity of religious persecution. The anx- 
 iety of the English government to depress the catholic, 
 should have demonstrated to the reflecting presbyterian^ 
 that catholic subjugation must necessarily lead to the sub- 
 jugation of their common country; and that the object 
 of England could have been nothing less than the com- 
 plete conquest of Irish freedom. The reader will observe 
 liovv' slow is the progress of that tolerating spirit, which 
 in his own days distinguislies the presbyterians ; how little 
 like Irishmen, and ho^ much like a sect, they gave their 
 opposition to this bold effort of the English governm.ent 
 against their civil and religious liberties. In their remon- 
 strance to parliament they pass by their catholic sufferer, 
 and complain, in the piteous tone of ciisarpoiiituKnt, that 
 they, the presbyterians, who had distinguit^hed themselves 
 so long as the persecutors of the catholic religion, 
 should be now assailed by that hand which should ha.ve 
 been ihe first to protect them. 
 
 The pliilospher smiles at the little contracted ground 
 of defence wjiich is here taken, and warmly hails the 
 arrival of that day which exliibits the Irish presbyterian 
 maintaining his own rights by his enlightened and liberal 
 SidvDcacy cf the rights cf his catholic countryman. In 
 
515 
 
 their petition to the Irish commons they complained, " that 
 to their great surprise and dissappointment, they found a 
 clause inserted in ' the act to prevent the further growth 
 of popery,' which liad not its rise in that honorable house, 
 whereby they were disabled from executing any public 
 trust, for the service of his majesty, the protestant re* 
 ligion, or their country, unless, contrary to their con- 
 scienccis, they should receive the Lord's supper according 
 to the rites and usages of the established church." " This 
 clause," says Dr. Curry " of which the presbyterians so 
 bitterly complained, has since been called the ' sacra- 
 mental test,' then first imposed on the dissenters of Ire" 
 land, whose zeal," says our honest countryman, " against 
 the catholic was so credulously blind at that juncture, that 
 upon a promise given them of having it repealed, on the 
 first opportunity, they readily concurred in passing, to- 
 gether with the clauses against the catholics, that morti- 
 fying one against themselves." Thus was the presbyterian, 
 in the reign of queen Anne, sacrificed to his own prejudice 
 against his catholic countrymen ; and the liberty of our 
 country voluntarily offered up on the altar of bigotry. For 
 a long time the presbyterian was doomed to smart under 
 his folly. The house of Brunswick, however, has conniv- 
 ed at the relaxation of the penalty ; and the enlightened 
 i>pirit of toleration which distinguishes the age we now live 
 in, has given to that connivance all the force of an actual re- 
 peal. In vain did the principal catholics of Ireland petition 
 against this infamous violation of the faith of nations. The 
 elocjuence of sir 'llieobald Butler and Anthony Malone 
 made their fruitless appeal to the reason and sensibility of 
 the lords and commons of Ireland. Such a tiibunal was 
 deaf to the voice of pity, of reason and truth; "and thus 
 on the 7th March, 1704," says Dr. Curry "the rovai 
 assent was given to an act, which, besides its being a 
 violation of national fiiith, has been hitherto productive 
 of every species of private, as well as public injurv, by 
 stripping men pf their property, for not parting with their 
 
516 
 
 integrity; by fining and imprisoning them for conscienti- 
 ous dissent from settled forms of worship, or holding tenets 
 merely spiritual, and totally foreign from any interfer- 
 ence with the civil government of the state : so that our 
 courts of justice and equity resembled, in these respects, 
 the Roman tribunal punishing the primitive Christians 
 for not disavowing the doctrine of Jesus Christ, and em_ 
 bracing that of human institution." It is not easily credit- 
 ed by the liberal understanding of the present age, that 
 any assembly of human beings, possessing the light and 
 charity of Christianity, could have been so barbarized by 
 bigotiy and avarice, as the lords and commons of Ireland 
 were, in the reign we are now recording; or that man 
 should have sunk so low from the proud characteristic 
 of his nature, as to wreath the laurel around the brow of 
 that wretch whom mankind have ever devoted to the pil- 
 lory or the scaftbld ! It will not be credited that the 
 Irish legislature should have conferred dignities and hon- 
 ors on the common informer ; and that a solemn resolution 
 can now be found on its journals, to the following effect, 
 *' that the prosecuting and informing against papists was 
 an honorable service to the government of Ireland." The 
 same rewards that civilized society are in the practice of 
 offering for the apprehension of the most abandoned mem- 
 bers of the community, the robber, or the murderer, were 
 in the Augustan age of queen Anne, offered by the Irish 
 legislature for the apprehension of the Roman catholic 
 clergy of Ireland. The price of the archbishop's or the 
 bishop's head was £.50, and that of the regular and secular 
 clergyman was estimated so low as £.20. Thus did the 
 Irish legislature provide for the religion and the morals of 
 Ireland. Yet still the work of desolation was not com- 
 plete: Irish poor, distinguished as much by the per- 
 secution under which they suffered, as by the elastic power 
 with which their acute and sagacious nnderstandings re- 
 pelled the struggles of despotism, were found in the ditches 
 and fieidb of their beloved country, imbibing that instruc- 
 
517 
 
 tion which the unconquered courage of their clergy vra* 
 daily communicating. The catholic priest was pursued 
 even to this humble refuge. The Irish peasant would be 
 a formidable personage, were he suffered to arm himself 
 in his wilderness with the terrific weapons which he could 
 draw from thehalf understood writings of Greece and Rome. 
 The schoolmaster, however humble his acquirements, was 
 deemed a furious enemy to the constitution in church and 
 state, and even him the guardian genius of queen Anne's 
 government pursued with all its terrors. A reward, there- 
 fore, of ^.10 was held out for the discovery and conviction 
 of every catholic schoolmaster, usher, or private tutor. 
 
