I .1 GORDON, ATTORNEY A POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO TUB $ttwrrijm!iflu of BT THOMAS D'ARCY MoGEE, B.C.L Corresponding Member of the New York Historical Society. REVISED AND CONTINUED TO THE PBBSENT TIM, BT D. P. CONYNGHAM, LL.3). IN TWO VOLUMES, VOL. II. NEW YORK: P. J. KENEDY, PUBLISHER TO THE HOLY SEE, EXCELSIOR CATHOLIC PUBLISHING HOUSE, 5 BARCLAY STREET. 1903, Annex 5014281 H7STORT OF IRBLAffD. 465 BOOK IX. FROM THE ACCESSION OP JAMES I. TILL THE DEATH OF CROMWELL. CHAPTER I. JAMES I. FLIGHT OF THE EARLS CONFISCATION OF ULSTEE PENAL LAWS PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION. JAMES THE SIXTH of Scotland was in his 87th year when he ascended the throne under the title of " James the First, King of Great Britain and Ireland." His accession naturally excited the most hopeful expectations of good government in the breasts of the Irish Catholics. He was son of Mary Queen of Scots, whom they looked upon as a martyr to her religion, and grandson of that gallant King James who styled himself " Defender of the Faith," and " Dominus Hibernice" hi introducing the first Jesuits to the Ulster Princes. His ancestors had always been in alliance with the Irish, and the antiquaries of that nation loved to trace their descent from the Scoto-Irish chiefs who first colonized Argyle and were for ages crowned at Scone. He himself was known to have assisted the late Catholic struggle as effectually, though less openly than the King of Spain, and it is certain that he had employed Catholic agents like Lord Home and Sir James Lindsay, to excite an interest in his succession among the Catholics, both in the British Islands and on the Continent. The first acts of the new sovereign were calculated to con- firm the expectations of Catholic liberty thus entertained. 468 POPULAR HISTORY OF IRKLAXD. He was anxious to make an immediate and lasting peace with Spain ; refused to receive a special embassy from the Hollan- ders ; his ambassador at Paris was known to be on terms of intimacy with the Pope's Nnncio, and although personally he assumed the tone of an Anglican Churchman, on crossing the border he had invited leading Catholics to his Court, and con- ferred the honor of Knighthood on some of their number. The imprudent demonstrations in the Irish towns were easily quieted, and no immediate notice was taken of their leaders In May, 1603, Mountjoy, on whom James had conferred the higher rank of Lord Lieutenant, leaving Carew as Lord Deputy, proceeded to England, accompained by O'Neil, Roderick O'Donnell, Maguire, and other Irish gentlemen. The veteran Tyrone, now past threescore, though hooted by the London rabble, was graciously received in that court, with which hf had been familiar forty years before. He was at once con firmed in his title, the Earldom of Tyrconnell was created foi O'Donnell, and the Lordship of Enniskillen for Maguire. Mountjoy, created Earl of Devonshire, retained the title of Lord Lieutenant, with permission to reside in England, and was rewarded by the appointment of Master of the Ordnance and Warden of the New Forest, with an ample pension from the Crown to him and his heirs forever, the grant of the county of Lecale (Down), and the estate of Kingston Hall, in Dorset- shire. He survived but three short year* to enjoy all tluse riches and honors ; at the age of 44, wasted with dissipation and domestic troubles, he passed to his final account. The necessity of conciliating the Catholic party in England, of maintaining peace in Ireland, and prosecuting the Spanish negotiations, not less, perhaps, than his own original bias, led James to deal favorably with the Catholics at first. But having attempted to enforce the new Anglican Canons, adopted in 1004, against the Puritans, that party retaliated by raising against him the cry of favoring the Papists. This cry alarmed the King, who had always before his eyes the fear of Presbyterianism, and he accordingly made a speech in th Star Chamber, declaring his utter detestation of Popery, and published a proclamation banishing all Catholic missionaries POPULAR HISTORY 07 IRELAND. 461 from the country. All magistrates were instructed to enforce the penal laws with rigor, and an elaborate spy system for the discovery of concealed recusants was set on foot. This reign of treachery and terror drove a few desperate men into the gunpowder plot of the following year, and rendered it diffi- cult, if not impossible, for the King to return to the policy ol toleration, with which, to do him justice, he seems to have set out from Scotland. Carew, President of Munster during the late, war, became Deputy to Mountjoy on his departure for England. He was succeeded in October, 1604, by Sir Arthur Chichester, who, with the exception of occasional absences at Court, continued in office for a period of eleven years. This nobleman, a native of England, furnishes, in many points, a parallel to his cotem- porary and friend, Robert Boyle, Earl of Cork. The object of his life was to found and to endow the Donegal peerage out of the spoils of Ulster, as richly as Boyle endowed his earldom out of the confiscation of Munster. Both were Puri- tans rather than Churchmen, in their religious opinions ; Chi- chester, a pupil of the celebrated Cartwright, and a favorer all his life of the congregational clergy in Ulster. But they carried their repugnance to the interference of the civil mag- istrate in matters of conscience so discreetly as to satisfy the high church notions both of James and Elizabeth. For the violence they were thus compelled to exercise against them- selves, they seem to have found relief in bitter and continuous persecution of others. Boyle, as the leading spirit in the government of Munster, as Lord Treasurer, and occasionally as Lord Justice, had ample opportunities, during his long career of forty years, to indulge at once his avarice and hid bigatry ; and no situation was ever more favorable than Chi- Chester's for a proconsul, eager to enrich himself at the expensa of a subjugated Province. In the projected work of the reduction of the whole country to the laws and customs of England, it is instructive to observe that a Parliament was not called in the first place. The reformers proceeded by proclamations, letters patent, and orders in council, not by legislation. The whole island was divided int 468 POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 82 counties and 6 judicial circuits, all of which were visited by Justices in the second or third year of this reign and after- wards semi-annually. On the Northern Circuit Sir Edward Pelham and Sir John Davis were accompanied by the Deputy in person with a numerous retinue. In some places the towns were BO wasted by the late war, pestilence, and famine, that the Viceregal party were obliged to camp out in the fields, and to carry with them their own provisions. The Courts were held in ruined castles and deserted monasteries ; Irish interpreters were at every step found necessary ; sheriffs were installed in Tyrone and Tyrconnell for the first time; all law- yers appearing in court and all justices of the peace were tendered the oath ol supremacy the refusal of which neces- sarily excluded Catholics both from the bench and the bar. An enormous amount of litigation as to the law of real property was created by a judgment of the Court of King's Bench at Dublin, in 1606, by which the ancient Irish customs, of tanistry and gavelkind, were declared null and void, and the entire Feudal system, with ita rights of primogeniture, heredi- tary succession, ntail, and vassalage, was held to exist in as full force as in England. Very evidently this decision was not less a violation of the articles of Mellifont than was the King's proclamation against freedom of conscience issued about the same time. Sir John Davis, who has left us two very interesting tract* on Irish affairs, speaking of the new legal regulations of which he was one of the principal superintendents, observes that the old-fashioned allowances to be found so often in the Pipe-Rolls, pro guidagio et spiagio, into the interior, may well be spared thereafter, since "the under sheriffs and bailiffs errant are better guides and spies in time of peace than they were found in time of war " He adds, what we may very well believe, that the Earl of Tyrone complained hf had HO many eyes upon him, that he could not drink a cup of Back without the government being advertised of it within a few hours afterwards. This system of social espionage, so re- pugnant to all the habits of the Celtic family, was not the only mode of annoyance resorted to against the veteran chiet POPULAR BISTORT OF IRELAND. 469 Every former dependant who could be Induced to dispute his claims as a landlord, under the new relations established by the late decision, was sure of a judgment in his favor. Dis- putes about boundaries with O'Cane, about the commuta- tion of chieftain-rents into tenantry, about church land* claimed by Montgomery, Protestant Bishop of Deny, were almost invariably decided against him. Harassed by these proceedings, and all uncertain of the future, O'Neil listened willingly to the treacherous suggestion of St. Lawrence, Lord Howth, that the leading Catholics of the Pale, and those of Ulster, should endeavor to form another confederation. The execution of Father Garnet, Provincial of the Jesuits in England, the heavy fines inflicted on Lords Stourton, Mor- daunt, and Montague, and the new oath of allegiance, framed by Archbishop Abbott, and sanctioned by the English Parlia- ment all events of the year 1606 were calculated to inspire the Irish Catholics with desperate councils. A dutiful remon- strance against the Act of Uniformity the previous year had been signed by the principal Anglo-Irish Catholics for trans- mission to the King, but their delegates were seized and im- prisoned in the Castle, while their principal agent, Sir Patrick Barawell, was sent to London and confined in the Tower. A meeting at Lord Howth's suggestion was held about Christ- mas, 1606, at the Castle of Maynooth, then in possession of the dowager Countess of Kildare, one of whose daughters was married to Christopher Nugent, Baron of Delvin, and her granddaughter to Bory, Earl of Tyrconnell. There were preseht O'Neil, O'Donnell, and O'Cane, on the one part, and Lords Delvin and Howth on the other. The precisa result of this conference, disguised under the pretext of a Christmas party, was never made known, but the fact that it had been held, and that the parties present had enter- tained the project of another confederacy for the defense of the Catholic religion, was mysteriously communicated in an anonymous letter, directed to Sir William Usher, Clerk of the Council, which was dropped in the Council Cham- ber of DuVMn Castle, in March, 1607. This letter it is now generally believed was written by Lord Howth, who wai 40 ,'0 POPULAB HKTORT Of IRELAND. thought to have been employed by Secretary Cecil, to entrap the northern Earls, in order to betray them. In May, O'Neil and O'Donnell were cited to attend the Lord Deputy in Dublin, but the charges were for the time kept in abeyance, and they were ordered to appear in London before the feast of Michael- mas. Early in September O'Neil was with Chichester at SI me, in Meath, when he received a letter from Maguire, who had been out of the country, conveying information on which he immediately acted. Taking leave of the Lord Deputy aa if to prepare for his journey to London, he made some stay with his old friend, Sir Qarrett Moore, at Mellifont, on parting from whose family he tenderly bade farewell to the children and even the servants, and was observed to shed tears. A I Dungannon he remained two days, and on the shore of Lough- Swilly he joined O'Donnell and others of his connexions. The French ship, in which Maguire had returned, awaited them off Rathmullen, and there they took shipping for France. With O'Neil in that sorrowful company, were his last countess, Cathe- rine, daughter of Magennis, his three sons, Hugh, John, and Brian ; his nephew Art, son of Comae, Rory O'Donnell, Caffar, his brother, Nuala, his sister, who had forsaken her husband Nial Garve, when he forsook his country ; the lady Rose O'Doherty, wife of Caffar, and afterwards of Owen Roe O'Neil; Maguire, Owen Mac Ward, chief bard of Tyrconnell, and several others. " Woe to the heart that meditated, woe to the mind that conceived, woe to the council that decided on the project of that voyage !" exclaimed the Annalists of Donegal, in the next age. Evidently it wan the judgment of their immediate successors that the flight of the earls was a rash and irremediable step for them ; but the information on which they acted, if not long since destroyed, has, as yet, never been made public. We can pronounce no Judgment a* to the wisdom of their conduct, from the incomplete state- ments at present in our possession. There remained now few barriers to the wholesale confisca- tion of Ulster, so long sought by " the Undertakers," and these were rapidly removed. Sir Cahir O'Doherty, chief ol Innishowen, although he bad earned his Knighthood while a POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 4*71 mere lad, fighting by the side of Dowcra, in an altercation with Sir George Paulett, Governor of Deny, was taunted with conniving at the escape of the Earls, and Paulett in his pas^ sion struck him in the face. The youthful chief he was scarcely one and twenty was driven almost to madness by this outrage. On the night of the 3d of May, by a successful tratagem he got possession of Culmore fort, at the mouth of Lough Foyle, and before morning dawned had surprise! Derry ; Paulett, his insulter, he slew with his own hand, most of the garrison were slaughtered, and the town reduced to ashes. Nial Garve O'Donnell, who had been cast off by ha old protectors, was charged with sending him supplies and men, and for three months he kept the field, hoping that every gale might bring him assistance from abroad. But those game summer mouths and foreign climes had already proved fatal to many of the exiles, whose co-operation he invoked. In July Rory O'Donnell expired at Rome, in August Maguiro died at Genoa, on his way to Spain, and in September Caffar O'Donnell was laid in the same grave with his brother, on St. Peter's hill. O'Neil survived his comrades, as he had done his fortunes, and like another Belisarius, blind and old and a pen- sioner on the bounty of strangers, he lived on, eight weary years, in Rome. O'Doherty, enclosed in his native peninsula, between the forces of the Maishal \Vmgfield and Sir Oliver Lambert, Governor of Connaught, fell by a chance shot, at the rock of Doon, in Kilmacrenan. The superfluous traitor, Nial Garve, was, with his sons, sent to London and imprisoned in the tower for life. In those dungeons, Cormac, brother of Hugh O'Neil, and O'Cane also languished out their days, vic- tims to the careless or vindictive temper of King James. Sir Arthur Chichester received, soon after these events, a grant of the entire barony of Innishowen, and subsequently a grant of the borough of Dungannon, with 1,300 acres adjoin- ing ; Wingfield obtained the district of Percullan near Dublin, with the title of Viscount Powerscourt ; Lambert was soon after made Earl of Cavan, and enriched with the lands of Carig, and other estates in that county. To justify at once the measures he proposed, as well as t* 4*12 POPULAR HI3TOBT OF IJltLAND. divert from the exiles the sympathies of Europe, King Jamel issued a proclamation bearing date the 5th of November, 1608, giving to the world the English version of the flight of the Earls. The whole of Ulster was then surveyed in a cur- sory manner by a staff over which presided Sir William Par- sons as Surveyor-General. The surveys being completed early in 1609, a royal commission was issued to Chichester, Lambert, St. John, Bidgeway, Moore, David, and Parsous, with the Archbishop of Armagh, and the Bishop of Derry, to inquire into the portions forfeited. Before these Commission- ers Juries were sworn on each particular case, and these Juries duly found that, in consequence of "the rebellion" of O'Neil, O'Donnell, and O'Doherty, the entire six counties of Ulster, enumerated by baronies and parishes, were forfeited to the Crown. By direction from England the Irish Privy Council submitted a scheme for planting these counties " with colonies of civil men well affected in religion," which scheme, with several modifications suggested by the English Privy Council, was finally promulgated by the royal legislator under the title of " Orders and Conditions for the Planters." According to the division thus ordered, upwards of 43,000 acres were claimed and conceded to the Primate and the Protestant Bishops of Ulster; in Tyrone, Derry, and Armagh, Trinity College got 30,000 acres with six advowsons in each county. The various trading guilds of the city of London such as the drapers, vintners, cordwainers, drysalters ob- tained in the gross 209,800 acres, including the city of Derry, which they rebuilt and fortified, adding London to its ancient name. The grants to individuals were divided into three classes 2,000, 1,600, and 1,000 acres each. Among the con- dit ions on which these grants were given was this " that they should not suffer any laborer, that would not take the oath of upremacy," to dwell upon their lands. But this despotic condition equivalent to sentence of death on tens of thou- amlR of the native peasantry was fortunately found imprac- ticable in the execution. Land was little worth without handf to till it , laborers enough could not be obtained from Eng- land and Scotland, and the Hamiltons, Stewarts, Folliots, Chi- POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 473 cheaters, and Lamberts, having, from sheer necessity, to choose between Irish cultivators and letting their new estates lie waste and unprofitable, it is needless to say what choice they made. The spirit of religious persecution was exhibited not only in the means taken to exterminate the peasantry, to destroy the northern chiefs, and to intimidate the Catholics of ' the Pale" by abuse of law, but by many cruel executions. The Prior of the famous retreat of Lough Derg was one of the victims of this persecution; a Priest named O'Loughrane, who had accidentally sailed in the same ship with the Earls to France, was taken prisoner on his return, hanged and quartered. Conor O'Devany, Bishop of Down and Connor, an octogena- rian, suffered martyrdom with heroic constancy at Dtfblin, in 1611. Two years before, John, Lord Burke of Brittas, was executed in like manner on a charge of having participated in the Catholic demonstrations which took place at Limerick on the accession of King James. The edict of 1610 in relation to Catholic children educated abroad has been quoted in a previous chapter, apropos of education, but the scheme sub- mitted by Knox, Bishop of Raphoe, to Chichester in 1611 went even beyond that edict. In this project it was proposed that whoever should be found to harbor a Priest should forfeit all his possessions to the Crown that quarterly returns should be made out by counties of all who refused to take the oath of supremacy, or to attend the English Church service that no Papist should be permitted to exercise the function of a schoolmaster ; and, moreover, that all churches injured during the late war should be repaired at the expense of the Papist inhabitants for the use of the Anglican congregation. Very unexpectedly to the nation at large, after a lapse of 27 years, during which no Parliament had been held, write were issued for the attendance of both Houses, at Dublin, on the 18th of May, 1613. The work of confiscation and planta- tion had gone on for several years without the sanction of the legislature, and men were at a loss to conceive for what pur- pose elections were now ordered, unless to invent new penal laws, or to impose fresh burdens on the country. With alj 474 POPDLAB HISTORY OF IBUJLND. the efforts which had been made to introduce civil men, well affected in religion, it was certain that the Catholics would return a large majority of the House of Commons, not only in the chief towns, but from the fifteen old, and seventeen new counties, lately created. To counterbalance this majority over 40 boroughs, returning two members each, were created, by royal charter, in places thinly or not at all inhabited, ot where towns were merely projected on the estates of leading " Undertakers." Against the issue of writs returnable by these fictitious corporations, the Lords Gormanstown, Slane, Killeen, Trimbleston, Dunsany, and Howth, signed an humble remonstrance to the King, concluding with a prayer for the relaxation of the penal laws affecting religion. The King, whose notions of prerogative were extravagantly high, was highly incensed at this petition of the Catholic peers of Leins- ter, and Chichester proceeded with his full approbation to pack the Parliament. At the elections, however, many " recu- sant lawyers" and other Catholic candidates were returned, so that when the day of meeting arrived 101 Catholic representa- tives assembled at Dublin, some accompanied by bands of from 100 to 200 armed followers. The supporters of the gov- ernment claimed 125 votes, and six were found to be absent, making the whole number of the House of Commons 282. The Upper House consisted of 50 Peers, of whom there were 25 Protestant Bishops, so that the Deputy was certain of a ma- jority in that chamber, on all points of ecclesiastical legislation, at least. Although, with the facts before us, we cannot agree with Sir John Davis that King James I. gave Ireland her " first free Parliament," it is impossible not to entertain a high sense of admiration for the constitutional firmness of the recusant or Catholic party in that assembly. At the very outset they suc- cessfully resisted the proposition to meet in the Castle, surrounded by the Deputy's guards, as a silent menace. They next contended that before proceeding to the election of Speaker the Council should submit to the Judges the decision nf the alleged invalid elections. A tumultuous and protracted debate was had on this point. The Castle party argued that .hey should first elect a Speaker and then proceed to try th POPULAR HISTORY OP IMLAKD. 