 The calamities which must necessarily flow from such 
 infernal legislation, poured abundantly rapid upon the 
 unfortunate inhabitants of our country. Their taskmasters 
 often felt and experienced the recoil of their own barba- 
 rous folly, because they robbed the hands which might 
 have enriched themselves. The furious and insatiable 
 spirit of monopoly preferred the government of a desert 
 to that of a happy and contented people ; and the con- 
 stitution in church and state was pronounced secure 
 against its enemies, when the people of Ireland were 
 stripped of every privilege and every right which separa- 
 tes humanity from the brute creation. Mr. Matthew 
 O'Connor has summed up the effects of the ferocious 
 law of queen Anne, in a strong and comprehensive de:-» 
 cription, creditable to the sensibility which dictated it, 
 and worthy of the spirit of his ancient and respected 
 family. " The immediate effect of this law" he writes " was 
 the emigration of vast numbers of the inhabitants, who 
 sought shelter in distant exile, and found a refuge in the 
 annies of the catholic powers of the continent. The sen- 
 timent of persecution was completed by this act, and 
 never was system attended with more effectual success: 
 private manners were debauched, public sentiment de- 
 based, and eveiy faculty of the mind enei'vated. The 
 contrast of the sudden and certain acquisition of landed 
 
518 
 
 property by the obvious and easy method of discovery, 
 with tlie slow and uncertain acljiiirement of wealth by 
 the laborious pursuits of industry, nourished the princi- 
 ple of dishonesty, and a total disregard of shame and in- 
 famy. The rewards of conformity cherished the seeds 
 of rebellion in the minds of children against parents, 
 and of distrust in the minds of parents against children. 
 The penalties attached to an open and conscientious dis- 
 charge of religious duties, fomented dissimulation and 
 hypocrisy. Habits of oppression, and the exercise of law- 
 less power, debased the minds of the upper classes from 
 a love of country, of fame, and glory, to mean servility 
 to the court, and a tame acquiescence in th€ stern man- 
 dates of English supremacy. The loss of rights and pro- 
 perty extinguished every spark of patriotism, and in- 
 f\ised the spiritless indifference of submissive poverty into 
 the great mass of the people, who barely existed in their 
 native soil, strangers to its natural blessings, the pa- 
 tient victims of its wrongs, the insensible spectators 
 of its ruin. Here they vegetated on the potatoe root, 
 decayed in the prime cf life, destitute of solid nourish- 
 ment, and sinking to untimely graves; their vigor 
 prematurely exhausted by hard labour, and the spark 
 of life at last extinguished by famine." 
 
 It is perhaps as unprofitable to the reader as it is pain- 
 ful to the writer, to read the vile and profligate system 
 of legislation which blackened the reign of queen Anne 
 in tins country ; which must excite as nuich of astonish- 
 ment as of sorrow, in the bosom of the philosopher, 
 when he reflects how little the human mind had advanced 
 in the useful and efficient government of mankind i and 
 iiovv strongly the barbarities of queen Anne's laws, after 
 an interval of seventeen hundred 3'cars, resembled the 
 remorseless persecutions of paganism against the mild 
 ixnd charitable religion of Christianity. It is not easy 
 to assign any rational grounds for the devastating laws 
 
519 
 
 which were enacted against the catholics of Ireland. TIic 
 lust of torture, which seems to be the natural offspring of 
 monopoly, is the only incentive which posterity can assign 
 for the barbarities so long practised against our unoffend- 
 ing countrymen. 
 
 Dr. Curry has collected the reasons which the despots 
 of Ireland sometimes gave for their persecution of the 
 human mind. This able and honest man, whose labours 
 have so powerjfuUy contributed to rescue the millions that 
 are yet unborn, from the most wretched degradation, has 
 the following admirable obserotions on the effects of 
 those laws which the men, who enacted them, most 
 piously thought would have extirpated the religion, as 
 well as the property, of the catholic. The readers of 
 this compendium will read with attention the reflections 
 of one of the best Irishmen our country ever gave birth 
 to ; the legislator will acknowledge the force of his deduc- 
 tions; and the gratitude of Ireland will rejoice, in be- 
 holding the treasures of such a book as Dr. Curry's cir- 
 culating at a cheap and convenient rate, in every corner 
 of the empire. 
 
 " Two plausible reasons" writes Dr. Curry " have been 
 commonly assigned for the framing and continuing of these 
 laws. First, their tendency to bring the catholics of this 
 kingdom to conformity in religion and loyalty with their 
 protestant fellow-subjects; and nest, their aptitude to 
 weaken and impoverish such of them as prove refractory, 
 in these respects, to such a degree as to render both them 
 and their posterity utterly incapable of giving any future 
 disturbance to this government. But is it not notorious 
 that hypocrisy, and disaffection to the established religion 
 and government, are the natural and constant effects of 
 such forced conversions? And even supposing that converts 
 thus made, might at length become good and loyal subjects, 
 is evil to be done that good may arise therefrom, in this 
 one instance, when both reason and religion prohibit and 
 condemn it in every other ? On the other hand, docs not 
 
520 
 
 the enacting such predatory laws against these people, 
 without their being even accused of any civil crime, and 
 merely to weaken and impoverish them, suggest to their 
 mind something like the policy of an highwayman in put- 
 ting those he has robbed to death, but if they were suiFered 
 to survive their losses, they might chance to discover and 
 prosecute him for the robbery. 
 
 " The last of the common objections to the relaxation 
 of those laws, which I shall consider, (and it is the only 
 remaining objection that deserves to be considered) is, 
 that the spirit of persecution is peculiar and essential to the 
 BdQipan catholic religion ; and therefore that its professors 
 ought, in good polic}'^, to be always kept under, and in an 
 absolute incapacity to exert it. But this objection confutes 
 itself. It supposes that men may be justified in actually 
 wronging and persecuting others, for no other reason but 
 merely to prevent those others from ever having the power 
 (however remote and improbable) to injure and persecute 
 them. The Roman catholics v/ish not for a pov/er to per- 
 secute. They only implore the justice and mercy of the le- 
 gislature to relieve them from persecution. But how can 
 the spirit of persecution be deemed peculiar to Roman ca- 
 tholics, when it is notorious that those very accusers, of 
 every denomination, persecute both them and one another 
 whenever they have the power and opportunity of doing it ? 
 That such a spirit is far from being essential to their re- 
 ligion, however it may have unhappily possessed some of 
 its bigoted members, (and what sect or cojimnmioa of 
 Christians is free from such members ?) is manifest from 
 hence, that all their ablest and most respectable divines, 
 and in particular their last pope, (who surely must be sup- 
 posed to have known the essentials of his religion) condemn 
 and renounce it as unchristian and inhuman. ' The great 
 misfortune in this case,' says the eminently learned and 
 liberal prelate, Ganganelli 'is, that some people confound 
 religion with her ministers, and make her responsible for 
 their faults. It never was religion, but false zeal pretend- 
 
521 
 
 iiip; to lier, that seized fire and sword to compel heretics to 
 abjure their errors, and Jews to become Christians. And 
 What is more dreadful than to see good men fall victims to 
 a zeal displeasing in the sight of God, and condemned 
 by the church, as equally hurtful to religion and the rights 
 of society? The example of Jesus Christ, who, during 
 his residence on earth, bore patiently with the Saddu- 
 cees and Samaritans, (the infidels sind schismatics of these 
 times) oblige us to suj)port our brethren, of whatever 
 communion they may be ; to live peaceably with them; and 
 not to torment thejn on account of any system of belief 
 wliich they may have adopted. The power of the church . 
 is purely spiritvial ; our blessed Saviour hijiiself, when he 
 prayed for his executioners, taught us how his cause is to 
 be avenged. Had the ministers of the gospel been always 
 careful to follow that divine model, the enemies of Christi- 
 anity would not have been able to bring against it the un- 
 just reproach of favoring persecution. The catholic church 
 always disavowed those impetuous men, who, stirred up by 
 an indiscreet zeal, treat those who go astray with as- 
 perity; and its most holy bishops at all times solicited the 
 pardon of the apostles, desiring only their conversion. 
 Men, therefoie, ought not to impute to the church those 
 excesses, of which history has preserved the memory, and 
 which are repugnant to the maxims of the gospel.' " 
 
 Such are the opinions of Ganganelli on the duties of the 
 catholic priest; anil such is the vindication which the 
 liberal and enlightened mind of this great man makes (or 
 those pious excesses into which weak minds have been 
 driven by the intoxicating spirit of fanaticism. What sect 
 of Christians may not now be charged with the idle dis- 
 play of crutl zeal which sometimes distinguished the ca- 
 tholic church ? What sect of Christians is not able to 
 count an equal number of enormities in the propagr.tion 
 of their respective creeds ? Can the protestant say that 
 the records of his sect are unstained with, the biood of hu- 
 nmnity? Can he not boast of a rivalship in the enthusi- 
 asm of his zeal for his opinions with the inquisition, the 
 
 S s s 
 
' 522 
 
 memory of wliose atrocities is so odious to every mind cf 
 liberal and enliglitened feelings ? But as the good Ganga- 
 nelli writes, the crimes of the inquisition no more proceeded 
 from the catholic religion than the protestant persecutions 
 of queen Anne proceeded from the religion of the protes- 
 tant. The avarice of monopoly made its anxiety for the 
 protestant religion a pretext, to cover and conceal the base- 
 ness of its views. The catholic inquisition put on the garb 
 of the priest, when it was violating the divine and benefi- 
 cent principles of Christianity. Toleration, the great lead- 
 ing principle of every wise government, has at length de- 
 prived the bigot of the opportunity of martyrdom : he 
 now courts the fagot or the scalfbld in vnin : he struggles to 
 provoke persecution, and languishes and decays under the 
 philosopliic indifference with v/hich he is treated. 
 
 The persecuting laws of queeij Anne demonstrate the 
 folly of forcing the human conscience. Pride, principle, 
 every passion of our nature, confederated against the impu- 
 dent dictation of power on subjects, which no human au- 
 thority should dare to control. The furious spirit of the 
 laws was communicated to all the subordinate and humble 
 instruments of government. The castle gave the viord to 
 the police ofHce; and the ignorant alderman administered 
 his little government of the paiisii with all the insolence ot 
 the highest authority. Ireland was at this period so insig- 
 nificant a portion of the empire, and so low in the estima- 
 tion of its rulers, that the representative of majesty con- 
 'Sidered it a great act of condescension and favor to pay his 
 visit every second, and sometimes every third year. The 
 regulation of Ireland was intrusted, in the interim, to 
 some hot-headed bigots, or some trading speculators on the 
 misfortiuics and sufferings of the Irish people, under the 
 denomination of lords justices. Those governors general- 
 ly estimated their loyalty to their king, by the quantity o* 
 torture they inflicted on their fellow-subjects: their prin- 
 cipal duty was marshalhng the house of lords and com- 
 mons, and multiplying by corruption the number of Ir»e- 
 iand's oppressors. 
 
523 
 
 The genius of legislation had nearly completed its work 
 of national destruction. The executioner who would best 
 enforce the sanguinary statute, was now sought for, to put 
 the infamous theory into more infamous practice. Some- 
 times the malignity of the law was counteracted by the 
 humanity of the viceroy. The English parliament, how- 
 ever, in 1709, produced a nobleman, fitted by his mind and 
 his heart to become the instrument of the most abandon- 
 ed system. The earl Wharton, whose infamy has been 
 immortalized by Swift, was considered the most likely 
 personage, whom no compunctious visitings of nature would 
 ever prompt to withhold the lash, or susi)end the torture. 
 His talents being always tributary to his vices, he was as 
 formidable in his contrivance of ruin, as he was cruel 
 in the execution. " He had" says Swift " imbibed his fa- 
 ther's principles in government ; he was a rigid presbyte- 
 rian ; but drop})ed his religion, and took up no other in 
 its stead; excepting that circumstance, he was a firm pres- 
 byterian. He contracted such large debts, that his bre- 
 thren were forced, out of mere justice, to leave Ireland 
 at his mercy, where he had only time to set himself rifht. 
 He is very useful in parliament, being a ready speaker, 
 and content to employ this gift upon such occasions, where 
 those who conceive they have any remainder of reputation or 
 modesty are ashamed to appear. The earl of Wliarton sunk 
 his fortune by endeavoring to ruin one kingdom, and hath 
 raised it by going far in the ruin of another. His admini- 
 stration of Ireland was looked upon as a suflicient ground 
 to impeach him at last for high crimes and misdemeanors ; 
 yet he has gained by the government of that kingdom, under 
 two years, £A5,G00, by the most favorable computation, half 
 in the regular way, and half in the prudential." 
 
 The reader may estimate the character of the house of 
 commons at this disastrous period, by the followino- pane- 
 gyric on one of the most profligate men by whom a na- 
 tion was ever governed : " They gratefully acknowledged 
 her majesty's more particular care of them, in appointing 
 liis excellency their chief governor, whose equal and im- 
 
524 
 
 partial administration of justice gave them just reason to 
 hope and earnestly Avish his long continuance in the 
 government." 
 
 This accomplished state plunderer was admirably dex- 
 terous in holding out professions which he determined 
 ■ to break. He flattered and deceived the dissenter: he 
 was only candid to the catholic, whom he was perpetually 
 torturinjj. Thoufjh taken from the bosom of the dissent- 
 ers, and known to be in his private capacity anxious 
 to promote their views, this able taskmaster, Wharton, 
 would never hesitate to minister to the plans of their 
 oppressors, and, for the promotion of his personal for- 
 tunes, sacrifice his favorite religion and its followers. 
 