475 ejections ; the Catholics contended that there were persons present whose votes would determine the Speakership, but who had no more title in law than the horseboys at the door. This was the preliminary trial of strength. The candidate of the Castle for the Speakership was Sir John Davis, of the Catholics, Sir John Everard, who had resigned his seat on the bench rather than take the oath of supremacy framed by Archbishop Abbott. The Castle party having gone into the lobby to be counted the Catholics placed Sir John Everard in the Chair. On their return the government sup- porters placed Sir John Davis in Everard's lap, and a scene of violent disorder ensued. The House broke up in confusion ; the recusants in a body declared their intention not to be pre- sent at its deliberations, and the Lord Deputy finding them resolute suddenly prorogued the session. Both parties ser.t deputies to England to lay their complaints at the foot of the throne. The Catholic spokesmen, Talbot and Lutrell, were received with a storm of reproaches, and committed the for- mer to the Tower, the other to the Fleet Prison. They were, however, released after a brief confinement, and a Commission was issued to inquire into the alleged electoral frauds. By the advice of Everard and others of their leaders, a compromise was effected with the Castle party ; members returned for boroughs incorporated after the writs were issued were declared ex- cluded, the contestation of seats on other grounds of irregular- ity were withdrawn, and the House accordingly proceeded to the business for which they were called together. The chief acts of the sessions of 1614, '15 and '16, beside the grant of four entire subsidies to the Crown, were an Act joyfully recognizing the King's title ; acts repealing statutes of Elizabeth and Henry VIII., as to distinctions of race ; an act repealing the 3 and 4 of Philip and Mary, against " bring- ing Scots into Ireland," and the acts of attainder against O'Neil, O'Donnell and O'Doherty. The recusant minority have been heavily censured by our recent historians for consenting to these attainders. Though the censure may be in part de- served, it is nevertheless clear that they had not the power to prerent their passage, even if they had been unanimous it; 476 POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND their opposition ; but they had influence enough, fortunately, to oblige the government to withdraw a sweeping penal law which it was intended to propose. An Act of oblivion and amnesty was also passed, which was of some advantage. On the whole, both for the constitutional principles which they upheld, and the religious proscription which they resisted, the Recusant minority in the Irish Parliament of James I. deserve to be held in honor by all who value religious and ivil liberty. CHAPTER II. LAST TEARS OF JAMES CONFISCATION OP THE MIDLAND COPN- TIES ACCESSION OF CHARLES I. GRIEVANCES AID " GRACES" ADMINISTRATION OP LORD STRAPFORD. FROM the dissolution of James's only Irish Parliament in October, 1616, until the tenth of Charles I. an interval of twenty years the government of the country was again exclu- sively regulated by arbitrary proclamations and orders in Coun- cil. Chichester, after the unusually long term of eleven years, had leave to retire in 1816 ; he was succeeded by the Lord Grandison, who held the office of Lord Deputy for six years, and he, in turn, by Henry Carey, Viscount Falkland, who gov- erned from 1622 till 1629 seven years. Nothing could well be more fluctuating than the policy pursued at different periods by these Viceroys and their advisers ; violent attempts at coercion alternated with the meanest devices to extort money from the oppressed ; general declarations against recusants were repeated with increased vehemence, while particular treaties for a local and conditional toleration were notoriously progressing ; in a word, the administration of affairs exhibited all the worst vices and weaknesses of a despotism, without any of the steadiness or magnanimity of a really paternal gov- ernment. Some of the edicts issued deserve particular notice as characterizing the administrations of Grandison and Falkland, POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 471 The municipal authorities of Waterford, having invariably refused to take the oath of supremacy, were by an order in Council deprived of their ancient charter, which was withheld from them for nine years. The ten shilling tax on recusants for non-attendance at the Anglican service was rigorously enforced in other cities, and was almost invariably levied with costs, which not seldom swelled the ten shillings to ten pounds, A new instrument of oppression was, also in Lord Qrandison's time, invented " the Commission for the Discovery of Defect- ive Titles." At the head of this Commission was placed Sir William Parsons, the Surveyor-General, who had come into the kingdom in a menial situation, and had, through a long half century of guile and cruelty, contributed as much to the destruction of its inhabitants, by the perversion of law, as any armed conqueror could have done by the edge of the sword. Ulster being already applotted, and Munster undergoing the manipulation of the new Earl of Cork, there remained as a field for the Parsons Commission only the Midland Counties and Con- naught. Of these they made the most in the shortest space of time. A horde of clerkly spies were employed under the name of " Discoverers," to ransack old Irish tenures in the archives of Dublin and London, with such good success, that in a very ehort time 66,000 acres in Wicklow, and 385,000 acres in Leitrim, Longford, the Meaths, and King's and Queen's Counties, were " found by inquisition to be vested in the Crown." The means employed by the Commissioners, in some cases, to elicit such evidence as they required, were of the most revolting description. In the Wicklow case, courts- martial were held, before which unwilling witnesses were tried on the charge of treason and some actually put to death. Archer, one of the number, had his flesh burned with red hot iron, and was placed on a gridiron over a charcoal fire, till he offered to testify anything that was necessary. Yet on evidence so obtained whole baronies and counties were declared forfeited to the Crown. The recusants, though suffering under every sort of injustice, and kept in a state of continual apprehension a condition worse even than the actual horrors they endured counted 478 TOPCLIR HISTORY OF IRELAND. many educated and wealthy persona in their ranks, besides mustering fnlly ninety per cent of the whole population. They were, therefore, far from being politically powerless. The recall of Lord Grandison from the government was attri- buted to their direct or indirect influence upon the King When James Ussher, then Bishop of Meath, preached before his successor from the text "He beareth not the sword in rain," they were sufficiently formidable to compel him pub- licly to apologize for his violent allusions to their body. Per- haps, however, we should mainly see in the comparative tolera- tion, extended by Lord Falkland, an effect of the diplomacy then going on, for the marriage of Prince Charles to the Infanta of Spain. When, in 1623, Pope Gregory XV. granted a dispensation for this marriage, James solemnly swore to a private article of the marriage treaty, by which he bound him- self to suspend the execution of the Penal laws, to procure their repeal in Parliament, and to grant a toleration of Catholic worship in private houses. But the Spanish match was unex- pectedly broken off, immediately after his decease (June, 1625), whereupon Charles married Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry IV. of France. The new monarch inherited from his father three kingdoms heaving in the throes of disaffection and rebellion. In Eng- land the most formidable of the malcontents were the Puritans, who reckoned many of the first nobility, and the ablest mem- bers of the House of Commons among their chiefs ; the resto- ration of episcopacy, and the declaration by the subservient Parliament of Scotland, that no General Assembly should b called without the King's sanction, had laid the sure foundations of a religious insurrection hi the North; while the events, which we have already described, filled the minds of all orders of men in Ireland with agitation and alarm. The marriage of Charles with Henrietta Maria gave a ray of assurance to the coreligionists of the young Queen, for they had not then discov- ered that it was ever the habit of the Stuarts " to sacrifice their friends to the fear of their enemies." While he was yet celebrating his nuptials at Whitehall, surrounded by Catholia guoots, the Ilonse of Commons presented Charles " a piou* MPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 479 petition," praying him to put into force the laws against recu- sants ; a prayer which he was compelled by motives of policy to answer in the affirmati?e. The magistrates of England re- ceiyed orders accordingly, and when the King of France re- monstrated against this flagrant breach of one of the articles of the marriage treaty (the same included in the terms of the Spanish match), Charles answered that he had never looked on the promised toleration as anything but an artifice to se- cure the Papal dispensation. But the King's compliance failed to satisfy the Puritan party in the House of Commons, and that same year began their contest with the Crown, which ended only on the scaffold before Whitehall in 1648. Of their twenty- three years' struggle, except in so far as it enters directly into our narrative, we shall have little to say, beyond reminding the reader, from time to time, that though it occasionally lulled down it was never wholly allayed on either side. Irish affairs, in the long continued suspension of the func- tions of Parliament, were administered in general by the Privy Council, and in detail by three special courts, all established in defiance of ancient constitutional usage. These were the Court of Castle Chamber, modelled on the English Star Cham- ber, and the Ecclesiastical High Commissioners Court, both dating from 1663 ; and the Court of Wards and Liveries, ori- ginally founded by Henry VIII., but lately remodelled by James. The Castle Chamber was composed of certain selected members of the Privy Council acting in secret with absolute power ; the High Commission Court was constituted under James and Charles, of the principal Archbishops and Bishops, with the Lord Deputy, Chancellor, Chief Justice, Master of the Rolls, Master of the Wards, and some others, laymen and jurists. They were armed with unlimited power " to visit reform, redress, order, correct and amend, all such errors, here- sies, schisms, abuses, offences, contempts and enormities," aa came under the head of spiritual or ecclesiastical jurisdiction. They were, in effect, the Castle Chamber, acting as a spiritual tribunal of last resort; and were provided with their own officers, Registers and Receivers of Fines, Pursuivants, Crien and Gaolers. The Court of Wards exercised a jurisdiction, if 480 POPULAR HISTORY OP IRELAND. possible, more repugnant to our first notions of liberty than that of the High Commission Court. It retained its original power " to bargain and sell the custody, wardship and mar- riage," of all the heirs of such persons of condition as died ii the King's homage ; but their powers, by royal letters-patent of the year 1617, were to be exercised by a Master of Wards, with an Attorney and Surveyor, all nominated by the Crown. The Court was entitled to farm all the property of its Wards during nonage, for the benefit of the Crown, " taking one year's rent from heirs male, and two from heirs female," for charges of stewardship. The first master, Sir William Par- sons, wan appointed in 1622, and confirmed at the beginning of the next reign, with a salary of 300 per annum, and the right to rank next to the Chief Justice of the King's Bench at the Privy Council. By this appointment the minor heirs of all the Catholic proprietors were placed, both as to person and property, at the absolute disposal of one of the most intense anti-Catholic bigots that ever appeared on the scene of Irish affairs. ID addition to these civil grievances an order had lately been issued to increase the army In Ireland by 5,000 men, and means of subsistence had to be found for that aditional force, within the kingdom. In reply to the murmurs of the inhabitants they were assured by Lord Falkland that the King was their friend, and that any just and temperate repre- sentation of their grievances would secure his careful and instant attention. So encouraged, the leading Catholics con- voked a General Assembly of their nobility and gentry, " with several Protestants of rank," at Dublin, in the year 1628, in rder to present a dutiful statement of their complaints to the King. The minutes of this important Assembly, it is to be feared, are forever lost to us. We only know that it in'cluded * large number of landed proprietors, of whom the Catholics were Mill a very numerous section. " The entire proceedings of this Assembly," says Dr. Taylor, " were marked by wisdom and moderation. They drew up a number of articles, in th nature of a Bill of Rights, to which they humbly solicited the royal assent, and promised that, on their being granted, POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELjlND. 481 would raise a voluntary assessment of 100,000 for the use of the Crown. The principal articles in these ' graces,' as they were called, were provisions for the security of property, the due administration of justice, the prevention of military ex- actions, the freedom of trade, the better regulation of th clergy, and the restraining of the tyranny of the ecclesi- astical courts. Finally, they provided that the Scots, wht had been planted in Ulster, should be secured in their pos sessions, and a general pardon granted for all offences." Agents were chosen to repair to England with this petition, and the Assembly, hoping for the best results, adjourned. But the ultra Protestant party had taken the alarm and convoked a Synod at Dublin to counteract the General Assembly. This Synod vehemently protested against selling truth " as a slave," and " establishing for a price idolatry in its stead." They laid it down as a dogma of their faith that " to grant Papists a toleration, or to consent that they may freely exercise their religion and profess their faith and doctrines, was a grievous sin ;" wherefore they prayed God " to make those in authority zealous, resolute and courageous against all Popery, super- stition and idolatry." This declaration of the extreme Pro- testants, including not only TTssher and the principal Bishops, but Chichester, Boyle, Parsons, and the most successful " Undertakers," all deeply imbued with Puritan notions, naturally found among their English brethren advocates and defenders. The King who had lately, for the third time, renewed with France the articles of his marriage treaty, was placed in a most difficult position. He desired to save his own honor, he sorely needed the money of the Catholics, but he trembled before the compact, well organized fanaticism of the Puritans. In his distress he had recourse to a councillor, who, since the assassination of Buckingham, his first favorite, divided with Laud the royal confidence. This was Thomas, Lord Wentworth, better known by his subsequent title of Earl of Strafford, a statesman born to be the wonder and the bane of three kingdoms. Strafford (for such for clear- ness we must call him) boldly advised the King to grant 11 the graces" as his own personal act, to pocket the propose^ 41 482 POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. mbsidy, but to contrive that the promised concessions he was to make should never go into effect. This infamous deception was effected in this wise: the King signed, with his own hand, a schedule of fifty-one " graces," and re- ceived from the Irish agents in London bonds for 120,000, (equal to ten times the amount at present), to be paid in three annual instalments of 40,000. He also agreed that Parlia- ment should be immediately called in Ireland, to confirm these concessions, while at the same time he secretly instructed Lord Falkland to see that the writs of election were informally pre- pared, so that no Parliament could be held. This was accord- ingly done ; the agents of the General Assembly paid their first instalment; the subscribers held the King's autograph; the writs were issued, but on being returned were found to be technically incorrect, and so the legal confirmation of the graces was indefinitely postponed, under one pretext or an- other. As evidence of the national demands at this period, we should add, that beside the redress of minor grievances, the articles signed by the King provided that the recusants should be allowed to practice in the courts of law ; to sue the livery of their lands out of the Court of Wards, on taking an oath of civil allegiance in lieu of the oath of supremacy . that the claims of the Crown to the forfeiture of estates, under the plea of defects of title, should not be held to extend be- yond sixty years anterior to 1C28 ; that the " Undertakers" should have time allowed them to fulfil the conditions of their leases ; that the proprietors of Connaught should be allowed to make a new enrollment of their estates, and that a Parlia- ment should be held. A royal proclamation announced these concessions, as existing in the royal intention, but, as we have Jready related, such promises proved to be worth no more than the paper on which they were written. In 1029 Lord Falkland, to disarm the Puritan outcry against him, had leave to withdraw, and for four years an unusually long interregnum the government was left in the hands of Robert Boyle, now Earl of Cork, and Adam Loftus, Viscount Ely, one of the well dower'd offspring of Queen Elizabeth'! Archbishop of Dublin. Ely held the office of Lord Chan- POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 483 cellor, and Cork that of Lord High Treasurer ; as Justices, they now combined in their own persons almost all the power and patronage of the kingdom. Both affected a Puritan austerity and enthusiasm, which barely cloaked a rapacity and bigotry unequalled in any former administration. In Dublin, on Saint Stephen's Day, 1629, the Protestant Archbishop, Bulkley, and the Mayor of the city, entered the Carmelite Chapel at the head of a file of soldiers, dispersed the congre- gation, desecrated the altar, and arrested the officiating friars. The persecution was then taken up and repeated wherever the executive power was strong enough to defy the popular indignation. A Catholic seminary lately established in the capital was confiscated, and turned over to Trinity College as a training school. Fifteen religious houses, chiefly belonging to the Franciscan Order, which had hitherto escaped from tha remoteness