 Nothing perhaps can excite the indignation of the 
 Irish nation so much as the history of those conflicts 
 whiclitook place at this period, between the advocates of 
 prerogative and the advocates of liberty. It is painful to 
 see a little aristocracy, of a particular sect, engaged in 
 contests on the free principles of the revolution, as estab- 
 lished in 1691, when the people of Ireland stood behind 
 their chairs, the insulted spectators of a dispute in which 
 both parties agreed only in one point, namely, the oppres- 
 sion and the suffering of the great majority of the people. 
 At this period the Irish lords and the Irish commons 
 were appealing against each other to the crown, as their 
 common umpire. The most infamous aristocracy whicli 
 ever disgraced the annals of a country', were heard exclaim-, 
 ing against the abuses of power, the encroachments of 
 prerogative, and tlie violation of the rights of man. The 
 principles of Locke were the theme of their panegyric, 
 who Were exercising every oppression over the great ma- 
 jority of the Irish nation; and the public understanding 
 was mocked and insulted by the idle display of all the 
 forms of a free constitution. The tory lords and the 
 whig commons were daily disputing for pre-eminence ; 
 and while each laid claim to superior confidence from 
 the crown, both agreed in the common office of multi- 
 plying the mortifications of tlieir catholic fellow-subjects. 
 
525 
 
 '^That a parliament composed of such materials, and act- 
 ing so perpetually in contempt of public opinion, .should 
 be themselves dispersed in turn by a superior power, 
 will be easily conceived by any reflecting mind. The 
 Irish parliament, during the reign of queen Anne, was 
 humbled so low in the estimation of the sister country, 
 that the parliament of the latter did not hesitate to assume 
 the ri'vht of leirislatinir for Ireland, and of castin"; off" 
 an odious faction which at once disgusteil by their in- 
 solence and their oppression. Indeed the English parlia- 
 ment, in all the more important considerations which 
 affected the empire, dictated the law to Ireland, as if no 
 Irish parliament existed. They directed the sale of the 
 forfeited estates, and prohibited catholics from being the 
 purchasers. They avoided all leases made to catholics. 
 They peimitted Ireland to export linen to the planta- 
 tions, and appointed the town of Ross, in the county cf 
 Wexford, the port for exporting wool from Ireland to 
 England. Sir William Wyndham, an able and distin- 
 guished champion of the tories, brought a bill into the 
 hcus3 of commons in 1712 denominated the schism bill, 
 the object of which was to extinguish the power of the 
 whigs; and the reader will find in the protest entered 
 on the journals of the lords, by the whigs of that house, 
 liow ferocious the spirit of persecution against the un- 
 happy catholic must have been, when the principal rea- 
 son advanced by the defeated whig was the possibility ( f 
 being deprived of the power of co-operating effectually 
 with his protestant countryman in keeping down the 
 catholic, who was then an object of commiseration ra- 
 ther than resentment. This protest demonstrates the 
 fanatical barbarity with which this unfortunate country 
 was pursued by the most enlightened among the English 
 nation — by the advocates of the free and enlightened 
 principles of the revolution, and the boasted champions 
 of civil and religious liberty. The whig lords pi'otested 
 against that part of the schism bill which relates to 
 Ireland, in the following benevolent and Christian Ian* 
 
526 
 
 giiage : " The miseries we apprehend here, (in England) 
 are greatly enhanced by extending this bill to Ireland, 
 where the consequences of it may be fatal ; for since the 
 number of catholics in that kinofdom far exceeds the 
 protestants of all denominations together ; and that the 
 dissenters arc to be treated as enemies, or at least as per- 
 sons dangerous to the church and state, who have al- 
 ways in all times joined, and still would join, with the 
 members of that church, against the common enemy of 
 their religion; and since the army there is very much 
 reduced, the protestants, thus unnecessarily divided, 
 seem to us to be exposed to the danger of another mas- 
 sacre, and the protcstant religion in danger of being 
 extirpated." 
 
 The reader will not wonder that the monopolists who 
 ruled in Ireland, and who were the mere echoes of the 
 whigs and tories of England, should have pursued the 
 Irish catholic with such implacable malignity. The Crora- 
 wellians of 1645 were not more zealous in their denun- 
 ciations afrainst the catholic than the whiffs and tories 
 iu the reign we are now recording. In Ireland the whigs 
 and tories played their little parts in emulation of their 
 English masters. The Irish lords and commons were 
 in perpetual conflict; the former in support of tory prin- 
 ciples — the latter, of whig. The causes of difference 
 were scai'ccly ever found out of the narrow circle of mo- 
 nopoly. The people at large were uninterested in the 
 result of a combat which ended in the overthrow of some 
 powerful individual of either party. For instance, the 
 whifjs of the commons made furious war against sir Con- 
 stantinc Phibs, the tory chancellor of Ireland. Backed 
 by the queen, the chancellor set his enemies at defiance : 
 and the oppressed portion of the community enjoyed the 
 defeat of the whigs, and their humiliation under the 
 superior power of their tory competitors. 
 
 It is impossible to reflect on the events of a reign so 
 calamitous to Ireland, Avithout indulirina" at the same 
 instant in the consolation that all this shocking and atrb- 
 
527 
 
 cious violation of human right which we have witnessed, 
 is, in the nineteenth century, the object of every man's 
 disgust or imlignation ; that the protestant and the j)res- 
 byterian of the present day, who peruse the sanguijiary 
 records which contain the act of iheir ancestors, are 
 equally anxious to bury them in everlasting oblivion: 
 that the spirit of monopoly, which would grasp at more 
 than it could enjoy, has given way to the mild and Chris- 
 tian principle which sees the greatest advantage in the 
 communication of mutual protection, and the greatest 
 hap})incss in the promotion of mutual harmony : that 
 the Britiish government, which so long pursued the disas- 
 trous and unprofitable policy of dividing Ireland, in 
 order the more effiectually to control it, is disposed to 
 surrender this contemptible principle to the more en- 
 larged and, productive principle of equal protection and 
 equal privilege : that such a change should have taken 
 place, and now promises to be the possession of the 
 people who read this compendium, is a cheering subject 
 of congratulation, after all the blood and havoc through 
 which we have waded. 
 
 We have endeavored, in this brief chronicle of Ire- 
 land's story, to embrace all the great and leading facts 
 which calumny and misrepresentation have so often and 
 so successfully distorted j which have been the subject of 
 so much reproach, and so much exasperation ; which have 
 been the natural offspring of bad government, and the 
 natural i*esource of a persecuted nation. We have en- 
 deavoured to vindicate a brave people, in perpetual con- 
 flict for its civil and religious liberties, against the black 
 and infamous charges which the hired libeller has ela- 
 borately brought against them. We have endeavoured to 
 demonstrate to the English reader that when Ireland 
 drew the sword of rebellion, she was but following the 
 feelings of human nature, which prompted her to repel 
 the violator of her rights : that her rebellions afjainst 
 England were the necessary result of her sufferings, and 
 th« feeble, though disastrous struggles of a people, who, 
 
52S 
 
 under a mild and protecting government, would have 
 contributed to its wealth, its power, and its greatness. 
 