of their situation, were, by an order of the English Council, confiscated to the Crown, and their novices compelled to emigrate in order to complete their studies abroad. A reprimand from the King somewhat stayed the fury of the Justices, whose supreme power ended with Strafford's appoint- ment in 1633. The advent of Strafford was characteristic of his whole course. The King sent over another letter concerning recu- sants, declaring that the laws against them, at the suggestion of the Lords Justices, should be put strictly in force. The Justices proved unwilling to enter this letter on the Council book, and it was accordingly withheld till Strafford's arrival, but the threat had the desired effect of drawing " a voluntary contribution" of 20,000 out of the alarmed Catholics. Equip- ped partly with this money Strafford arrived in Dublin in July, 1633, and enterad at once on the policy, which he himself designated by the one emphatic word " THOROUGH." He took up his abode in the Castle, surrounded by a Body Guard, a force hitherto unknown at the Irish Court ; he summoned only a select number of the Privy Council, and, having kept them waiting for hours, condescended to address them in a speech full of arrogance and menace. He declared his inten- tion of maintaining and augmenting the army ; advised then 484 POPULAB HISTORY OF IRELAND. to amend their grants forthwith ; told then, frankly he had called them to Council, more out of courtesy than necessity, and ended by requiring from them a year's subsidy in advance. As this last request was accompanied by a positive promise to obtain the King's consent to the assembling of Parliament, it was at once granted ; and soon after writs were issued for the meeting of both Houses in July following. When this long prayed-for Parliament at last met, the Lord Deputy took good care that it should be little else than a tri- bunal to register his edicts. A great many officers of the army had been chosen as Burgesses, while the Sheriffs of counties were employed to secure the election of members favorable to the demands of the Crown. In the Parliament of 1613 the recusants were, admitting all the returns to be correct, nearly one-half; but in that of 1634 they could not have exceeded one-third. The Lord Deputy nominated their speaker, whom they did not dare to reject, and treated them invariably with the supreme contempt which no one knows so well how to exhibit towards a popular assembly as an apostate liberal. " Surely," he said in his speech from the throne, "so great a meanness cannot enter your hearts, as once to suspect his Majesty's gracious regards of you, and performance with you, once you affix yourselves upon his grace." His object in this appeal was the sordid and commonplace one to obtain more money without rendering value for It. He accordingly carried through four whole subsidies of 50,000 sterling each in the session of 1634; and two additional subsidies of the same amount at the opening of the next session. The Par* liament, having thus answered his purpose, was summarily dissolved in April, 1685, and for four years more no other waa called. During both sessions he had contrived, according to his agreement with the King, to postpone indefinitely the act which was 10 have confirmed "the graces," guaranteed in 1^28. He even contrived to get a report of a Committee of the House of Commons, and the opinions of some of the Judges, against legislating on the subject at all, which report gave Kiny Charles " a great deal of contentment," With sufficient funds in hand for the ordinary expense* of POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 485 the government, Strafford applied himself earnestly to the self-elected task of making his royal master " as absolute as any King in Christendom" on the Irish side of the channel. The plantation of Connaught, delayed by the late King's death, and abandoned among the new King's graces, was resumed as a main engine of obtaining more money. The proprietary of that Province had, in the thirteenth year of the late reign, paid 3,000 into the Record Office at Dublin, for the registra- tion of their deeds, but the entries not being made by the clerk employed, the title to every estate iu the five western counties was now called in question. The " Commissioners tg Inquire into Defective Titles" were let loose upon the devoted Province, with Sir William Parsons at their head, and the King's title to the whole of Mayo, Sligo and Roscommon, was found by packed, bribed, or intimidated juries ; the grand jury of Galway, having refused to find a similar verdict, were sum- moned to the Court of Castle Chamber, sentenced to pay a fine of 4,000 each to the Crown, and the Sheriff that empanneled them a fine of 1,000. The lawyers who pleaded for the actual proprietors were stripped of their gowns, the sheriff died in prison, and the work of spoliation proceeded. The young Earl of Ormond was glad to compound for a portion of his estates ; the Earl of Kildare was committed to prison for re- fusing a similar composition ; the Earl of Cork was compelled to pay a heavy fine for his intrusion into lands originally granted to the Church; the O'Byrnes of Wicklow commuted for 15,000, and the London Companies, for their Derry estates, paid no less than 70,000 : a forced contribution for which those frugal citizens never forgave the thorough-going Deputy. By these means, and others less violent, such as bounties to the linen trade, he raised the annual revenue of the kingdom to 80,000 a year, and was enabled to embody for the King's service an army of 10,000 foot and 1,000 horse. These arbitrary measures were entirely in consonance with the wishes of Charles. In a visit to England in 1636, the King assured Strafford personally of his cordial approbation of all he had done, encouraged him to proceed fearlessly in the same course, and conferred on him the higher rank o/ 486 POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. Lord Lieutenant. Three years later, on the first rumor of Scottish invasion of England, Strafford was enabled to remit his master 30,000 from the Irish Treasury, and to tender the services of the Anglo-Irish army, as he thought they could be eafely dispensed with by the country in which they had been thus far recruited and maintained. CHAPTER m. LORD STRAFFOBD'S IMPEACHMENT AND EXECUTION PARLIA- MENT OF 1639-'41 THE INSURRECTION OP 1641 THB IBI8H ABROAD. THE tragic end of the despot, whose administration we have sketched, was now rapidly approaching. When he deserted the popular ranks in the English House of Commons for a Peerage and the government of Ireland, the fearless Pym pro- phetically remarked, " though you have left us, I will not leave you while your head is on your shoulders." Yet, although conscious of having left able and vigilant enemies behind him in England, Strafford proceeded in his Irish administration as if he scomed to conciliate the feelings or interests of any order of men. By the highest nobility, as well as the hum- blest of the mechanic class, his will was to be received as law ; BO that neither in Church, nor in State, might any man express even the most guarded doubt as to its infallibility. Lord Mountnorris, for example, having dropped a casual, and alto- gether innocent remark at the Chancellor's table on the private habits of the Deputy, was brought to trial by court martial on a charge of mutiny, and sentenced to military execution. Though he was not actually put to death, he underwent a long and rigorous imprisonment, and at length was liberated without apology or satisfaction. If they were not so fully authenti- cated the particulars of this outrageous case would hardly be credible HISTORY OF IRELAND. 481 The examples of resistance to arbitrary power, which for gome years had been shown by both England and Scotland, were not thrown away upon the still worse used Irish. During the seven years of Stafford's iron rule, Hampden had resisted the collection of ship money, Cromwell had begun to figure in the House of Commons, the Solemn League and Covenant was established in Scotland, and the Scots had twice entered England in arms to seal with their blood, if need were, their opposition to an episcopal establishment of religion. It was in 1640, upon the occasion of their second invasion, that Strafford was recalled from Ireland to assume command of the royal forces in the North of England. After a single indecisive campaign, the King entertained Hie overtures of the Cove nauters, and the memorable Long Parliament having met in November, one of its first acts was the impeachment of Straf- ford for high crimes and misdemeanors. The chief articles against him related to his administration of Irish affairs, and were sustained by delegates from the Irish House of Commons, sent over for that purpose : the whole of the trial deserves to be closely examined by every one interested in the constitu- tional history of England and Ireland. A third Parliament, known as the 14th, 15th and 16th Charles I., met at Dublin on the 20th March, 1639, was pro- rogued till June, and adjourned till October. Yielding the point so successfully resisted in 1613, its sittings were held in the Castle, surrounded by the viceregal guard. With one exception, the acts passed in its first session were of little importance, relating only to the allotment of glebe lands and the payment of twentieths. The exception, which followed the voting of four entire subsidies to the King, was an Act ordaining " that this Parliament shall not determine by his Majesty's assent to this and other Bills." A similar statute had ben passed in 1635, but was wholly disregarded by Strafford, who no doubt meant to take precisely the same course in the present instance. The members of this Assembly have been severely condemned by modern writers for passing a high eulogium upon Strafford in their first session and reversing it after his fall. But this censure Is not well founded. Th 488 POPULAR HISTORY Of IRELAND. eulogium was introduced by the Castle party in the Lords, at part of the preamble to the Supply Bill, which, on being returned to the Common*], could only be rejected in toto, not amended a proceeding in the last degree revolutionary But those who dissented from that ingenious device, at the next session of the House, took care to have their protest entered on the journals and a copy of it despatched to the King. Thia second proceeding took place in February, 1640, and as thj Lord Lieutenant was not arraigned till the month of November following, the usual denunciations of the Irish members are altogether undeserved. At no period of his fortune was the Earl more formidable as an enemy than at the very moment the Protest against " his manner of government" was ordered "to be entered among the Ordinances" of the Commons of Ireland. Nor did this Parliament confine itself to mere pro- testations against the abuses of executive power. At the very opening of the second session, on the 20th of January, they appointed a committee to wait on the King in England, with instructions to solicit a bill in explanation of Poyning's law, another enabling them to originate bills in Committee of their own House, a right taken away by that law, and to ask the King's consent to the regulation of the courts of law, the col- lecting of the revenue, and the quartering of soldiers, by statute instead of by Orders in Council. On the 16th of February the House submitted a set of queries to the Judges, the nature of which may be inferred from the first question, viz. : " Whether the subjects of this Kingdom be a free people, and to be governed only by the common law of England, and statutes passed in this Kingdom 1" When the answers received were deemed insufficient, the House itself, turning th queries into the form of resolutions, proceeded to vote on them, one by one, affirming in every point the righto, th* liberties, and the privileges of their constituents. The impeachment and attainder of Straffbrd occupied the great pait of March and April, 1641, and throughout those months the delegates from Ireland assisted at the pleadings in Wostmi:.*ter Hall and the debates in the English Parliament. The Houses at Dublin were themselves occupied in a similar POPULAB HISTORY OF IRELAND. 489 manner. Towards the end of February articles of impeach- toent were drawn up against the Lord C hancellor, Bolton, Dl Bramhall, Bishop of Derry Chief-Justice Lowther, and Sir George Radciiff'e, for conspiring with Strafford to subvert the constitution and laws, and to introduce an arbitrary and tyran- nical government. In March, the King's letter for the con- tinuance of Parliament was laid before the Commons, and on the 3d of April, his further letter, declaring that all his ma- jesty's subjects of Ireland " shall, from henceforth, enjoy the benefit of the said graces [of 1628] according to the true in- tent thereof." By the end of May the Judges, not under im- peachment, sent in their answers to the Queries of the Com" mons, which answers were voted insufficient, and Mr. Patrick Darcy, Member for Navan, was appointed to serve as Procula- tor at a Conference with the Lords, held on the 9th of June, " in the dining-room of the Castle," in order to set forth the insufficiency of such replies. The learned and elaborate ar- gument of Darcy was ordered to be printed by the House ; and on the 26th day of July, previous to their prorogation, they resolved unanimously, that the subjects of Ireland " were a free people, to be governed only by the common law of Eng- land, and statutes made and established in the kingdom of Ireland, and according to the lawful custom used in the same." This was the last act of this memorable session ; the great northern insurrection in October having, of course, prevented subsequent sessions from being held. Constitutional agitators in modern times have been apt to select their examples of a wise and patriotic parliamentary conduct from the opposition to the Act of Union and the famous struggles of the last cen- tury ; but whoever has looked into such records as remain to us of the 15th and 16th of Charles First, and the debates on the impeachment of Lord Chancellor Bolton, will, in my opinion, be prepared to admit, that at no period whatever was constitutional law more ably expounded in Ireland than in the sessions of 1640 and 1641 ; and that not only the principle! of Swift and of Molyneux had a triumph in 1782, but th older doctrines also of Sir Ralph Keliy, Audluy Mervin, and Patrick Darcy. *90 POPULAR HI8TORT OF IRELAND. Strafford'fl Deputy, Sir Christopher Wandesford, having died before the close of 1640, the King appointed Robert, Lord Dillon, a liberal Protestant, and Sir William Parsons, Lords Justices. But the pressure of Puritan influence in Eng- land compelled him in a short time to remove Dillon and sub- stitute Sir John Borlace, Master of the Ordnance a mere soldier in point of fanaticism a fitting colleague for Par- sons. The prorogation of Parliament soon gave these admi- nistrators opportunities to exhibit the spirit in which they proposed to carry on the government. When at a public entertainment in the capital Parsons openly declared that in twelve months more no Catholic should be seen in Ireland, it was naturally inferred that the Lord Justice spoke not merely for himself but for the growing party of the English Puritans and Scottish Covenanters. The latter had repeatedly avowed that they never would lay down their arms until they had wrought the extirpation of Popery, and Mr. Pym, the Puritan leader in England, had openly declared that his party in- tended not to leave a priest in Ireland. The infatuation of the unfortunate Charles in entrusting at such a moment the supreme power, civil and military, to two of the devoted par- fcizans of his deadliest enemies, could not fail to arouse the fears of all who felt themselves obnoxious to the fanatical party, either by race or by religion. The aspirations of the chief men among the old Irish for entire freedom of worship, their hopes of recovering at least a portion of their estates, the example of the Scots, who had successfully upheld both their Church and nation against all attempts at English supremacy, the dangers that pressed, and the fears that overhung them, drove many of the very first abilities and noblest characters into the conspiracy which ex- ploded with such terriflc energy on the 23d of October, Ifill. The project, though matured on Irish soil, was first conceived among the exiled Catholics, who were to be found at that day in all the schools and camps of Spain, Italy, France and the Netherlands. Philip III. had an Irish legion, under the com- mand of Henry O'Neil, son of Tyrone, which, after his death was transferred to his brother John. In this legion, Oweu Ivua POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 491 O'Neil, nephew of Tyrone, learned the art of war, and rose to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. The number of Irish serving abroad had steadily increased after 1628, when a license of enlistment was granted by the King James. An English emis- sary, evidently well-informed, was enabled to report, about the year 1630, that there were in the service of the Archdu- chess Isabella, in the Spanish Netherlands alone, " 100 Irish officers able to command companies, and 20 fit to be colonels." The names of many others are given as men of noted courage, good engineers, and " well-beloved" captains, both Milesiam and Anglo-Irish, residing at Lisbon, Florence, Milan and Naples. The emissary adds that they had long been provid- ing arms for an attempt upon Ireland, "and had in readiness 5 or 6,000 arms laid up in Antwerp for that purpose, bought out of the deduction of their monthly pay." After the death of the Archduchess, in 1633, an attempt was made by the Franco-Dutch, under Prince Maurice and Marshal Chatillon, to separate the Belgian Provinces from Spain. In the san- guinary battle at Avlen victory declared for the French, and on their junction with Prince Maurice town after town surren- dered to their arms. The first successful stand against them was made at Louvain, defended by 4,000 Belgians, Walloons, Spaniards and Irish ; the Irish, 1,000 strong, under the com- mand of Colonel Preston, of the Gormanstown family, greatly distinguished themselves. The siege was raised on the 4th of July, 1635, and Belgium was saved for that time to Philip IV. At the capture of Breda, in 1637, the Irish were again honora- bly conspicuous, and yet more so in the successful defence of Arras, the capital of Artois, three years later. Not yet strengthened by the citadel of Vauban, this ancient Burgun- dian city, famous for its cathedral and its manufactures, dear to the Spaniards as one of the conquests of Charles Vth, was a vital point in the campaign of 1640. Be- sieged by the Prench, under Marshal Millerie, it held out fcr several weeks under the command of Colonel Owen Roe O'Neil. The King of France lying at Amiens, within conve- nient distance, took care that the besiegers wanted for nothing ; while the Prince-Cardinal, Ferdinand, the successor of the 4'J2 POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. Archduchess in the government, marched to its relief at the head of his main force with the Imperialists, under Launoy, and the troops of the Duke of Lorrain, commanded by that Prince in person. In an attack on the French lines the Allies were beaten off with loss, and the brave commander was left again unsuccored in the face of his powerful assailant. Sub- sequently Don Philip de Silva, General of the Horse to the Prince Cardinal, was despatched to its relief, but failed to effect anything ; a failure for which he was court martial'd, but acquitted. The defenders, after exhausting every resource, finally surrendered the place on honorable terms, and marched out covered with glory. These stirring events, chronicled in prose and verse at home, rekindled the martial ardor which had slumbered since the disastrous day of Einsale. In the ecclesiastics who shared their banishment, the military exiles had a voluntary diplomatic corps who lost no opportunity of advancing the common cause. At Rome, their chief agent was Father Luke Wadding, founder of Saint Isidore's, one of the most eminent theologians and scholars of his age. Through the friendship of Gregory XV. and Urban VIII., many Catholic princes became deeply interested in the reli- gious wars which the Irish of the previous ages had so bravely waged, and which their descendants were now so anxious to renew. Cardinal Richelieu who wielded a power greater than that of Kings had favorably entertained a project of in? vasion submitted to him by the son of Hugh O'Neil, a chief who, while living, was naturally regarded by the exiles as their future leader. To prepare the country for such an invasion (if the return of men to their own country can be called by that name), it was necessary to find an agent with talents for organization, and an undoubted title to credibility and confidence. Thii agent was fortunately found in the person of Rory or Roger O'Moore, the representative of the ancient chiefs of Leix, who had grown up at the Spanish Court as the friend and companion of the O'Neils. O'Moore was then in the prime of life, of handsome person and most seductive manners ; his knowledge of character was profound ; hU zeal for the Catho* BISTORT OP IRELAND. 