 The sword of intolerance has at length been sheathed ; 
 - — the bigotry of the sectarian has at length been dis- 
 couraged ; the human mind can now give full rein to its 
 powers with impunity. Uncontrouled by the dictation 
 of a supposed infallibility, every man is suffered to adore 
 his Creator as his conscience directs him ; and the pro- 
 fession of a particular creed of Christianity has almost 
 ceased to be a measure of Irish loyalty. The protestant, 
 the presbytcrian and the catholic, respect each other's 
 conscientious attachment to the religion of their fathers. 
 The legislator can now discover no cause for the loyalty 
 of the subject so strong as the possession of civil and 
 religious liberty. He reads the cruelties of intolerance, 
 in order to avoid their repetition ; and draws from the 
 follies of his ancestors the wisest and most beneficial 
 lessons of instruction. 
 
 We took up our pen with an ardent wish to avenge 
 the insults offered to the character and honor of our 
 country. If the reader shall be of opinion that we have 
 performed the task with zeal and with firmness, we shall 
 triumph in the contemplation of our labors, and congratu- 
 late our countrymen on the benefits which may possibly 
 result from them. We have called the Irish reader to 
 the consideration of those causes which were the fruitful 
 sources of Irish misfortune ; we have endeavpured to point 
 vmt to the fi!tare politician of our country, the errors of 
 those who are in the tomb; or, as Edmund Burke philoso- 
 jihically obrserves, we have written under tlie impression 
 
 that " NO PEOPLE WILL LOOK FORWARD TO POSTERITY, WHO 
 3J0 NOT OFTEN LOOK BACKV/ARD TO THEIR ANCESTORS." 
 
 FINIS, 
 
 ErPvAta. — Page 139, line 28, in part of the impression, for 
 Oimund and Osmond, read Ormond and Desmond. — Page 44;7, 
 line 9, in part of the impression,- for lienry 11. read Rich- 
 ard li.—Page ] H'5 at- top, for Edward III. read Edward IV. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 <=>iE>e= 
 
 A catalogue of the lords spiritual and temporal of the king- 
 dom of Irel'iud, at ths silting of the Irijth partiaoient, includimr 
 those crcdtedhy the late K'mg -hinies H. af-.f.r his ahdicdtlon, 
 according to their Ttspeaive precedencies, in the year 1689, in 
 which those that were formerly attainted, and those that sate, 
 are distinguished. 
 
 Note — All that iiere attainted had outlawries reversed. 
 
 SIR Alexander Fitton, Kt. Lord Chancellor, Sate. 
 
 Dr. Michael Boyle, Lord Archbish&p of Armagh, and Primate of 
 
 all Ireland. 
 Doctor Francis Marsh, Archbishop of Dublbi. 
 
 Vacant Archbishop of Cashel. 
 
 Doctor John Vessey, Archbishop of Tuam. 
 Hichard Earl of Cork, Lord Treasurer. 
 
 DUKES, 
 James Butler, Duke of Oruiond. 
 Richard Talbot, Duke of Tvrcounel. 
 
 EARLS, 
 Prot. Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare. 
 Cath, O'Brytn, Earl of Thomond. 
 Cath. Burke, Earl of Clanrickard. 
 Cafh. 7"'ouchet Earl of Castlehaven. 
 Pro/. Boyle, Earl of Cork. 
 
 Cath. Mac Doniiel, Earl of Antrim. Sate. 
 
 Cath. Nugent, Earl of Westnieath. Sate, (under age, th; 
 
 ri£;ht Earl a Clergyman.) 
 Prot. Ridgvvay, Eail of Londonderry. 
 Prot. Fieldirg, Earl of Desmond. 
 Prot. Brabazon, Earl cf Meath. 
 Prot Dillon, Earl of Roscommon. 
 
 Prot. Barry, Earl of Barrymore Sate. 
 
 Prot. Vaughan, Earl of Carbury. 
 
 Cath. Plunket, Earl of Fingal. Attainted (a Minor.) 
 
 Prot. Chichester, Earl of Donegal. 
 
 Prot. Lambert, Earl of Cavan. 
 
 Prot. O'Brien, Earl of Inchiquin. 
 
 Cath, Mac Cartney, Earl of Clancarty. Sale (under age, 
 
 attainted, but restored by a clause ia the act.) 
 Prot. Boyle, Earl of Orrery. 
 Prot. Coote, Earl of Montrath. 
 Prot. Moore, Earl of Drogheda. 
 Prot. Talbot, Earl of Waterford and Wexford. 
 
ii APPENDIX. 
 
 Plot. Montgomery, Earl of Mount-Alexander* 
 
 Cath. Palmer, Earl of Castlemain. 
 
 Cath. Taafte, Earl of Carliugford. 
 
 Cath. Power, Earl of Tyrone. Sate, a Converts 
 
 Prot. Jones, Earl of Ranelagh. 
 
 Prot. Angier, Earl of Longford. Sate. 
 
 Prot. Forbes, Earl of Granard. Sate. 
 
 Cath. Dungan, Earl of Limerick. Sate. 
 
 prot. Coote, Earl of Bellamont. 
 
 VISCOUNTS. 
 
 Cath. Preston, Viscount Gormanstown. Attainted. 
 
 ■Cath. Rocb, Viscount Ferraoy, attainted. 
 
 Calh. Butler, Viscount Mountgarret, Sate, Attainted- 
 
 Prot. Villiers, Viscount Grandison. 
 
 Prot. Annesly, Viscount Valentia. 
 
 Cath. Dillon, Viscount Caslielogallen. Sate. 
 Caih. Nelterville, Viscount Dowth. Attamted. 
 
 Prot, Loftus, Viscount Ely. 
 
 Prot; Benniont, Viscount Swords. 
 
 Cath. Magenniss, Viscount Iveagh. Sate, Attainted. 
 
 Prot. Needham, Viscount Kilmurry. 
 Cath. Sarsfield, Kilmallock. 
 
 Cath. Burke, Viscount Mayo. 
 
 Prot. Sanderson, Viscount Castletown. 
 
 Prot. Chaworih, Viscount Armagh. 
 
 Prot. Scudaniore, Viscount Sligo. 
 
 Prot. Luniley, Viscount Waterford. 
 
 Prot. Smith, Vibcount Slrangford. 
 
 Prot. Wenman, Viscount Tuaai. 
 
 Prot. Molyneux, Viscount Maryborough. 
 Calh. Fairi-dX, Viscount Emmely. 
 Cath. Butler, Viscount Ikerin. Attainted, (a Minor.) 
 
 Prot. Fiizwilliam, Viscount Merryon. 
 Cath. O'Dempsey, Viscount Glaimialeira. Sate. 
 
 Prot. Cpkaiii, Viscount Cullen. 
 