493 lie cause, intense ; his personal probity, honor and courage, undoubted. The precise date of O'Moore's arrival in Ireland is not given in any of the cotemporary accounts, but he seems to have been resident in tho country some time previous to hia appearance in public life, as he is familiarly spoken of by his English cotemporariee as " Mr. Roger Moore of Ballynagh.' During the Parliamentary session of 1640 he took lodgings it Dublin, where he succeeded in enlisting in his plans Conner Maguiro, Lord Enniskillen, Philip O'Reilly, one- of the room- bnrs for tho county of Cavan, Costelloe McMahon, and Thor- logh O'Neil, all persons of great influence in Ulster. During tUe ea^uing assizes in the Northern Province he visited several county towns, where in the crowd of suitors and defendants he could, without attracting special not'ce, meet and converse with those he desired to gain over. On this tour he received the important accession of Sir Phelim O'Neil of Kinnaird, in Tyrone, Sir Con Mfigennia of Down, Colonel Hugh McMahon of Monaghan, and Dr. Heber McMahon, Adminis- trator of Clogher. Sir Phelim O'Neil, the most considerable man of his name tolerated in Ulster, was looked upon as the greatest acquisition, and at his castle of Kinnaird his associates from tho neighboring counties, under a variety of pretexts, contrived frequently to meet. From Ulster, the indefatigable O'Moore carried the threads of the conspiracy into Connaught with equal success, finding both among the nobility and clergy many adherents. In Leinster, among the Anglo-Irish, he experienced the greatest timidity and indifference, but an unforeseen circumstance threw into hia hands a powerful lever, to move that province. This was the permission granted by the King to the native regiments, embodied by Strafford to enter into the Spanish service, if they o desired. His English Parliament made no demur to the arrangement, which would rid the island of some thousands of disciplined Catholics, but several of their officers, under the inspiration of O'Moore, kept their companies together, delaying their departure from month to month. Among these wers Sir James Dillon, Colonel Plunfcett, Colonel Byrne, and 42 494 POPUIJLR HISTORY OF IRELAND. Captain Fox, who, with O'Moore, formed the first directing body of the Confederates in Leinster. lu May, 1641, Captain Neil O'Neil arrived from the Nether- lands with an urgent request from John, Earl of Tyrone, to all his clansmen to prepare for a general insurrection. Ho also brought them the cheering news that Cardinal Richelieu- then at the summit of his greatness had promised the exiles arms, money, and means of transport. He was sent back, almost immediately, with the reply of Sir Phelim, O'Moore and their friends, that they would be prepared to take tbe field a few days before or after the festival of All Hallows- - the 1st of November. The death of Earl John, shortly after- xvnrd?, though it grieved the Confederates, wrought no change i;. their jlniis. In his cousin-gerrnain, the distinguished de- fender cif Arras, they reposed equal confidence, and their confi- (.lenee could not have been more worthily bestowed. ' CHAPTER IV. THE INSURRECTION OF 1641. THE plan agreed upon by the Confederates included four main features. I. A rising after the harvest was gathered in, and a campaign during the winter months, when supplies from England were most difficult to be obtained by their enemies. II. A simultaneous attack on one and the same day or night on all the fortresses within reach of their friends. III. To Biirprise the Castle of Dublin which was said to contain arms for 12,000 men. IV. Aid in officers, munitions, and money from abroad. All the details of this project were carried suc- cessfully into effect, except the seizure of Dublin Castle the most difficult as it would have been the most decisive blow to strike Towards the end of August a meeting of those who could moat conveniently attend was held in Dublin. There wert POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 495 present 0'M< ore and Maguire, of the civilians, and Colonels Plunkett, Byrne, and McMahon, of the army. At this meek- ing the last week of October, or first of November, was fixed upon as the time to rise ; subsequently Saturday, the 23d of the first-named month, a market day in the capital, was se- lected. The northern movements were to be arranged with Sir Phelim O'Neil, while McMahon, Plunkett, and Byrne, with 200 picked men, were to surprise the Castle guard consisting of only a few pensioners and 40 halbediers turn the guns upon the city to intimidate the Puritan party, and thus make sure of Dublin ; O'Moore, Lord Maguire, and other civilians, were to be in town, in order to direct the next steps to be taken. As the day approached, the arrangements went on with perfect secresy but with perfect success. On the 22d of October half the chosen band were in waiting, and the remain- der were expected in during the night. Some hundreds of persons, in and about Dublin, and many thousands throughout the country, must have been in possession of that momentous secret, yet it was by the mere accident of trusting a drunken dependant out of sight, that the first knowledge of the plot was conveyed to the Lords Justices on the very eve of its execution. Owen O'Connolly, the informant on this occasion, was one of those ruffling squires or henchmen, who accompanied gen- tlemen of fortune, in that age, to take part in their quarrels, and carry their confidential messages. That he was not an ordinary domestic servant, we may learn from the fact of his carrying a sword, after the custom of the class to which we have assigned him. At this period he was in the service of Sir John Clotworthy, one of the most violent of the Puritan Undertakers, and had conformed to the established religion. Through what recklessness, or ignorance of his true character, no came to be invited by Colonel Hugh McMahon to his lodg- ings, and there, on the evening of the 22d, entrusted with a knowledge of next day's plans, we have now no means of de- ciding. O'Connolly's information, as tendered to the Justices, states that on hearing of the proposed attack on the Castle, he pretended an occasion to withdraw, leaving his sword in. *? POPTJLAR HTSTORT OP IRELAND. McMahon's room to avoid suspicion, and that aftei jumping over fences and palings, he made his way from the north side of the city to Sir William Parsons at the Castle. Parsons at first discredited the tale, which O'Connolly (who was in liquor) told in a confused and rambling manner, but he finally decided to consult his colleague, Borlase, by whom some of the Coun- cil were summoned, the witness's deposition taken down, orders issued to double the guard, and officers despatched, who arrested McMahon at his lodgings. When McMahon came to be examined before the Council, it was already the morning of the 23d ; he boldly avowed his own part in the plot, and declared that what was that day to be done was now beyond the power of man to prevent. He was committed close pri- soner to the Castle where he had hoped to command, and search was made for the other leaders in town. Maguire was captured the net morning, and shared McMahon's captivity; but O'Moore, Plunkett, and Byrne succeeded in escaping out of the city. O'Connolly was amply rewarded in lands and money ; and we hear of him once afterwards, with the title of Colonel, in the Parliamentary army. As McMahon had declared to the Justices, the rising wai now beyond the power of man to prevent. In Ulster, by stra- tagem, surprise, or force, the forte of Charlemont and Mount- joy, and the town of Dungannon, were seized on the night of the 22d by Sir Phelim O'Neil or his lieutenants ; on the next day Sir Connor Magennis took the town of Newry, the McMahons possessed themselves of Carrickmacross and Castle- blaney, the O'Hanlons Tandragee, while Philip O'Reilly and Roger Maguire raised Cavan and Fermanagh. A proclamation of the northern leaders appeared the same day, dated from Dun- gannon, setting forth their " true intent and meaning" to be, not hostility to his Majesty the King, " nor to any of his sub- jects, neither English, nor Scotch ; but only for the defence and liberty of ourselves and the Irish natives of this kingdom." A more elaborate manifesto appeared shortly afterwards from the pen of Bory O'Moore, in which the oppressions of the Catholics for conscience' sake were detailed, th King'g Intended " graces" acknowledged, and their frustration by thf POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 497 malice of the Puritan party exhibited : it also end \avored to how that a common danger threatened the Protestants of the Episcopal Church with Roman Catholics, and asserted in the Strongest terms the devotion of the Catholics to the Crown. In the same politic and tolerant spirit, Sir Connor Mageunis wrote from Newry on the 25th to the officers commanding at Down. " We are," he wrote, " for our lives and liberties. We desire no blood to be shed, but if you mean to shed our blood, be sure we shall be as ready as you for that purpose." This threat of retaliation, so customary in all wars, was made on the third day of the rising, and refers wholly to future contin gencies ; the monstrous fictions which were afterwards circu- lated of a wholesale massacre committed on the 23d were not as yet invented, nor does any public document or private let- ter, written in Ireland in the last week of October, or during the first days of November, so much as allude to those tales of blood and horror, afterwards so industriously circulated, and BO greedily swallowed. Fully aroused from their lethargy by McMahon's declaration, the Lords Justices acted with considerable vigor. Dublin was declared to be in a state of siege ; courts martial were estab- lished ; arms were distributed to the Protestant citizens, and some Catholics ; and all strangers were ordered to quit the city under pain of death. Sir Francis Willoughby, Governor of Galway, who arrived on the night of the 22d, was entrusted with the command of the Castle, Sir Charles Coote was appointed Military Governor of the city, and the Earl, afterwards Duke of Ormond, was summoned from Carrick-on-Suir to take com- mand of the army. As Coote played a very conspicuous part in the opening scenes of this war, and Ormond till its close, it may be well to describe them both, more particularly to the reader : Sir Charles Coote, one of the first Baronets of Ireland, like Parsons, Boyle, Chichester, and other Englishmen, had come over to Ireland during the war against Tyrone, in quest of fortune. His first employments were in Connaught, where ha filled the offices of Provost-Marshal and Vice-Governor in the reign of James I. His success as an Undertaker entitles bin 498 POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. to rank with the fortunate adventurers we have mentioned ; in Roscommon, Sligo, Leitrim, Queen's and other counties, his possessions and privileges raised him to the rank of the richest subjects of his time. In 1640 he was a colonel of foot, with the estates of a Prince and the habits of a Provost-Mar- shal. His reputation for ferocious cruelty has survived the remembrance even of his successful plunder of other people'a property ; before the campaigns of Cromwell there was no better synonym for wanton cruelty than the name of Sir Charles Coote. James Butler, Earl, Marquis, and Duke of Ormond, deservedly ranks amongst the principal statesmen of his time. During a public career of more than half a century his con- duct in many eminent offices of trust was distinguished by supreme ability, life-long firmness and consistency. As a courtier of the House of Stuart, it was impossible that he should have served and satisfied both Charleses without par- ticipating in many indefensible acts of government, and originating some of them. Yet judged, not from the Irish but the Imperial point of view, not by an abstract standard but by the public morality of his age, he will be found fairly deserving of the title of "the great Duke" bestowed on him during his lifetime. When summoned by the Lords Justices to their assistance in 1641, he was in the thirty-first year of his age, and had so far only distinguished himself in political life as the friend of the late Lord Strafford. He had, however; the good fortune to restore in his own person the estates ot his family, notwithstanding that they were granted in great part to others by King James ; his attachment to the causn of King Charles was very naturally augumented by the fact that the partiality of that Prince and his ill-fated favorite had nabled him to retrieve both the hereditary wealth and the high political influence which formerly belonged to the Ormond Butlers. Such an ally was indispensable to the Lord Justices in the first panic of the insurrection ; but it was evi- dent to near observers that Ormond, a loyalist and a church- man, could not long act in concert with such devoted Puritani as Parsons, Borlase, and Coot*. POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 499 The military position of the several parties there were at least three when Ormond arrived at Dublin, in the first week of November, may be thus stated: I. In Munster and Con- naught there was but a single troop of royal horse, each, left as a guard with the respective Presidents, St. Leger and Willoughby ; in Kilkenny, Dublin and other of the midland counties, the gentry, Protestant and Catholic, were relied OD to raise volunteers for their own defence ; in Dublin there had been got together 1,600 old troops ; six new regiments of foot were embodied ; and thirteen volunteer companies of 100 each. In the Castle were arms and ammunition for 12,000 men, with a fine train of field artillery, provided by Strafford for his campaign in the north of England. Ormor-d, an Lieutenant-General, had thus at his disposal, in one fortnight after the insurrection broke out, from 8,000 to 10,000 well fc ppoiiited men ; his advice was to take the field at once against the northern leaders before the other Provinces became equally inflamed. But his judgment was overruled by the Justices, who would only consent, while awaiting their cue from the Long Parliament, to throw reinforcements into Drogheda, which thus became their outpost towards the north. II. In Ulster there still remained in the possession of " the Undertakers" Enniskillen, Derry, the Castles of Killeagh and Crohan in Cavan, Lisburn, Belfast, and the stronghold of Carrickfergus, garrisoned by the regiments of Colonel Chi- cheater and Lord Conway. King Charles, who was at Edin- burgh endeavoring to conciliate the Scottish Parliament when news of the Irish rising reached him, procured the instant despatch of 1,500 men to Ulster, and authorized Lords Chi- chester, Ardes and Clandeboy, to raise new regiments from among their own tenants. The force thus embodied which may be called from its prevailing element the Scottish army cannot have numbered less than 6,000 foot, and the propor- tionate number of horse. III. The Irish in the field by the first of November are stated in round numbers at 30,000 men iu the northern counties alone ; but the whole number sup- plied with arms and ammunition could not have reached one- third of that nominal total. Before the surprise of Charlemonl 500 POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. and Mountjoy forte, Sir Phelim O'Neil had but a barrel or Iwo of gunpowder ; the stores of those forts, with 70 barrels taken at Newry by Magennis, and all the arms captured in the simultaneous attack, which at the outside could not well exceed 4,000 or 6,000 stand constituted their entire equip- ment. One of Ormond's chief reasons for an immediate cam- pjign in the North was to prevent them having time to get " pikes made" which shows their deficiency even in that weapon. Besides this defect there was one, if possible, still more serious. Sir Phelim was a civilian, bred to the profes- sion of the larw ; Rory O'Moore, also, had never seen service ; and although Colonel Owen O'Neil and others had promised to join them " at fourteen days' notice," a variety of accidents prevented the arrival of any officer of distinction during the brief remainder of that year. Sir Phelim, however, boldly assumed the title of " Lord General of the Catholic Army in Ulster," and the still more popular title with the Gaelic speak- ing population of " The O'Noil." The projected winter campaign, after the first week's suc- cesses, did not turn out favorably for the northern Insurgents. The beginning of November was marked by the barbarous slaughter committed by the Scottish garrison of Carrickfergus in the Island Magee. Three thousand persons are said to hava been driven into the fathomless north sea, orer the clifft of tint island, or to have perished by the sword. The ordinary inha- bitants could not have exceeded one tenth as many, but tho presence of so large a number may be accounted for by the supposition that they had fled from the mainland across th* peninsula, which ia left dry at low water, and were pursued to their last refuge by the infuriated Covenanters. From this date forward until the accession of Owen Roe O'Neil to the command, the northern war assumed a ferocity of character foreign to the nature of O'Moore, O'Reilly and Magennis. That Sir Phelim permitted, if he did not sometimes in his gusta of stormy passion instigate, those acts of cruelty, which have stained his otherwise honorable conduct, is too true; but he *too1 nlone among his confederates in that crime, and thai crime stands alone in his character. Brave to rashness and POPULAR HISTORY OF iBELAND. 501 disinterested to excess, few rebel chiefs ever made a more heroic end out of a more deplorable beginning. The Irish Parliament which was to have met on the 16th of November was indefinitely prorogued by the Lords Justices, who preferred to act only with theii chosen quorum of Privy Councillors. The Catholic Lords of the Pale, who at first had arms granted for their retainers out of the public stores, were now summoned to surrender them by a given day ; an insult not to be forgiven. Lords Dillon and Taafe, then deputies to the King, were seized at Ware by the English Puritans, their papers taken from them, and themselves imprisoned. O'Moore, whose clansmen had recovered Dunamase and other strong- holds in his ancient patrimony, was still indefatigable in his propaganda among the Anglo-Irish. By his advice Sir Phelim inarched to besiege Drogheda, at the head of his tumultuous bands. On the way southward he made an unsuccessful attack upon Lisburn, where he lost heavily; on the 24th of November he took possession of Mellifont Abbey, from whose gate the aged Tyrone had departed in tears, twenty-five years before. From Mellifont he proceeded to invest Drogheda ; Colo- ncl Plunkett, with the title of General, being the sole experi- enced officer as yet engaged in his ranks. A strongly walled to - .vn as Drogheda was, well manned, and easily accessible from the sea, cannot be carried without guns and engineers by any amount of physical courage. Whenever the Catholics were fairly matched in the open field, they were generally successful, as at Julianstown, during this siege, whore one of their detachments cut off" five out of six companies marching from Dublin to reinforce the town ; but though the investment was complte, the vigilsnt Governor, Sir Henry Tiehburne, successfully repulsed the assailants. O'Moore, who lay between Ardee and Dundaik with a reserve of 2,000 men, found time during the siege to continue his natu- ral career, that of a diplomatist. T'je Puritan party, from the Lord Justice downwards, were, indeed, every day hasten- ing that union of Catholics of all origins which the founder of the Confederacy so ardently desired to bring about. Their avowed maxim was that the more men rebelled, tho mor 502 POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. estates there would be to confiscate. In Minister, theii chief instruments were the aged Earl of Cork, still insatiable as ever for other men's possessions, and the President St. Leger ; in Leinster, Sir Charles Coote. Lord Cork prepared 1,100 indict ments against men of property in his Province, which he sent to the Speaker of the Long Parliament, with an urgent request that they might be returned to him, with authority to proceed against the parties named, as outlaws. In Leinster, 4,000 similar indictments were found in the course of two days by the free use of the rack with witnesses. Sir John Bead, an officer of the Kng's Bedchamber, and Mr. Barnwall, of Kil- brue, a gentleman of three score and six, were among those who underwent the torture. When these were the proceedings of the tribunals in peaceable cities, we may imagine what must have been the excesses of the soldiery in the open country. In the South Sir William St. Leger directed a series of murderous raids upon the peasantry of Cork, which at length produced their natural effect. Lord Muskerry and other leading rescusants, who had offered their services to maintain the peace of the Province, were driven by an insult- ing refusal to combine for their own protection. The 1,100 Indictments of Lord Cork soon swelled their ranks, and the capture of the ancient city of Cashel by Philip O'Dwyer announced the insurrection of the South. Waterford soon after opened its gates to Colonel Edmund Butler ; Wexford declared for the Catholic cause, and Kilkenny surrendered to Lord Mountgarret. In Wicklow Coote's troopers committed murders such as had not been equalled since the days of tlie Pagan Northmen. Little children were carried aloft writhing on the pikes of these barbarians, whose worthy commander confessed that " he liked such frolics." Neither age nor sex was spared, and an ecclesiastic was especially certain of instant death. Fathers Higgins and White of Naas, in Kildare, were given up by Coote to these " lambs," though each had been granted a safe conduct by his superior officer, Lord Ormond. And these murders were taking place at the very time when the Franciscans and Jesuits of Cashel were pro- tecting Dr. Pullen, the Protestant Chancellor of that Cathedra] POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 503 and other Protestant prisoners; while also the Castle of Cloughouter, in Cavan, the residence of Bishop Bedell, was crowded with Protestant fugitives, all of whom were carefully guarded by the chivalrous Philip O'Reilly. At length the Catholic Lords of the Pale began to feel the general glow of an outraged people, too long submissive under every species of provocation. The Lords Justices having sum- moned them to attend in Dublin on the 8th of December they met at Swords, at the safe distance of seven miles, and sent by letter their reasons for not trusting themselves in the capital. To the allegations in this letter the Justices replied by procla- mation, denying most of them, and repeating their summons to Lords Fingal, Qormanstown, Slane, Dunsany, Netterville, LoutL and Trimleston, to attend in Dublin on the 17th. But before the 17th came, as if to ensure the defeat of their own summons, Coote was let loose upon the flourishing villages of Fingal, and the flames kindled by his men might easily be discovered from the round tower of Swords. On the 17th, the summoned Lords, with several of the neighboring gentry, met by appointment on the hill of Crofty, in the neighboring county of Meath ; while they were engaged in discussing the best course to be taken, a party of armed men on horseback, accompanied by a guard of musketeers, was seen approaching. They proved to be O'Moore, O'Reilly, Costelloe McMahon, brother of the pri- soner, Colonel Byrne, and Captain Fox. Lord Qormanstown, advancing in front of his friends, demanded of the new-comers " why they came armed into the Pale 1" To which O'Moore made answer " that the ground of their coming thither was for the freedom and liberty of their consciences, the mainte- nance of his Majesty's prerogative, in which they understood he was abridged, and the making the subjects of this kingdom as free as those of England." Lord Qormanstown, after con- sulting a few moments with his friends, replied : " seeing these be your true ends we will likewise join with you." The lead- ers then embraced amid the acclamations of their followers, and the general conditions of their union having been unani- mously agreed upon, a warrant was drawn out authorizing the Sheriff of Meath to summon the gentry of the county to a final meeting at the Hill of Tara on the 24th of December. 504 POITLAR HISTORY or IRELAND. CHAPTER V. THE CATHOLIC CONFEDERATION ITS CIVIL GOVERNMENT AND MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT. How a tumultuous insurrection grew into a national organ- ization, with a senate, executive, treasury, army, ships and diplomacy, we are now to describe. It may, however, be aa- Humed throughout the narrative, that the success of the new Confederacy was quite as much to be attributed to the per- verse policy of its enemies as to the counsels of its best lead- ers. The rising in the midland and Mnnster counties, and the formal adhesion of the Lords of the Pale, were two of the principal steps towards the end. A third was taken by the Bishops of the Province of Armagh, assembled in Provincial Synod at Kells, on the 22d of March, 1642, where, with th exception of Dease, of Meath, they unanimously pronounced " the war just and lawful." After solemnly condemning all acts of private vengeance, and all those who usurped other men's estates, this provincial meeting invited a national synod to meet at Kilkenny on the 10th day of May following. On that day accordingly, all the Prelates then in the country, with the exception of Bishop Dease, met at Kilkenny. There were present O'Reilly, Archbishop of Armagh, Butler, Arch- bishop of Cashel, O'Kealy, Archbishop of Tuam, David Rothe, the venerable Bishop of Ossory, the Bishops of Clonfert, Elphin, Waterford, Lismore, Kildare, and Down and Connor; the proctors of Dublin, Limerick and Killaloe, with sixteen other dignitaries and heads of religious orders in all twenty- nine prelates and superiors, or their representatives. The most remarkable attendants were, considering the circum stances of their Province, the prelates of Connaught. Straf- ford's reign of terror w&s still painfully remembered west of the Shannon, and the immense family influence of Ulick Burke, then Earl, and afterwards Marquis of Claarickarde, POPULAR BISTORT OF IRELAND. 505 *as exerted to prevent the adhesion of the western population to the Confederacy. Bat the zeal of the Archbishop of Tuam, and the violence of the Governor of Galway, Sir Francis Wil- loughby, proved more than a counterpoise for the authority ol Clanrickarde and the recollection of Strafford: Connaught, though the last to come into the Confederation, was also the last to abandon it. The Synod of Kilkenny proceeded with the utmost solem- nity and anxiety to consider the circumstances of their own and the neighboring kingdoms. No equal number of men could have been found in Ireland, at that day, with an equal amount of knowledge of foreign and domestic politics. Many of them had spent years upon the Continent, while the French Hugue- nots held their one hundred " cautionary towns," and " leagues" and " associations" were the ordinary instruments of popular resistance in the Netherlands and Germany. Nor were the events transpiring in the neighboring island unknown or un- weighed by that grave assembly. The true meaning and in- tent of the Scottish and English insurrections were by this time apparent to every one. The previous months had been espe- cially fertile in events, calculated to rouse their most serious apprehensions. In March the King fled from London to York ; in April the gates of Hull were shut 5 n his face by Hotham, its governor, and in May the Long Parliament -voted a levy of 16,000 without the royal authority. The Earl of Warwick had been appointed the Parliamentary commander of the fleet, and the Earl of Essex, their Lord General, with Cromwell as one of his captains. From that hour it was evident the sword alone could decide between Cha;les and his subjects. In Scotland, too, events were occurring in which Irish Catholics were vitally interested. The contest for the leadership of the Scottish royalists between the Marquises of Hamilton and Montrose had occupied the early months of the year, and given their enemies of the Kirk aud the Assembly full time to carry on their correspondence with the English Puritans. In April all parties in Scotland agreed in despatching a force of 2,500 men, under "the memorable Major Monroe," for the protection of the Scottish settlers in Ulster. On the 15th of 43 bO 6 POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. that month this officer landed at Carrickfergus, which WM " given up to him by agreement," with the royalist Colonel Chichester ; the fortress, which was hy much the strongest in that quarter, continued for six years the head-quarters of the Scottish general, with whom we shall have occasion to meet again. The state of Anglo-Irish affairs was for some months one of disorganization and confusion. In January and February the King had been frequently induced to denounce by proclama- tion his " Irish rebels." He had offered the Parliament to lead their reinforcements in person, had urged the sending of arms and men, and had repeatedly declared that he would never consent tc tolerate Popery in that country. He had failed to satisfy his enemies, by these profuse professions had dishonored himself, and disgusted many who were far from being hostile to his person or family. Parsons and Borlase were still continued in the government, and Coote was en- trusted by them, on all possible occasions, with a command distinct from that of Ormond. Having proclaimed the Lords of the Pale rebels for refusing to trust their persons within the walls of Dublin, Coote was employed during January to destroy Swords, their place of rendezvous, and to ravage the estates of their adherents in that neighborhood. In the same month 1,100 veterans arrived at Dublin under Sir Simon Har- court ; early in February arrived Sir Richard Orenville with 400 horse, and soon after Lieutenant-Colonel George Monk, afterwards Duke of Albemarle, with Lord Leicester's regi- ment, 1,500 strong. Up to this period Ormond had been restrained by the justices, who were as timid as they were cruel, to operations within an easy march of Dublin. He had driven the O'Moores and their Allies out of Naas ; had rein- forced some garrisons in Kildare ; he had broken up, though not without much loss, an entrenched camp of the O'Byrnes at Kilsalgen wood, on the borders of Dublin ; at last the Justices felt secnre enough, at the beginning of March, to allow him to march to the relief of Drogheda. Sir Phelira O'Neil had invested the place for more than three months, had been twice repulsed from its walls, made a last desperate fOTOLAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 507 attempt, towards the end of February, but with no better suc- cess. After many lives were lost the impetuous lawyer-soldier was obliged to retire, and on the 8th of March, hearing of Ormond's approach at the head of 4,000 fresh troops, he hastily retreated northward. On receiving this report the Jus- tices recalled Ormond to the capital ; Sir Henry Tichburne and Lord Moore were despatched with a strong force, on the rear of the Ulster forces, and drove them out of Ardee and Dun- dalk the latter after a sharp action. The march of Ormond into Meath had, however, been prodcutive of offers of sub- mission from many of the gentry of the Pale, who attended the meetings at Crofty and Tara. Lord Dunsany and Sir John Netterville actually surrendered on the Earl's guarantee, and were sent to Dublin ; Lords Qormanstown, Netterville and Slane offered by letter to follow their example ; but the two former were, on reaching the city, thrust into the dungeons of the Castle, by order of the Justices ; and the proposals of the latter were rejected with contumely. About the same time the Long Parliament passed an act declaring 2,500,000 acres of the property of Irish recusants forfeited to the State, and guaranteeing to all English "adventurers" contributing to the expenses of the war, and all soldiers serving in it, grants of land in proportion to their service and con- tribution. This act, and a letter from Lord Essex, the Parliamentarian Commander-in-Chief, recommending the trans- portation of captured recusants to the West Indian Colo- nies, effectually put a stop to these negotiations. In Ulster, by the end of April, there were 19,000 troops, regulars and vol- unteers, in the garrison or in the field. Newry was taken by Monroe and Chichester, where 80 men and womer> and 2 priests were put to death. Magennis was obliged to abandon Down, and McMahon Monaghan ; Sir Phelim was driven to burn Armagh and Duncannon, and to take bis last stand at Charle- mont. In a severe action with Sir Robert and Sir William Stewart he had displayed his usual courage with better than his usual fortune, which, perhaps, we may attribute to the presence with him of Sir Alexander McDonnell, brother to Lord Antrim, the famous Qolkitto of the Irish and Scottish ^ IRELAND. wars. Bat the severest defeat which the Confederates had was in the heart of Leinster, at the hamlet of Kilrush, within four miles of Athy. Lord Orinond, returning from a second reinforcement of Naas and other Kildare forts, at the head, by English account, of 4,000 men, found on the 13th of April the Catholics of the midland counties, under Lords Mountgar- ret, Ikerrin and Dunboyne, Sir Morgan Cavenagh, Rory O'.Vloore, and Hugh O'Byrne, drawn up, by his report, 8,000 strong, to dispute his passage. With Ormond were the Lord Dillon, Lord Brabazon, Sir Richard Grenville, Sir Charles Coote, and Sir T. Lucas. The combat was short but murder- ous. The Confederates left 700 men, including Sir Morgan Cavenagh, and some other officers, dead on the field ; the remainder retreated in disorder, and Ormond, with an inconsid- erable diminution of numbers, returned in triumph to Dublin. For this victory the Long Parliament, in a moment of enthu- siasm, voted the Lieutenant-Oeneral a jewel worth 500. If any satisfaction could be derived from such an incident the violent death of their most ruthless enemy, Sir Charles Coote, might have afforded the Catholics some consolation. That mer- ciless saberer, after the combat at Kilrush, had been employed in reiniorcing Birr, and relieving the Castle of Oeashill, which the lady Letitia of Offally held against the neighboring tribe of O'Dtnnpsey. On his return from this service he made a foray n^ninst a Catholic force, which had mustered in the neighbor- hood of Trim; here, on the night of the 7th of May, heading a sally of his troop he fell by a musket shot not without sus- picion of being fired from his own ranks. His son and name- s;ik'\ who imitated him in all things, was ennobled at the restoration by the title of the Earl of Mountrath. In M mister the President St. Leger, though lately reinforced by 1,000 men from England, did not consider himself strong enough for other than occasional forays into the neighboring county, and little was effected in that Province. Such was the condition of affairs at home and abroad when the National Synod assembled at Kilkenny. As the most popular tribunal invested with the highest moral power in the kingdom, it was their arduous task to establish order an despised by even twice their numbers. CHAPTER VL rBX CONFEDERATE WAE. CAMPAIGN OF 1643. THE CESSATION. The city of Kilkenny, which had become the capital of th Confederacy, was favorably placed for the direction of the war in Leinster and Munster. Nearly equidistant from Dublin, Cork, and Limerick, a meeting place for most of the southern and south-western roads, important in itself both as a place of traer waters of Lough Erne. At this point stood TOPURAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 517 the town of Belturbet, which in " the Plantation" of James L, had been turnei* over exclusively to British settlers, whose " cage- work " hous3s, and four acres of garden ground each, had elicited the approval of the surveyor Pynnar, frventy years before. The surrounding country was covered with the fortified castles (aid loopholed lawns of the chief Undertakers but few were found of sufficient strength to resist the arms of O'Neill. At Belturbet, he was within a few days' march of the vital points of four other counties, and in case of the worst, within the same distance of his protective fastness. Here, towards the end of September, busied with present duties and future projects, he heard for the first time, with astonishment and grief, that the requisite majority of " the Supreme Council " had concluded, on the 13th of that month, a twelve-months' truce with Ormond, thus putting in peril all the advantages already acquired by the bravery of the Confederate troops, and the skill of their generals. The war had lasted nearly two years, and this was the first time the Catholics had consented to negotiate. The moment chosen was a critical one for all the three Kingdoms, and the interests involved were complicated in the extreme. The Anglo-Irish who formed the majority of the Supreme Council, connected by blood and language with England, had entered into the war, purely aa one of religious liberty. Nationally, they had, apart from th civil disabilities imposed on religious grounds, no antipathy, no interest, hostile to the general body of English loyalists, repre- sented in Ireland by the King's lieutenant, Ormond. On his side, that nobleman g-ave all his thoughts to, and governed all his actions by the exigencies of the royal cause, throughout the three King- doms. When Charles seemed strong in England, Ormond rated the Catholics at a low figure ; but when reverses increased he estimated their alliance more highly. After the drawn battle of Edgehill, fought on the very day of the first meeting of the General Assembly at Kilkenny, the King had established his headquarters at Oxford, in the heart of four or five of the most loyal counties in England. Here he at first negotiated with the Parliament, but finally the sword was again invoked, and while the King pro- claimod the Parliament rebels, " the solemn league and covenant 1 * was entered into, at first separately, and afterwards jointly, hy th 44 618 POPULAR BISTORT OF IRELAND. Puritans of England, and Presbyterians of Scotland. The military events during that year, and in the first half of the next, were upon the whole not unfavorable to the royal cause. The great battle of Marston Moor, (July 2d, 1644,) which " extinguished th hopes of the Royalists in the Northern counties," was the first Parliamentary victory of national importance. It waa won mainly by the energy and obstinacy of Lieutenant General Cromwellt from that day forth the foremost English figure in the Civil War. From his court at Oxford, where he had seen the ntter failure of endeavoring to conciliate his English and Scottish enemies, the King had instructed Ormond lately created a Marquis to treat with the Irish Catholics, and to obtain from them men and mouey. The overtures thus made were brought to maturity in September ; the Cessation was to last twelve months ; each party was to remain in possession of its own quarters, as they were held at the date of the treaty ; the forces of each were to unite to punish any infrac- tion of the terms agreed on ; the agents of the Confederates, during the cessation, were to have free access and safe conduct to the King ; and for these advantages, the Supreme Council were to present his Majesty immediately with 16,000 in money, and pro- visions to the value of 15,000 more. Such was " the truce of Castlemartin," condemned by O'Neill, by the Papal Nuncio, Scarampi, and by the great majority of the old Irish, lay and clerical ; still more violently denounced by the Puritan Parliament as favoring popery, and negotiated by popish agents ; beneficial to Ormond and the Undertakers, as relieying Dublin, freeing the channel from Irish privateers, and securing them in the garrisons throughout the Kingdom which they still held ; in one sense advantageous to Charles from the immediate supplier it afforded, and the favorable impression it created of his liberality, the courts of his Catholic allies ; but on the other hand disad- vantageous to him in England and Scotland, from the pretexts it furnished his enemies, of renewing the cry of his connivance with Popery, a cry net ther easily answered, nor, of itself, liable quickl/ to wear oat. POPULAR BISTORT OF IRELAND. 