 Prot. 'I'lacy. Viscount Ralhcool. 
 Cath. Sm til. Viscount Carrington of Barrefore, 
 
 Prot. Buikhy, Viscount Caiheli. 
 Cath. Butler, Viscount Galmoy. Attainted, 
 Cath. Barnwali, Viscount Kingsland. 
 
 Prot. Boyle, Viscount Shannon. 
 
 Prot. Skedington, Viscount Massereen%b 
 piDt. ('halnionily, Viscount Kells. 
 Proi. Fraiishaw, Viscount Dromore. 
 Cath. O'Brien, Viscount Clare. 
 
 Prot. Trevor, Viscount Duagannon. 
 
 Prot. Boyle, Viscount Dungarvan. 
 
 Prot. Berkley, Viscount Filzhaiding of Beerhayeo. 
 Pro'. Cauificld, Viscount Churlemont, 
 
APPENDIX. iii 
 
 Prot. WingfielH, Viscount Powerscourt. 
 
 Prot. Boyle, Viscount Blessington. ' 
 
 Plot. Lnne, Viscount Lancsborougb, 
 
 Prot. Davvny, Viscount Down. 
 
 Prot. Parsons, Viscount Ross. Sate. 
 
 Prot. Steward, Viscount Mountjoy. 
 
 Prot. I.oftus, Viscount Lisburn. 
 
 Catli. Burke, ViscouHt Galway, Sate. 
 
 Cafh. Macarly, Viscount Mountcashei. Sate, new created. 
 
 Cath. Cheevers, Viscount Mount-Leinster. new created. 
 
 Cath. Brown, Viscount Kenmare. Sate, new created. 
 
 BISHOPS. 
 Anthony Dopping, Bishop of Meath. Sate. 
 William Moreton, Bishap of Kildare. 
 Hugh Gore, Bishop of Watert'ord and Lismore. 
 
 Vacant Bishop of Clonfert. 
 
 Vacant Bishop of Cloj^her. 
 
 Thomas Otway, Bishop of Ossory and Kilkenny. Sate. 
 
 Ezekiel Hopkins, Bishup of Derry. 
 
 Thomas Hacket, Bishop of Down and Connor. 
 
 John Rowan, Bishop of Killaloe. 
 
 Edward Whettenhal, Bishop «f C'lrk and Ross. Sate. 
 
 Simon Di<?b , Bishop of Limerick and Ardfert* Sate. 
 
 Richard Tenuisoii, Bishop of Killala and Archonry. 
 
 William Smith, Bishop of Rapuot'. 
 
 William Sheridan, Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh, 
 
 Narcissus Marsh, Bishop of Fern^s and Laughlin. 
 
 Edward Jones, Bishop of Cloyne, 
 
 Capel Wiseman, Bishop of Dromore. 
 
 Vacant Bishop of Elphin. 
 
 BARONS. 
 Cath. Bermingham. Baron of Athenry. Sate, Attainted, 
 Cath. Courcy, Baron of Kinsale. Sate, (a Convert.) 
 Prot. Fitzmorris, Baron of Kerry and Lixnaw. 
 Cath. Fleming, Baron of Slane. Sate, Attainted. 
 Prot. St. Laurence, Baron of Howth. Sate. 
 C^.th. Barnwall, Baron of Trimblestown. Sate, Attainted. 
 Cath. Phmket, Baron of Dunsany. Sate, Attainted. 
 Cath. Butler, Baron of Dunboyne Sate, Attainted. 
 Cath. Fitzpatrick, Baron of Upper Ossory. Sate. 
 Cath, Plonket, Baron ot Lowrh. Attainted. 
 Cath. Burke, Baron of Castleconnel. Sate, Attainted. 
 Cath. Butler, Baro.i ot Cahn-. Sate, Ailainted. 
 Cath. Burke, Baron of Brittas, Sate, Attainted, 
 Prot. Foliot, Baron (.t Ballyshannon. 
 Prot. Maynard, Baron of Wicklow. 
 Prot. Cxorge, Baron of Dundalk. 
 Prot. Digby, Baron of Gaisehii. 
 Prot. Fitzwilliam, Baron of LifFord. 
 Prot. Blaney, Baron of Monaghan. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 ■ IMalnwr.e, Baron of Glenmalum and Courchy, 
 
 Plot. _ Herbert, Baron of Castle Island. 
 
 Cath Calvert, Baron of Baltimore. 
 
 Prot. Brereton, Baron oi Laughlin. 
 
 Prot. Hare, Baron of C^lerain. 
 
 Prof. Sherard, Baron of Leitrim. 
 
 Cath. Mac Cuire, Baron of Enniskillen. Sate (atta-nted in 
 
 Irltand; but the Lord his Untie attained 'n England.) 
 
 Calh. Hamilton, Baron of Strabane. Sate. 
 
 Prot. Haw ley, Baron of Dunaniore, 
 
 Prot. Allington, Baron of Kdlard. 
 
 Prot. Kine, Baron of Kingston. 
 
 Prot. r.ariy. Baron of Santry. 
 
 Piot. Annesly, B.iro« of Altham. 
 
 Cath. Belknv. Baron of Dulet'k. Sate. 
 
 Prof. Petty, Baron of Sbeiburn. 
 
 Prot. Fiiu I), Baron of Gau.swortb. Sate, new Created. 
 
 Caib. Bm kt, Baron of Bophin. Sate, neVi Created. 
 
 Cath. Nugent, Baron of Riverston. Sate, new Created. 
 
 -The Names of the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses relumed to 
 
 the Parliament^ beginning the Ith of M fry, 1689.. 
 County Armagli — Arthur Brownloe and Waller Hovendon, esqrs. 
 Bur. Armagh— Francis Stopliard and Conslantine O'Neil, 
 
 esqrs. Idlh May, 89. 
 Bur. Charlemont. 
 
 Com. Antrim — Carmick O'Neil and Randle Mac Donne], esqrs. 
 Bur. Carritkfergos. 
 Bur. Belfast — Mark Talbot, esq. 
 Eur. Lisburn— Daniel O'Neil, esq. 20ih May, 89, 
 Bur. Antrim. 
 
 Corn. Catherlogh — Dudley Bagnal and Henry Lutterel, rsqr.s. 
 Bur, C!"ghnerk)lty — Lieut. Col. Owen Mac Ci.r!y and Daniel 
 
 Lyn Mac Carly, esq. 
 Bur. Catherlogh- Mark Baggot and John Warren, esqrs 
 Bur. Old Laugblin — Darby Long and Daniel Dorar,, esqrs. 
 Com. Coik— .lusiin Mac Carty esq. and Sn RichardNagle, 
 
 knights. 
 To\' II of A^oughall — Thomas Uniack and Edward Gough, 
 
 Aldermen. ^ 
 
 Town of Kingsale — Andrew Murrogh and Mjles De Courcy, 
 
 esqrs. 
 Bur. Baltimore — Daniel O'DonaTcn and Jeremiah O'Donavan, 
 
 esqrs. 
 B'T. B.indoii bridge — Charles Mac Carty of Ealloa, and Daniel 
 
 Mac Carty of Reagh, esqrs. 
 Bur. ^;lddlelowl•. — Dern ot Long and John Longan e.sqrs. 
 Bur. Mo\ allow — Jol-h Barrel of C2>^tUmore and David Nagle 
 
 Cif (iiani^Gone, esqrs. 
 