519 CHAPTER VIL THE CESSATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. While the Confederate delegates, reverently uncoA'ered, and Ormond, in hat and plume, as representing royalty, were signing " the cessation " at Castlemartin, the memorable Munroe, with aP his men, were taking the covenant, on their knees, in the church of Carrickfergus, at the hands of the informer O'Connolly, now a colonel in the Parliamentary army, and high in the confidence of its chiefs. Soon after this ceremony, Munroe, appointed by th English Parliament commander-in-chief of all their forces in Ulster, united under his immediate leadership, of Scots, English, and Undertakers, not less than 10,000 men. With this force he marched southward as far as Isewry, which he found an easy prey, and where he put to the sword, after surrender, sixty men, eighteen women, and two ecclesiastics. In vain the Confederates entreated Ormond to lead them against the common enemy in the North ; pursuing always a line of policy of his own, in which their interest had a very slender part, that astute politician neither took the field, nor consented that they should do so of themselves. But the supreme council, roused by the remontrances of the clergy, ordered Lord Castlehaven, with the title of commander in chief, to march against Munroe. This was virtually supersed- ing O'Neill in his own province, and that it was so felt even by its authors is plain from their giving him simultaneously the command in Connaught. O'Neill, never greater than in acts of Belf-denial and self-sacrifice, stifled his profound chagrin, and cheerfully offered to serve under the English Earl, placed over his head. But the northern movements were, for many months, languid and uneventful : both parties seemed uncertain of their irue policy ; both, from day to day, awaited breathlessly for tid- ings from Kilkenny, Dublin, London, Oxford, or Edinburgh, to learn what new forms the general contest was to take, in order to guide their own conduct by the shiftinj; phases of that intricate diplomacy. Among the first consequences of the cessation were the d 520 POPULAB HISTORY OF IBKLAKD. barkAtion at Moetyn, in Scotland, of 8,000 well provided Irish troops, under Colkitto, (the left-handed,) Alexander McDonnel, brother of Lord Antrim. Following the banner of Montrose, thcee regiments performed great things at Saint Johnstown, at Aberdeen, at Inverlochy, all which have been eloquently re- corded by the historians of that period. "Their reputation/' eays a cautious writer, " more than their number, unnerved the prowess of their enemies. No force ventured to oppose them in the field ; and as they advanced, every fort was abandoned or surrendered." A less agreeable result of " the cessation," for tho court at Oxford, was the retirement from the royal army of tho Earl of Newcastle, and most of his officers, on learning that such favorable conditions had been made with Irish Papists. To others of his supporters as the Earl of Shrewsbury Charles was forced to assume a tone of apology for that truce, pleading the hard necessities which compelled him : the truth seems to be, that there were not a few then at Oxford, who, like Lord Spencer, would gladly have been on the other side or at all events in position of neutrality provided they could have found " a salve for their honor," as gentlemen and cavaliers. The year 1644 opened for the Irish with two events of great significance the appointment of Ormond as viceroy, in January, and the execution at Tyburn, by order of the English Parliament, of Lord Maguire, a prisoner in the Tower since October, 1641. Maguire died with a courage and composure worthy of his illus- trious name, and his profoundly religious character. His long absence had not effaced his memory from the hearts of his devoted clansmen of Fermanagh, and many a prayer was breathed, and many a vow of vengeance muttered among them, for what they must naturally have regarded as the cold-blooded judicial murder of their chief. Two Irish deputations one Catholic, the other Protestant proceeded this year to the king, at Oxford, with the approval of Ormond, who took care to be represented by confidential agent* of his own. The Catholics found a zealous auxiliary in the queen, Henrietta Maria, who, as a co-religionist, felt with them, and, as a Frenchwoman, was free from Insnlnr prejudices again?* them. The Irish Protestants found a scarcely less influential advocaU POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 621 !n the venerable Archbishop Usher, whose presence and counte- nance, as the most puritanical of his prelates, was most essential to the policy of Charles. The king heard Loth par-ties graciously censured some of the demands of both as extravagant and beyond his power to concede admitted others to be reasonable and worthy of consideration refused to confirm the churche* Ihey had seized to the Catholics but was willing to allow them their " seminaries of education" would not consent to enforce the penal laws on the demand of the Protestants but declared that neither should the Undertakers be disturbed in their posses- sions or offices. In short he pathetically exhorted both partie* to consider his case as well as their own ; promised them to call together the Irish Parliament at the earliest possible period ; and so got rid of both deputations, leaving Ormoiid master of the position for some time longer. The agents and friends of the Irish Catholics on the Continent were greatly embarrassed, and not a little disheartened by the cessation. At Paris, at Brussels, at Madrid, but above all at Rome, it was regretted, blamed, or denounced, according to the temper or the insight of the discontented. His Catholic Majesty had some time before remitted a contribution of 20,000 dollars to the Confederate Treasury ; one of Richelieu's last acts was to invite Con, son of Hugh O'Neil, to the French Court, and to permit the shipment of some pieces of ordnance to Ireland ; from Rome, the celebrated Franciscan, Father Luke Wadding, had remitted 26,000 dollars, and the Nuncio Scarampi, had brought further donations. The facility, therefore, with which the cessa' tion had been agreed upon, against the views of the agents of the Catholic powers at Kilkenny, without any apparently sufficient cause, had certainly a tendency to check and chill the enthusiasm of those Catholic Princes who had been taught to look on the insurrection of the Irish as a species of Crusade. Remonstrances, warm, eloquent, and passionate, were poured in upon the most influential members of the Supreme Council, from those who had either by delegation, or from their own free will, befriended them abroad. These remonstrances reached that powerful body at Waterford, at Limerick, or at Galway, whither they had gone on to official visitation, to hear complaints, settle controversies, and 44* 522 POPULAR BI8TOBT OT IRELAND. provide for the better coDection of the assessments imposed on each Province. An incident which occurred in Ulster, soon startled the Supreme Council from their pacific occupations. General Munroe, having proclaimed that all Protestants within his command should take " the solemn league and covenant," three thousand of that re- ligion, still loyalists, met at Belfast, to deliberate on their answer. Munroe, however, apprised of their intentions, marched rapidly irom Carrickfergus, entered the town under cover of night, and drove out the loyal Protestants at the point of the sword. The fugitives threw themselves into Lisburn, and Munroe appointed Colonel Hume as Governor of Belfast, for the Parliaments of Scotland and England. Castlehaven, with O'Neill still second in command, was now despatched northward against the army of the Covenant. Munroe who had advanced to the borders of Meath, as if to meet them, contented himself with gathering in great herds of cattle ; as they advanced he slowly fell back before them through Louth and Armagh, to his original head- quarters ; Castlehaven then returned with the main body of the Confederate troops to Kilkenny, and O'Neill, depressed but not dismayed, carried his contingent to their former position at Bet turbet. In Munster, a new Parliamentary party had time to form it* combinations under the shelter of the cessation. The Earl of Inchiquin, who had lately failed to obtain the Presidency of Miuv ster from the King at Oxford, and the Lord Broghill, son of the great Southern Undertaker the first Earl of Cork, were at the head of this movement. Under pretence that the quarters allot- ted them by the cessation had been violated, they contrived to seize upon Cork, Youghal, and Kinsale. At Cork, they publicly executed Father Mathews, a Friar, and proceeding from violence to violence they drove from the three places all the Catholic in- habitants. They then forwarded a petition to the King, beseech- ing him to declare the Catholics " rebels," and declaring their ovn determination to " die a thousand deaths sooner than eonde- cend to any peace with them." At the same time they entered into, or avowed, their correspondence with the English Parlia- ment, which naturally enough encouraged, and assisted then* POF7LAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 523 The Sapreme Council met these demonstrations with more strin- gent instructions to General Purcell, now their chief in command, (Barry having retired on account of advanced age,) to observe the cessation, and to punish severely every infraction of it. At the same time they permitted or directed Purcell to enter into a truce with Inchiquin till the following April ; and then they rested on their arms, in religious fidelity to the engagements they had signed at Castlemartin. The twelve-months' truce was fast drawing to a close, when the battle of Marston Moor stimulated Ormond to effect a renewal of the treaty. Accordingly, at his request, Lord Muskerry, and five other commissioners, left Kilkenny on the last day of August for Dublin. Between them and the Viceroy, the cessation wag prolonged till the first of December following ; and when that day came, it was further protracted, as would appear, for three months, by which time, (March, 1 645,) Ormond informed them that he had powers from the King to treat for a permanent settle- ment. During the six months that the original cessation was thus protracted by the policy of Ormond, the supreme council sent abroad new agents, " to know what they had to trust to, and what succors they might really depend on from abroad." Father Hugh Bourke was sent to Spain, and Sir Richard Belling to Rome, where Innocent X. had recently succeeded to that generous friend of the Catholic Irish, Urban VIII. The voyage of these agents was not free from hazard, for, whereas, before the cessation, the privateers commissioned by the council, sheltered and supplied in the Irish harbors, had kept the southern coast clear of hostile shipping, now that they had Inen withdrawn under the truce, the parliamentary cruisers had the channel all to them- selves. "Waterford and Wexford the two chief Catholic ports in that quarter instead of seeing their waters crowded with prizes, now began to tremble for their own safety. The strong fort of Duncannon, on the Wexford side of Waterford harbor, was corruptly surrendered by Lord Esmond, to Inchiquin and ( the Puritans. After a ten-weeks' siege, however, and the expen- diture of 19,000 pounds of powder, the Confederates retook the fort, in spite of all the efforts made for its relief. Esmond, old 524 POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND ami blind, escaped by a timely death the penalty due to hii treason. Following up this success, Castlehaven rapidly Invested other southern strongholds in possession of the same party. Cappoquin, Lismore, Mallow, Mitchelstown, Doneraile and Lis- carroll surrendered on articles ; Rostellan, commanded by Inchi- quin's brother, was stormed and taken ; Brogkill was closely be- sieged in Youghall, but, being relieved from sea, successfully defended himself. In another quarter, the Parliament TIS equally active. To compensate for the loss of Galway, they had instructed the younger Coote, on whom they had conferred the Presidency of Connaught, to withdraw the regiment of Sir Frede- rick Hamilton, and 400 other troops, from the command of Alunroe, and with these, Sir Robert Stewart's forces, and such others aa he could himself raise, to invest Sligo. Against the force thus collected, Sligo could not hope to contend, and soon, from that town, as from a rallying and resting place, 2,000 horse- men were daily launched upon the adjoining country. Lord Olanrickarde, the royal president of the province, as unpopular as trimmers usually are in times of crisis, was unable to make head against this new danger. But the Confederates, under Sir James Dillon, ami Dr. O'Kealy.tlie heroic archbishop of Tuam, moved by the pitiful appeals of the Sligo people, boldly endeavored to re- cover the town. They succeeded in entering the walls, but were subsequently repulsed and routed. The Archbishop was captured and tortured to death ; some of the noblest families of the pro- vince and of Meath had also to mourn their chiefs ; and several valuable papers, found or pretended to be found in the Arch- bishop's carriage, were eagerly given to the press of London by the Parliament of England. This tragedy at Sligo occored oa Sunday. October 26th, IMS. POPULAR HISTORY OP IRELiND. 626 CHAPTER VIH. aUUfOMAN'8 TREATY. THE NEW NUNCIO RDTUCOHCI. o'lfMLL** POSITION. THE BATTLE OF BENBUBB. OEMOND had amused the Confederates with negotiations for a permanent peace and settlement, from spring till midsummer, when Charles, dissatisfied with these endless delays, despatched to Ireland a more hopeful embassador. This was Herbert, Earl of Glamorgan, one of the few Catholics remaining among the English nobility ; son and heir to the Marquis of Worcester, .and son in-law to Henry O'Brien, Earl of Thomond. Of a family de- voutly attached to the royal cause, to which it is said they had contributed not less than 200,000, Glamorgan's religion, hia rank, his Irish connections, the intimate confidence of the King which he was known to possess, all marked out his embassy aa one of the utmost importance. The story of this mission has been perplexed and darkened by many controversies. But the general verdict of historians seems now to be, that Charles I., whose many good qualities as a man and a ruler are cheerfully admitted on all hands, was yet utterly deficient in downright good faith ; that duplicity was his besetting sin ; and that Glamorgan's embassy is one, but only one, of the trongest evidences of that ingrained duplicity. It may help to the clearer understanding of the negotiations conducted by Glamorgan in Ireland, if we give in the first place the exact dates of the first transactions. The Earl arrived at Dublin about the 1st of August, and, after an interview with Ormond, proceeded to Kilkenny. On the 28th of that month, preliminary articles were agreed to and signed by the Earl on behalf of the King, and by Lords Mountgarrett and Muskerry on behalf of the Confederates. It was necessary, it seems, to get tha concurrence of the Viceroy to these terms, and accordingly the negotiators on both sides repaired to Dublin. Here, Ormond contrived to detain them ten long weeks in discussions on the ar- ticles relating to religion; it was the 12th of November when 528 FOPULIR HISTORY Of IRELAND. they returned to Kilkenny, with a much modified treaty. On th next day, the 13th, the new Papal Nuncio, a prelate who, by his rank, his eloquence and his imprudence, was destined to exercise a powerful influence on the Catholic councils, made his public entry into that city. This personage was John Baptist Rinuccini, Archbishop oi Fermo, in the Marches of Ancona, which see he had preferred to the more exalted dignity of Florence. By birth a Tuscan, the new Nuncio had distinguished himself from boyhood by his pas- sionate attachment to his studies. At Bologna, at Perugia, and at Rome, his intense application brought him early honors, and early physical debility. His health, partially restored in the se- clusion of his native valley of the Arno, enabled him to return again to Rome. Enjoying the confidence of Gregory XV. and Urban VIII., he was named successively, Clerk of the Chamber, Secretary of the Congregation of Rites, and Archbishop of Fermo. This was the prelate chosen by the new Pope, Innocent X., for the nunciature in Ireland : a man of noble birth, in the fifty-third year of his age, of uncertain bodily health, of great learning, es- pecially as a canonist, of a fiery Italian temperament, " regular and even austere in his life, and far from any taint of avarice oi corruption," such was the admission of his enemies. Leaving Italy in May, accompanied by the Dean of Fermo, who has left us a valuable record of the embassy, his other house- hold officers, several Italian noblemen, and Sir Richard Belling, the special agent at Rome, the Nuncio by way of Genoa and Mar- seilles reached Paris. In France he was detained nearly five months, in a fruitless attempt to come to some definite arrange- ment as to the conduct of the Catholic war, through Queen Hen- rietta Maria, then resident with the young Prince of Wales after- wards Charles II, at the French court. The Queen, like most persons of her rank, overwhelmed with adversity, was often un- reasonably suspicious and exacting. Her sharp woman's tongue did not spare those on whom her anger fell, and there were not wanting those, who, apprehensive of the effect in England of her negotiating directly with a papal minister, did their utmost to delay, or to break off their correspondence. A nice point of court etiquette further embarrassed the buiineM. The Nuncio could POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 527 not uncover his head before the Queen, and Henrietta would not receive him otherwise than uncovered. Aftor three months lost in Paris, he was obliged to proceed on his journey, contenting himself with an exchange of complimentary messages with the Queen, whom even the crushing blow of Naseby could not induce to waive a point of etiquette with a Priest. On reaching Eochelle, where he intended to take shipping, a further delay of six weeks took place, as was supposed by the machinations of Cardinal Mazarin. Finally, the Nuncio succeed- ed in purchasing a frigate of 26 guns, the San Pielro, on which he embarked with all his Italian suite, Sir Richard Belling, and several Franco-Irish officers. He had also on board, a considerable sum in Spanish gold, (including another contribution of 86,000 dollars from Father Wadding,) 2,000 muskets, 2,000 cartouch belts, 4,000 swords, 2,000 pike heads, 400 brace of pistols, 20,000 pounds of powder, with match, shot and other stores. "Weighing from St. Martin's in the Isle of Rhe, the San Pietro doubled the Land's End, and stood over towards the Irish coast. The third day out they were chased for several hours by two Parliamentary cruis- ers, but escaped under cover of the night ; on the fourth morning, being the 21st of October, they found themselves safely embayed in the waters of Kenmare, on the coast of Kerry. The first intelligence which reached the Nuncio on landing, was the negotiation of Glamorgan, of which he had already heard, while waiting a ship at Rochelle. The next was the surrender by the Earl of Thomond, of his noble old castle of Bnnratty, com- manding the Shannon within six miles of Limerick, to the Puri- tans. This surrender had, however, determined the resolution of the city of Limerick, which hitherto hnd taken no part in the war, to open its gates to the Confederates. The loss of Bunratty was more than compensated by the gaining of one of the finest and strongest towns in Munster, and to Limerick accordingly the Nincio paid the compliment of his first visit. Here he received the mitre of the diocese in dutiful submission from the hands of the Bishop, on entering the Cathedral ; and hore he celebrated A solemn requiem mass for the repose of the soul of the Archbishop of Tuam, lately slain before Sligo. From Limerick, borne along on his litter, such was the feebleness of his health, he advanced B28 POPULAR HISTORY OP IRELAND. by slow stages to Kilkenny, escorted by a guard of h onor, de patched on that duty, by the Supreme Council. The pomp and splendor of his public entry into the Catholi* capital was a striking spectacle. The previous night he slept ul village three miles from the city, for which he set out early OB the morning of the 13th of November, escorted by his guard, and a vast multitude of the people. Five delegates from the Suprem* Council accompanied him. A band of fifty students mounted 01 horseback met him on the way, and their leader, crowned with lau- rel, recited some congratulatory Latin verses. At the city gate he left the litter and mounted a horse richly housed ; here the procession of the clergy and the city guilds awaited him ; at the Market Cross a Latin oration was delivered in his honor, to which he graciously replied in the same language. From the Cross he was escorted to the Cathedral, at the door of which he was received by the aged Bishop, Dr. David Rothe. At the high altar he intonated the Te Drum, and gave the multitude the apostolic benediction. Then he was conducted to his lodgings, where he was soon waited upon by Lord Muskcrry and General Preston, who brought him to KiL kenny Castle, where in the great gallery, which elicited even a Florentine's admiration, he was received in stately formality by the President of the Council Lord Mountgarret. Another Latin oration on the nature of his embassy was delivered by the Nun- cio, responded to by Heber, Bishop of Clogher, and so the cere- mony of reception ended. The Nuncio brought from rteris a new subjoct of difficulty, in the form of a memorial from the English Catholics at Rome, pray- ing that they might be included in the terms of any peace which might be made by their Irish co-religionists with the King Nothing could be more natural than that the members of the same persecuted church should make common cause, but nothing could he more impolitic than some of the demands made in the English .memorial. They wished it to be stipulated with Charles, that he would allow a distinct military organization to the English and Irish Catholics in his service, under Catholic general officers, subject only to the King's commands, meaning thereby, if they nit-mit vh it they said, independence of all parliamentary aneum was chanted in the Confederate Capital; penitential psalms were sung in the Northern fortress. " Th* Lord of Hosts," wrote Munroe, " had rubbed shame on our faces, till once we are humbled ;" O'Neill emblazoned the cross and keys on his banner with the Red Hand of Ulster, and openly r Burned the title originally chosen by his adherents at Clones, " the Catholic Army." CHAPTER IX. FROM THE BATTLE OF BENBURB TILL THE LANDING OF CROMWELL AT DUBLIN. THI Nuncio, elated by the great victory of O'Neill, to which h felt he had personally contributed by his seasonable supplies provoked und hritated by Ormond's intrigues and the King* insincerity, rushed with all the ardor of his character into mak- ing the war an uncompromising Catholic crusade. In this line of conduct, he was supported by the Archbishops of Dublin and Caslrel, by ten of the Bishops, including the eminent Prelates 01 Limerick, Killalla, Ferns, and Clogher; the Procurator of Ar tnagh; nine Vicars-general, and the Superiors of the Jesuits Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustinians. The peace party, on the other hand, were nol without clerical adherents, but they were inconsiderable, as to influence and numbers. They were now become aa anxious to publish the Thirty Articles agreed upon at the end of March, as they then were to keep them secret POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 683 Accordingly, with Ormoud's consent, copies of the treaty were Bent early in August to the sheriffs of counties, mayors of cities, and other leading persons, with instructions to proclaim it pub- licly in due form ; upon hearing which, the Nuncio and his sup- porters of the clergy, secular and regular, assembled in council at Waterford, on the 12th of August, solemnly declared that they gave no consent, and would not, " to any peace," that did not grant " further, surer and safer considerations for their religion, king and country," according to the original odth of the Confed- eracy. The rupture between the clergy and the laymen of the council was now complete. The prelates who signed the decree of Water- ford, of course, thereby withdrew from the body whose action they condemned. In vain the learned Darcy and the eloquent Plunkett went to and fro between the two bodies : concord and confidence were at an end. The synod decided to address Lord Mountgarret in future as president of " the late supreme council." The heralds who attempted to publish the Thirty Articles in Clonmel and Waterford were hooted or stoned ; while in Lime- rick, the mayor, endeavoring to protect them, shared this rough usage. Ormond, who was at Kilkenny at the critical moment of the breach, did his utmost to sustain the resolution of those who were stigmatized by his name ; while the Nuncio, suspicious of Preston, wrote urgently to O'Neill to lead his army into Leinster, and remove the remnant of the late council from Kilkenny. All that those who held a middle course between the extremes could do, was to advocate an early meeting of the General Assembly ; but various exigencies delayed this 'much-desired meeting, till the 10th day of January, 1647. The five intervening months were months of triumph for Ri- nuccini. Lord Digby appeared at Dublin as a special agent from the King, to declare his consent to Glamorgan's original terms; but Ormond still insisted that he had no authority to go beyond the Thirty Articles. Charles himself wrote privately to Rinuc- cini, promising to confirm everything which Glamorgan had proposed, as soon as he should come into " the Nuncio's hands." Ormonr!, after a fruitless attempt to convert O'Neill to his views, had mar ;hed southward with a guard of 1,500 foot and 500 horse, 45* B3-i POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. to endeavor to conciliate the towns, and to win over the Earl ol Inchiquin. In both these objects he failed. He found O'Neill before him in his county palatinate of Tipperary, and the mayor of Cashel informed him that he dared not allow him into that city, for fear of displeasing the northern general. Finding him- eelf thus unexpectedly within a few miles of " the Catholic Army," 10,000 strong, the viceroy retreated precipitately through Kil- kenny, Carlo w, and Kildare, to Dublin. Lord Digby, who had accompanied him, after an unsuccessful attempt to cajole the Synod of Waterford, made the beat of his way back to France ; the Marquis of Clanrickarde, who had also been of the expedition, chared the flight of Ormond. Towards the middle of September, O'Neill's army, after capturing Roscrea Castle, marched to Kil- kenny, and encamped near that city. His forces had now aug- mented to 12,000 foot and 1,500 horse; on the 18th of the mouth, he escorted the Nuncio in triumph into Kilkenny, where the Ormondist members of the old council were committed to close custody in the castle. A new council, of four bishops and eight laymen, was established on the 26th, with the Nuncio as pre- sident ; Glamorgan succeeded Castlehaven, who had gone over to Ormond, as commander in Munster ; while O'Neill and Preston were ordered to unite their forces for the siege of Dublin. The sanguine Italian dreamt of nothing less, for the moment, than the creation of viceroys, the deliverance of the King, and the complete restoration of the ancient religion. O'Neill and Preston by different routes, on which they were delayed in taking several garrisoned posts, united at Lucan in the valley of the Liffey, seven miles west of Dublin, on the 9th of November. Their j">int forces are represented at 16,000 fooi. and 1 ,600 horse of which Preston had about one-third and O'Neill the remainder. Preston's headquarters were fixed at Leixlip, and O'Neill's at Newcastle points equi-distant, and each within two hours' march of the capital Within the walls of that city there rr igned the utmost consternation. Many of the inhabitants fled beyond seas, terrified by the fancied cruelty of the Ulstermen. But Ormond retained all his presence of mind, and readiness of resources. He entered, at first covertly, into arrangements with the Parliamentarians, who sent him a supply of po vder ; he wrote POPULAR BISTORT OF IRELAND. 580 urgently to Munroe to make a diversion in his favor ; he demolished the mills and suburbs which might cover the approaches of the enemy ; he employed soldiers, civilians, and even women, upon the fortifications, Lady Orrnond setting an example to her sex, in rendering her feeble assistance. Clanrickarde, in Preston's tent, was doing the work of stimulating the old antipathy cf that Genera] towards O'Neill, which led to conflicting advices in /ouncil, and some irritating personal altercations. To add to the Confederate embarrassment, the winter was the most severe known for many years ; from twenty to thirty sentinels being frozen at night at their posts. On the 13th of November, while the plan of the Confederate attack was still undecided, commissioners of the Par- liament arrived with ample stores in Dublin Bay. On the next day they landed at Ringsend and entered into negotiations with Ormond ; on the 16th the siege was raised, and on the 23d Or- mond broke off the treaty, having unconsciously saved Dublin from the Confederates, by the incorrect reports of supplies being received, which were finally carried northward to Munroe. The month of January brought the meeting of the General Assembly. The attendance in the great gallery of Ormond Castle was as large, and the circumstances upon the whole as auspicious as could be desired, in the seventh year of such a struggle. The members of the old council, liberated from arrest, were hi their places. O'Neill and Preston, publicly reconciled, had signed a solemn engagement to assist and sustain each other. The Nun. cio, the Primate of Ireland, and eleven bishops took their seats ; the peers of oldest title in the kingdom were present, two hund' red and twenty-four members represented the Commons of Ire- land, and among the spectators sat the ambassadors of France and Spain, and of King Charles. The main subject of discussion was the sufficiency of the Thirty Articles, and the propriety of the ecclesiastical censure promulgated against those who had signed them. The debate embraced all that may be said on the question of clerical interference in political affairs, on conditional and unconditional allegiance, on the power of the Pontiff speak- ing ex cathedra, and the prerogatives of the temporal I overeign_ It was protracted through an entire month, and ended with a compromise, which declared that the Commissioners had acted in (ft 6 POPULAR HI8TORT OF IRELAND. good faith in signing the articles, while it justified the Synod of AVaterford for having, as judges of the nature and intent of tin oath of confederation, declared them insufficient and unaccept- able. A new oath of confederacy, solemnly binding the associ- ates uot to lay down their arms till they had established th free and public exercise of religion as it had existed in the reign of Henry VII. , was framed and taken by the entire General Assem- bly ; the Thirty Articles were declared insufficient and unaccept- able by all but a minority of twelve votes ; a new Supreme Coun- cil of twenty four was chosen, in whom there were not known to be above four or five partisans of Ormond's policy. The church plate throughout the kingdom was ordered to be coined into money, and a formal proposal to cooperate with the Viceroy on the basis of the new oath was made, but instantly rejected ; among other grounds, on this, that the Marquis had, at that moment, his son and other sureties with the Puritans, who, in the last resort, he infinitely preferred to the Roman Catholics. The military events of the year 1647 were much more decisive than its politics. Glamorgan still commanded in Munster, Pres- ton in Leinster, and O'Neill in both Ulster and Connaught The nrst was confronted by Inchiquin, at the head of a corps of 5,000 foot and 1,500 horse, equipped and supplied by the English Pur- itans ; the second saw the garrisons of Dundalk, Drogheda and Dublin reinforced by fresh regiments of Covenanters, and fed by Parliamentary supplies from the sea ; the latter was in the heart of Connaught, organizing and recruiting, and attempting all things within his reach, but hampered for money, clothing and ammunition. In Connaught, O'Neill was soon joined by the Nuncio, who, as difficulties thickened, began to lean more and more on the strong arm of the victor of Benburb ; in Munster, the army refused to follow the lead of Glamorgan, and clamored for their old chief Lord Muskerry ; finally, that division of the national troops was committed by the council to Lord Taafe, politician of the school of Ormond and Clanrickarde, wholly des- titute of military experience. The vigorous Inchiquin had little difficulty in dealing with such an antagonist; Cashel was taken without a blow in its defense, and a slaughter unparalleled till tiit days of Drogheda and Wexford, deluged its struts and POPULAK HISTOBT OF IRELAND. 63? charches. At Knocknos, later in the autumn (Nov. 12th), Taafe was utterly routed ; the gallant Colkitto, serving under hiui, la- nwntably sacrificed after surrendering his sword; and Tnchiqoit, enabled to dictate a cessation covering Munster far less favo- rable to Catholics than the truce of Castlemartin to the Supreme Council. This truce was signed at Dungarvan, on the 20th of May, 1648, and on the 27th the Nuncio published his solemn decree of excommunication against all its aiders and abettors, and himself made the best of his way from Kilkenny to Maryboro', where O'Neill then lay. The military and political situation of O'Neill, during the latter months of 1647 and the whole of 1648, was one of the most extraordinary in which any general had ever been placed. His late sworn colleague Preston was now combineo with Inchiquin against him ; the royalist Clanrickarde, in the western counties, pressed upon his rear, and captured his garrison in Athlone ; the Parliamentary general, Michael Jones, to whom Ormond had finally surrendered Dublin, observed rather than impeded his movements in Leinster; the lay majority of the Supreme Council proclaimed him a traitor a compliment which he fully returned ; the Nuncio threw himself wholly into his hands ; finally, at the close of '48, Ormond, returning from France to Ireland, con- cluded, on the 17th of January, a formal alliance with the lay members, under the title of " Commissioners of Trust," for the King and Kingdom ; and Rinuccini, despairing, perhaps, of a cause so distracted, sailed in his own frigate, from Galway, on the 23d of February. Thus did the actors change their parts, alternately triumphing and fleeing for safety. The verdict of history may condemn the Nuncio, of whom we have now seen the last, for hi& imperious self-will, and his too ready recourse to ecclesiastical censures ; but of his zeal, his probity, and bis dis- interestedness, there can be, we think, no second opinion. Under the treaty of 1649 which conceded full civil and reli- gious equality to the Roman Catholics Ormond was once more placed at the head of the government and in command of the royal troops. A few days after the signing of that treaty, news of the execution of Charles L having reached Ireland, the Vice- roy proclaimed the Prince of "Wales by the title of Charles II., at fed 8 POPULAR BISTORT OF IRELAND. Cork and YougbaL Prince Rupert, whose fleet had entered Kin Bale, caused the same ceremony to be gone through in that an cient borough. With Ormond were now cordially united Preston, Inchiquin, Clanrickarde, and Muskerry, on whom the lead of the Supreme Council devolved, in consequence of the advanced age of Lord Mountgarret, and the remainder of the twelve Com missioners of Trust. The cause of the young Prince, an exile, the eon of that Catholic queen from whom they had expected so much, was far from unpopular in the southern half of the island. The Anglican interest was strong and widely diffused through both Leinster and Munster ; and, except a resolute prelate, like Dr. French, Bishop of Ferns, or a brave band of townsmen like those of Waterford, Limerick, and Galway, or some remnant of mountain tribes, in Wicklow and Tipperary, the national, or " old Irish policy," had decidedly lost ground from the hour of the Nuncio's departure. Owen O'Neill and the Bishops still adhered to that national policy. The former made a three-months' truce with Genera] Monck, who had succeeded Munroe in the command of all the Parliamentary troops in his province. The singular spectacle was even exhibited of Monck forwarding supplies to O'Neill, to be used against Inchiquin and Orrnond, and O'Neill coming to the rescue of Coote, and raising for him the siege of Londonderry. Inchiquin, in rapid succession, took Drogheda, Trim, Dundalk, Newry, and then rapidly countermarched to join Ormond in be- sieging Dublin. At Rathmines, near the city, both general* wore surprised and defeated by the Parliamentarians under Mi- chael Jones. Between desertions, and killed and wounded, they lost, by their own account, nearly 8,000, and by the Puritan accounts above 6,000 men. This action was the virtual close of Onnond's military career ; he never after made head against ths Parliamentary forces in open field. The Catholic cities of Lime- rick and Galway refused to admit his garrisons ; a synod of the Bishops, assemb'ed at Jamestown (in Roscommon), strongly re- commended his withdrawal from the kingdom ; and Cromwell lad arrived, resolved to finish the war in a single campaign. Ormond sailed again for France, before the end of 1649, to return no more until the restoration of the monarchy, on the death of the great Protector. POPtJLAtt EUSI'Jrtf OS- lii-iLjwNTi. 