APPENDIX. ^ T 
 
 Manner ant! Borough of Raihcormuck — James "Barry aad 
 
 Edward Powell, esqrs. 
 Manner of Donerail — lioneill 0'Donavan>and John Baggot, Jun. 
 
 of Baggotslown, esqrs. 
 Bur. Charleville -John Baggwt of Baggotstown, Sen. and 
 
 John Power of Kilbelone, esqr?. 
 City of Cork — Sir James Cotter, Knight, and John Galwaj, 
 
 esq. 
 Com. Cavan — Phil. Reyley of Aghnicrery and John Reyley of 
 
 Garyrobock, esqrs. 
 Bur. Cavan — Phil. Oge O'Reyley and Hugh Reyley of Larha, 
 
 esqrs. 
 Bur. Belturbet — Sir Edward Tyrrel, baronet, and Tuit of 
 
 Newcastle, esqrs. 
 Com. ClarC' — David O'Brien, and John Mac Nemara of Crat- 
 
 telagh, «sqrs. 
 Bur. Ennis — Florence Mac Carty of Droniad, and Theob. 
 
 Butler of Szalhnoyalloon, esqrs. lOlh May 1689. 
 Com. Down — Muriagh Magennis of Greencaslle and Ever 
 
 Magennis of Casliewellan, esqrs. 
 Bur. Hilsburrow. 
 
 Bur. Newry — Rowland White and Rowland Savage, esqrs. 
 Bur. Bangor. 
 Bur Kekieagh — Bernard Magennis of Balligorionbeg, esq. 
 
 and Tool O'Neil of Dromankelly, gent. 
 Bsr. Down. 
 Kew-Town. 
 Cum. Dublin — Simon Lutterel of Lutterelstown and Patrick 
 
 Sarstield, Jan. of Ducan, esqrs. 
 Bur. Swords — Francis Barnwell of Woodpark, County Meath, 
 
 and Robert Russel of Dryham, esqrs. 
 Bur. Newcastle— Thomas Arthur of Colganstown and John 
 
 Talbot of Belgard, esqrs. 
 City of Dublm — Sir Michael Creagfi, knight, and Terence 
 
 Dermot, S«n. aidtrman. 
 College of Dublin- Sir John Mead, knight, and Jos. Coghlan 
 
 esqrs. 
 Tovvn of Drogheda — Henry Dowda', esq. Recorder, and Al- 
 derman Chrisiop. Peppard Filzgeorge. 
 Com. Donnegal. 
 LiiVurd. 
 Ballyshannon. 
 Kiliebegy. 
 Donnegal. 
 St. John's-town — Sir William Ellis, knight, and Lieut. Col. 
 
 James Nugent. 
 CoTii. Galway — Sir Ulick Burke and Sir Walter Blake, baronets. 
 Bur. Athunree — James Talbot of Mount Talbot, and Charles 
 
 Daly of Dunsandale, esqrs. 
 
Yi APPENDIX. 
 
 Bur. Tuam — James Lally of Tullendaly, and William Burke 
 
 of Carrowford, csqrs. 
 Town ot Galway —Oliver Martin and John Kirwan, esqrs. 
 Com. KilUenuy^John Grace of Courts-town-, and Robert 
 
 Walsh of Clooneshy, esqrs 
 Bur. Cailaim Walter Butler and .Thady Meagher, esqrs. 
 JBur- Thomas-TowQ — Robert Grace, Sen. and Robert Grace, 
 
 Jun. 
 Bur. Gowran — Richard Butler, esq. and Walter Keily, Doctor 
 
 of Physic. 
 Col. Robert Fielding, by a new Election. 
 
 Bur. Ini'fhoge — Edward Fitzgerald and James Bolger, esqrs. 
 Bur. Knocktopher — Harvy Morris and Henry Meagh, esqrs. 
 City of Kilkenny — John R- oth, esq. Mayor, and James 
 
 Bryan, Alderman, 4th May, 89. 
 Bur. Kflls — Paprick Everard and John Delamare, esqrs. 
 Bur. St. Canics. 
 
 Com. J\ildare — John Wogan and George Aytmer, esqrs. 
 B'jr. Nass — Walter, Lord Dungan, and Charles Wiiite, esq. 
 Bur. Athy — William Fitzgerald and William Archbold, esqrs. 
 Bur. Harristown — James Nigel and Edmund Fitzgerald, esqrs. 
 Bur. Kiklare — Francis Leii^h and Robert Porter, esqrs. 
 King'.s County — Heward Oxborough and Owen Kerrel, esqrs. 
 Bur. PhilipstOM n — John Connor and Heward Oxborough, esqrs. 
 Bur. Banagher — Terence Coghlan aad Terence Coghlan, esqrs. 
 Bur Birr. 
 Com* Kerry — Nicholas Brown, esq. and Sir Thomas Crosby, 
 
 knight. 
 Bur. Tralee — Morrice Hussey of Kerries and John Brown of 
 
 Ardagh, esqrs. 
 Bur. Dingle Icouch — Edward Rice Fitzjames of Ballinleggin, 
 
 Com. Lym. and John Hussey, esqrs. 
 Bur. Ardtert — Col. Roger Mac Elligott and Cornelius Mac 
 
 Giilicuddy, esq. 
 Com,. Longford — Roger Farrell and Robert Farrel, esqrs. 
 Bur. Lanesborough — Oliver Fitzgerald and Roger Farrell, 
 
 esqrs. 
 Town of Longford. 
 
 Com. Lowth — Thomas Bellew and William Talbot, esqrs. 
 Bur. Atherdee— Hugh Gernon and John Babe, esqrs. 
 Bur. Dundalk — Robert Dermot and John Dovvdal, esqrs. 
 Bur. Carlingford — Christopher Peppard Fitzignatius and Bryaa 
 
 Dermod, esqrs. 
 Dualier. 
 Com. Limerick — Sir John Fitzgerald, baronet, and Gerald 
 
 Fitzgerald, e.sq. commonly called Knight of the Glynn. 
 Bur. Kilmallock — Sir William Harley, baronet, and John Lacy, 
 
 esq. 
 Bur. Askeaton — John Burke of Carrickinohil and Edward 
 
 Rice, csqrs. 
 
APPENDIX. ^ii 
 
 City of Limerick — Nicholas Arthur and Thomas Harrold, 
 
 Aldermen. 
 Com. Leitrim — Edmund Reynolds and Irrel Farrell, esqrs. 
 Bur. James-town — Alexander, Mac Donnel, esq, and William 
 
 Shanlev, 15th May, 168&. 
 Carrickdnimrusk. 
 
 Com. Mayo — Garret Moore and Walter Burke, esqrs. 
 Casllebar — John Bermingham, Portreeve, and Thomas Burke, 
 
 esqrs. 
 Com. Meath — Sir William Talbot and Sir Patrick Barnwell, 
 Bur. Ratoath — John liussey and James Fitzgerald, esqrs. 
 Bur. Trim — Capt. Nicholas Cusack and Walter Nangle, esqrs. 
 Bur. Navan — Christopher Cusack of Corballis and Christopher 
 
 Cusack of Ratholdran, esqrs. 
 Bur. Athboy — John Trinder and Robert Longfield, esqrs; 
 Duleek. 
 Kells. 
 
 Com. Monaehan— Bryan Mac Mahon and Hugh Mac Mahon, 
 . esqrs. 9th July, 16S9. 
 Town of Monaphan. 
 Com. Fermanagh. 
 Enniskillen. 
 Queen's county — Sir Patrick Trant, knight, and Edward Morris 
 
 esq. 
 Bur. Marybot^ough — Peirce Bryan and Thady Filzpatrick, esq," 
 Bur. Ballinakill, Sir Gegrge Bourne, baronet, and Oliver 
 
 Grace, esq. 
 Portarlington — Sir Henry Bond, baronet, and Sir Hacket, 
 
 knight. 
 Com. Roscommon — Charles Kellj' and John Burke, esqrs. 
 Bur. Roscommon — John Dillon and John Kelly, esqrs. 
 Bur. Boyle — Captain John King and Terence Mac Dermot, 
 
 alderman, 6th Mav, 1689. 
 Tulske. 
 
 Com. Sligo — Henry Crofton and Oliver O'Gara, esqrs. 
 Bur. Sligo — 'Jerence INlac Donagh and James French, esqrs. 
 Com. Tipperary — Nicholas Purcel of Loghraore, and James 
 
 Butler of Graugebeg, esqrs 
 City of Cashell— Dtnnis Kearney and James Hacket, aldermen. 
 Bur. Clonmell — Nicholas White and John Bray, aldermen. 
 Bur. Fethard — Sir John Everard, baronet, and James Tobia 
 
 of Fethard, esq. 
 Bur. Thurles. 
 Bar. Tipperary. 
 Com. Tyrone — Col. Gordon O'Neil, and Lewis Doe of Dun* 
 
 gannon, esq. 
 Bur. Dungiiniion — Arthur O'Neil of Ballygawly and Patrick 
 
 Donnelly of Dungannon, esqrs. 
 Bur, Strabane — Christopher Nugent of Dublin, esq, and 
 
viii APPENDIX. 
 
 Daniel O Donnelly of the same, gent. 8th May, 1689. 
 Clog her. 
 Auglier. 
 
 Com. Waterford — John Power and Mathew Hore, esqrs. 
 Bur. Duno^arvan — John Hore and Martin Hore, esqrs. 7th of 
 
 May, 1689. 
 City of Waterford — John Porter and Nicholas Fitzgerald, esqrs. 
 Bur. Lismore. 
 Tallow. 
 Com. Wexford — Waller Butler of Munfine and Patrick Col- 
 
 cloph of Moulnirry. 
 Bur. Wexford — William Talbot, esq. and Francis Kooth, 
 
 merchant. 
 Bur. New Ross — Luke Dormer and Richard Butler, esqrs. 
 Bur. Bannow — -Francis Plowden, esq. Commisioner of the 
 
 Revenue, and Dr. Alexius Stafford. 
 Bur. New borough —Abraham Strange of TobberdufF, esq. and 
 
 Richard Daly of Kilcorky, gent. 
 Bur. Enniscorthy — lames Devereux of Carrigmenan and 
 
 Diidley Colclouyh of Moughery, esqrs. Arthur Waddington, 
 
 esq", by a new Election. 
 Bur. Taghmon — George Hore of Polhore and Walter Hore 
 
 of Herperstown, esqrs. 
 Bur. Cloghrayne — Edward Sherlock of Dublin, e.sq. and 
 . Nicholas Wiiite of New Ross, merchant. 
 Bur. Ark low. 
 
 FytherH — Colonel James Porter and Capt. Nicholas Stafford, 
 Com. Wicklow — Richard Batler and VVilliam Talbot, esqrs. 
 Bur, Caryesforl — Huyh Bryne, esq. and Pierce Archbold, esq. 
 
 upon -whose default of fippt"arance Barth. Polewheeie. 
 
 Bur. Wicklow — Francis Tooie and Thomas Byrne, esqrs. 
 
 Bur. Blessingion — James Eustace, esq. and Maurice Eustace, 
 
 gent. 
 Baltinsilas?. 
 Com. WesiTieath — Hon. Col. William Nugent and Hon. Col. 
 
 Hetny Dillon. 
 Bur. and Mannor of Mullingar — Garret Dillon, esq. Prime 
 
 SiMgeani, and Edmund Nugentof Garlanstown, esq. 
 Bur. Athlone — Edmund Malone of Bdlivnehown, esq. and 
 
 Edmund Malone, esq. Counsellor at Law. 
 Bur. Kilbet^yan — Bryan Gtogliegan of Donore and Charles 
 
 Geo^hegan of Syenan, «sqrs. 
 Bur. Fore — John Nugent of Donore and Christopher Nugent 
 
 of Dardistown, esqrs. 
 Com, Londonderry. 
 City of Londonderrv. 
 Bur. Coleraine. 
 Bur. Lamavudv. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Invasion of Henry II. 26 
 
 Reign of Hichard I. 62 
 
 —John ^^ 
 
 Henry III. 74 
 
 Edward I. ' 85 
 
 Ed'jcard II. 93 
 
 Edward III 107 
 
 —Richard IL 121 
 
 .- Henry IV 128 
 
 , Henry V. : 132 
 
 . Henry VL 136 
 
 -Edward IV 143 
 
 Henry VII 147 
 
 Henry VIII. 163 
 
 , Ed'ward VL 196 
 
 Mary 204 
 
 Elizabeth 216 
 
 James I. 274 
 
 Charles L 290 
 
 Ccmmonwealth 367 
 
 Reign of Charles II...... 392 
 
 James II. 421 
 
 . -William and Mary 476 
 
 Amie.. -505 
 
 h.. 
 
o 
 
 r 
 

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