638 CHAPTER X. CEOMWELL'S CAMPAIGN 1649-1650. An aotor was now to descend upon the scene, whose character has excited more controversy than that of any other personage of those times. Honored as a saint, or reprobated as a hypocrite, worshiped for his extraordinary successes, or anathematized for the unworthy artifices by which he rose who shall deal out, with equal hand, praise and blame to Oliver Cromwell ? Not for the popular writer of Irish history, is that difficult judicial task. Not for us to reecho cries of hatred which convince not the indiffer- ent, nor correct the errors of the educated or cultivated: the simple, and, as far as possible, the uuimpassioned narrative of facts, will constitute the whole of our duty towards the Protector's campaign in Ireland. Cromwell left London in great state, early in July, " in a coach drawn by six gallant Flanders mares," and made a sort of royal procession across the country to Bristol. From that famous port, where Strongbow confederated with Dermid McMurrogh, and from which Dublin drew its first Anglo-Norman colony, he went on to Milford Haven, at which he embarked, arriving in Dublin, on the 15th of August. He entered the city hi procession, and addressed the townsfolk from " a convenient place." He had with him two hundred thousand pounds in moiiey, eight regiments of foot, six of horse, and some troops of dragoons ; besides the divi- sions of Jones and Monck, already in the country, and subject to his command. Among the officers were names of memorable interest Henry Cromwell, second son of the Protector, and future Lord Deputy ; Monck, Blake, Jones, Ireton, Ludlow, Hardresi Waller, Sankey, and others equally prominent in accomplishing the King's death, or in raising up the English commonwealth. Cromwell's command in Ireland extends from the middle of August, 1649, to the end of May, 1650, about nine months in all, and is remarkable for the number of sieges of walled town* 640 POPULAR fllSTORY Of IRELAND. crowded into thai brief period. There was, during the whok time, no great action in the field, like Marston Moor, or Benburb or Dunbar; it was a campaign of seventeenth century canno against mediaeval masonry ; what else was done, was the supple mental work of mutual bravery on both sides. Drogheda, Dun- dalk, Newry, and Carlingford, fell in September; Arklow, Enniscorthy, and Wexford in October; Ross, one of the first seaports in point of commerce, surrendered the same month; Waterford, was attempted and abandoned in November ; Dun garvan, Kinsale, Bandon, and Cork, were won over by Lord Broghill in December ; Fethard, Callan, and Cashel in January and February ; Carrick and Kilkenny in March ; and Clonmel, early in May. Immediately after this last capitulation, Cromwell was recalled to lead the armies of the Parliament into Scotland : during the nine months he had commanded in Ireland, he had captured five or six county capitals, and a great number of less considerable places. The terror of his siege-trains and Ironsides, was spread over the greater part of three Provinces, and his well- reported successes had proved so many steps to the assumption of that rovereign power at which he already aimed. Of the spirit in which these several sieges were conducted, it u impossible to speak without a shudder. It was, in truth, a spirit of hatred and fanaticism, altogether beyond the control of the revolutionary leader. At Drogheda, the work of slaughter occu- pied five entire days. Of the brave garrison of 3,000 men, not thirty were spared, and these " were in hands for the Barbadoes;" old men, women, children, and priests, were unsparingly put to the sword. Wexford was basely betrayed by Captain James Stafford, commander of the castle, whose midnight interview with Cromwell, at a oetty rivulet without the walls, tradition iti'.l recounts with horror and detestation. This port was par- ticularly obnoxious to the Parliament, as from its advantageoni position on the Bristol channel its emitters greatly annoyed ana embarrassed their commerce. " There are," Cromwell writes to Speaker Lenthall, " great quantities of iron, hides, tallow, salt, pipe and barrel staves, which are under commissioners' hands to be secured. We believe there are near a hundred cannon in the fort and elsewhere in and about the town. Here is likewiN POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAHD. 541 ome very good shipping ; here are three vessels, one of them of thirty-four guns, -which a week's time would fit for sea ; there ii another of about twenty guns, very nearly ready likewise." H also reports two other frigates, one on the stocks, which '' for her handsomeness' sake " he intended to have finished for the Parliament, and another "most excellent vessel for sailing," taken within the fort, at the harbor's mouth. By the treachery of Captain Stafford, this strong and wealthy town was at th mercy of those " soldiers of the Lord and of Gideon," who had followed Oliver to his Irish wars. The consequences were the same as at Drogheda merciless execution on the garrison and the inhabitants. In the third month of Cromwell's campaign, the report of Owen O'Neill's death went abroad, palsying the Catholic arms. By common consent of friend and foe, he was considered the ablest civil and military leader that had appeared in Ireland during the reigns of the Stuart kings. Whether in native ability he was capable of coping with Cromwell, was for a long time a subject of discussion ; but the consciousness of irreparable national loss, perhaps, never struck deeper than amid the crash of that irresistible cannonade of the walled towns and cities of Leinster and Munster. O'Neill had lately, despairing of binding the Scots or the English, distrustful alike of Coote and of Monck, been reconciled to Ormond, and was marching southward to his aid at the head of 6,000 chosen men. Lord Chancellor Clarendon assures us that Ormond had the highest hopes from this junction, and the utmost confidence in O'Neill's abilities. But at a ball at Derry, towards the end of August, he received his death, it ia eaid, in a pair of poisoned russet leather slippers presented to him by one Plunkett ; marching southward, borne, in a litter, h* expired at Clough Oughter Castle, near his old Belturbet camp, on the 6th of November, 1649. His last act was to order one of his nephews Hugh O'Neill to form a junction with Ormond in Munster without delay. In the chancel of the Franciscan Abbey of Cavan, now grass-grown and trodden by the hoofs of cattle, his body was interred ; his nephew and successor did honor to his memory at Clonmel and Limeriok. It was now remembered Tn by his enemies, with astonishment and admiration, how for 642 POPULAR BISTORT OF IBBLASD. eeven long years he bad subsisted and kept together an army, the creature of his genius; without a government at bis back, without regular supplies, enforcing obedience, establishing dia- cipline, winning great victories, maintaining, even at the worst, a native power in the heart of the kingdom. When the archive* of those years are recovered (if they ever are), no name more illustrious for the combination of great qualities will be found preserved there than the name of this last national leader of th illustrious lineage of O'Neill The unexpected death of the Ulster general favored still farther Cromwell's southern movements. The gallant, but impetuous Bishop of Clogher, Heber McMahon, was the only northern leader who could command confidence enough to keep O'Neill's force together, and on him, therefore, the command devolved. OTer- r;tll, one of Owen's favorite officers, was despatched to Waterford, and mainly contributed to Cromwell's repulse before that city ; Hugh O'Neill covered himself with glory at Clonmel and Limerick ; Daniel O'Neill, another nephew of x Owen, remained attached to Ormond, and accompanied him to France ; but within six months from the loss of their Fabian chief, who knew as well when to strike as to delay, the brave Bishop of Clogher sacrificed the rem- nant of " the Catholic Army " at the pass of Scariff hollis, in Done- gal, and, two days after, his own life by a martyr's death, at Omagh. At the date of Cromwell's departure when Ireton took command of the southern army there remained to the Confed- erates, only some remote glens and highlands of the North and West, the cities of Limerick and Galway, with the county of Clare, and some detached districts of the province of Con- naught, The last act of Cromwell's proper campaign was the siege of Clonmel, where he met the stoutest resistance he had any when encountered. The Puritans, after effecting a breach, made an at- tempt to enter, chanting one of their scriptural battle-songs. They were, by their own account, " obliged to give back a while," and finally night settled down upon the scene. The following day, finding the place no longer tenaole, the garrison silently with- drew to Waterford, and subsequently to Limerick. The inhabi- tants demanded a parley, which was granted ; and Cromwell taljM POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 548 mdit, and deserves it, when we consider the men he had to humor, for having kept conditions with them. From before Clonmel he returned at once to England, where he was received with royal honors. All London turned out to meet the Conqueror who had wiped out the humiliation of Benburb, and humbled the pride of the detested Papists. He was lodged in the palace of the king, and chosen " Captain-general of all the forces raised, or to be raised, by the authority of the Parliament of England." CHAPTER XI. CLOSE OF THE CONFEDERATE WAB. THE tenth year of the contest of which we have endeavored to follow the most important events, opened upon the remaining Catholic leaders, greatly reduced in numbers and resources, but firm and undismayed. Two chief seaports, and some of the western counties still remained to them ; and accordingly we find meet- ings of the Bishops and other notables during this year (1650), at Limerick, at Loughrea, and finally at Jamestown, in the neigh- borhood of Owen O'Neill's nursery of the first " Catholic Army." The Puritan commander was now Henry Ireton, son-in law of Cromwell, by a marriage contracted about two years before. The completion of the Protector's policy could have devolved upon fw persons more capable of understanding, or more fearless in ex- ecuting it ; and in two eventful campaigns he proved himself the able successor of the Protector. In August following Cromwell's depai ture, Waterford and Duncannon were taken by Ireton ; and there only remained to the Confederates the fortresses of Sligo f Athloue, Limerick, and Galway, with the country included withit the irregular quadrangle they describe. The younger Coot* making a feint against Sligo, which Clanrickarde hastened to de- 1nd, turned suddenly on his steps, and surprised Athlone. Sligo, naturally a place of no great strength after the invention of artil- lery, soon after fell, so that Galway and Limerick alone were left, at the beginning of 1651, to bear all the brunt of Puritan hostility. Pol/tical events of great interest ^aappenrd during the two 644 POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. short years of Ireton's command. The Assembly, which me; At Jamestown in August, and again at Loughrea in November, 1680, made the retirement of Ormond from the Government a condi- tion of all future efforts in the royal cause, and that nobleman, deeply wounded by this condition, had finally sailed from Galway, in December, leaving to Clanrickarde the title of Lord Deputy, and to Castlehaven the command of the forces which still kept the field. The news from Scotland of the young king's subscription to the covenant, and denunciation of all terms with Irish Papists, came to aid the councils of those, who, like the eloquent French, Bishop of Ferns, demanded a national policy, irrespective of the exigencies of the Stuart family. An embassy was accordingly despatched to Brussels, to offer the title of King-Protector to the Duke of Lorraine, or failing with him, to treat with any " other Catholic prince, state, republic, or person, as they might deem expedient for the preservation of the Catholic religion and nation ;" A wide latitude, dictated by desperate circumstances. The am- bassadors were Bishop French and Hugh Rochfort ; the embassy one of the most curious and instructive in our annals. The Duke expressed himself willing to undertake an expedition to Ireland to supply arms and money to the Confederates on the condition of receiving Athlone, Limerick, Athenry and Gal- way into his custody, with the title of Protector. A considerable sum of money (20,000) was forwarded at once ; four Belgian frigates laden with stores were made ready for sea ; the Canon De Ilenin was sent as envoy to the Confederates, and this last ven- ture looked most promising of success, had not Clanrickarde in Galway, and Charles and Ormond in Paris, taking alarm at the new dignity conferred upon the Duke, countermined the Bishop of Ferns and Mr. Rochfort, and defeated by intrigue and corre- apondence their hopeful enterprise. The decisive battle of Worcester, fought on the 8d of Septem- ber, 1651, drove Charles II. into that nine years' exile, from which he only returned on the death of Cromwell. It may be tonaidered the last military event of importance in the English eivil war. In Ireland the contest was destined to drag out another campaign, before the walls of the two gfllant citie, Galway and Limerick. POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 545 Limerick was the first object of attack. Ireton, leaving Sankey to administer martial law in Tipperary, struck th.e Shannon oppo- site Killaloe, driving Castlehaven before him. Joined by Coote and Reynolds, fresh from the sieges of Athenry and Athlone, he moved upon Limerick by the Connaught bank of the river, while Castlehaven fled to Clanricarde in G alway, with a guard of forty horse, all that remained intact of the 4,000 men bequeathed him by Ormond. From the side of Minister, Lord Muskerry attempted a diversion in favor of Limerick, but was repulsed at Castleishen, by " the flyirg camp " of Lord Broghill. The besiegers were thus not only delivered of a danger, but reinforced by native troops if the " Undertakers " could be properly called so which made them the most formidable army that had ever sur- rounded an Irish city. From early summer till the last week of October, the main force of the English and Anglo-Irish, supplied with every species of arm then invented, assailed the walls of Limerick. The plague, which during these months swept with such fearful mortality over the whole kingdom, struck down its defenders and filled all its streets with desolation and grief. The heroic bishops, O'Brien of Emly, and O'Dwyer of Limerick, exerted themselves to uphold, by religious exhortations, the con- fidence of the besieged ; while Hugh O'Neill and General Purcell maintained the courage of their men. Clanrickarde had offered to charge himself with the command, but the citizens preferred to trust in the skill and determination of the defender of Clonmel, whose very name was a talisman among them. The municipal government, however, composed of the men of property in the city, men w^aose trade was not war, whose religion was not enthusiastic, formed a third party, a party in favor of peace at any price. With the mayor at their head, they openly encouraged the surrender of one of the outworks to the besiegers, and this betrayal, on the 27th of October, compelled the surrender of tha entire works. Thus Limerick fell, divided within itself by mili- tary, clerical and municipal factions ; thus glory an d misfortune combined to consecrate its name in the national veneration, and the general memory of mankind. The Bishop of Emly and Gen- eral Purcell wore executed as traitors ; the Bishop of Limerick escaped in the disguise of a common soldier, an 1 died at Brussels ; 46* 46 POPULAR BISTORT Off 1KJELAHD. O'NeilFs life was saved by a single vote ; Sir Geoffrey Galwey Aldermen Stritch and Fanning and other leading Confederate! expiated their devotion upon the scaffold. On the 12th of May following seven months after the captui of Liuierick, Galw ay fell. Ireton, who survived the former siegu but a few days, was succeeded by Ludlow, a sincere republican of the school of Pym and Hanipden if that school can be called, ir our modern sense, republican. It was the sad privilege of General Preston, whose name is associated with so many of the darkest, arid with some of the brightest incidents of this war, to order the surrender of Galway, as he had two years previously given upWaterford. Thus the last open port, the last considerable town held by the Confederates yielded to the overwhelming power of numbers and munitions, hi the twelfth year of that illustrious war which Ireland waged for her religious and civil liberties, against the forces of the two adjoining kingdoms, sometimes estranged from one another, but always hostile alike to the reli- gious belief and the political independence of the Irish people. With the fall of Galway, the Confederate war drew rapidly to a close. Colonels Fitzpatrick, OVDwyer, Grace, and Thorlogh O'Neill, surrendered their posts ; Lords Enniskillen and Westmeath followed their example ; Lord Muskerry yielded Ross Castle, on Killarney, in June ; Clanrickarde laid down his arms at Carrick, in October. The usual terms granted were liberty to transport themselves and followers to the service of any foreign state or prince at peace with the commonwealth; a favored few were per- mitted to live and die in peace on their own estates, under tin, watchful eye of some neighboring garrison. The chief actors in the Confederate war not already accounted for, terminated their days under many different circumstances. Mountgarrett and Bishop Rothe died before Galway fell, and were buried in the capital of the Confederacy ; Bishop McMahon, oi Cl gher, surrendered to Sir Charles Coote, and was executed like a .'d(, n by one he had saved from destruction a year before at Derry ; Coote, after the Restoration, became Earl of Mountrath, and Broghill, Earl of Orrery; Clanrickarde died unnoticed on Lia English estate, under the Protectorate; Inchiquin, after many adventures in foreign lands, turned Catholic in his old age, und POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 547 this burner of churches bequeathed au annual alms for masses fo* his soul; /ones, Corbet, Cook, and the fanatical preacher, Hugh Petere, peri -bed on the scaffold with the other regicides executed by order of the English Parliament ; Ormond having shared the evils of exile with the King, shared also the splendor of bis res- toration, became a Duke, and took his place, aa if by common consent, at the head of the peerage of the empire ; his Irish rental, which before the war was but 7,000 a year, swelled suddenly on tho Restoration to 80,000 ; Nicholas French, after some sojourn in Spain, where he was coadjutor to the Archbishop of Saint James, returned to Louvain, where he made his first studies, and there spent the evening of his days in the composition of those powerful pamphlets which kept alive the Irish cause at home and on the continent ; a Roman patrician did the honors of sepulture to Luke "Wadding, and Cromwell interred James Usher in Westminster Abbey ; the heroic defender of Clonmel and Limerick, and the gallant, though vacillating Preston, were cor- dially received in France ; while the consistent republican Lud- low took refuge as a fugitive in Switzerland. Sir Phelim O'Neill, the first author of the war, waa among the last to suffer the penalties of defeat. For a moment, towards the end, he renewed his sway over the remnant of Owen's soldiers, took Ballyshannon and two or three other places. Compelled at last to surrender, he was carried to Dublin, and tried on a charge of treason, a committee closeted behind the bench dictating the interrogatories to his judges, and receiving his answers in reply. Condemned to death, as was expected, he was offered his life by the Puritan colonel, Hewson, on the very steps of the scaffold, if he would inculpate the late King Charles in the rising of 1641. This he " stoutly refused to do," and the execution proceeded with all its atrocious details. Whatever may have been the excesses committed under his command by a plundered people, at their first insurrection and we know that they have been exaggerated beyond all bounds it must be admitted he died th* death of a Christian, a soliier, and a gentleman. 648 POPULAR HISTORY OF IRKLAHD. CHAPTER XEI. tRKLAUD CHDKK THK PROTECTORATE. ADMINISTRATION Or HENRY CROMWELL. DEATH OF OLIVER. THE English republic rose from the scaffold of the King, in 1649 ; its first goyernment was a " Council of State" of forty-one members ; under this council, Cromwell held at first the title of Lord General ; but, on the 16th December, 1653, he was solemnly installed, in Westminster Hall, as " Lord Protector of the Com- monwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland." He was then in his fifty-fourth year ; his reign if such it may be called lasted less than fire years. The policy of the Protector towards Ireland is even less defen- sible than his military severities. For the barbarities of war there may be some apology, the poor one at least that such outrages are inseparable from war itself; but for the cold-blooded, deliberate atrocities of peace, no such defense can be permitted before the tribunal of a free posterity. The Long Parliament, still dragging out its date, under the shadow of Cromwell's great name, declared in its session of 1652, the rebellion in Ireland " subdued and ended," and proceeded to legislate for that kingdom as a conquered country. On the 12th of August, they passed their Act of Settlement, the authorship of which was attributed to Lord Orrery, in this respect the worthy son of the first Earl of Cork. Under this Act, there were four chief descriptions of persons whose status was thus settled : 1st. All ecclesiastics and royalist proprietors were exempted from pardon of life or estate. 2d. All royalist commissioned officers were condemned to banishment, and the forfeit of two-thirds of their property, one third being retained for the support of their wives and children. 3d. Those who had not been in arms, but who could be shown, by a Parliamentary commission, to have manifested " a constant, good affection," to the war, were to for- feit one third of their estates, and receive " an equivalent " for thu remaining two-thirds west of the Shannon. 4th. All hiibimii'l men and others of fie inferior sort, " not possessed of lands 01 POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 540 goode exceeding the value of 10,' were to have a free pardon, on condition also of transporting themselves across the Shannon. This last condition of the Cromwellian settlement distinguished it, in our annals, from every other proscription of the native popu- lation formerly attempted. The great river of Ireland, rising in the mountains of Leitrim, nearly severs the five western counties from the rest of the kingdom. The province thus set apart, though one of the largest in superficial extent, had also the largest pro- portion of waste and water, mountain and moorland. The new inhabitants were there to congregate from all the other provinces before the 1st day of May, 1654, under penalty of outlawry and all its consequences ; and when there, they were not to appear within two miles of the Shannon or four miles of the sea. A rigorous passport system, to evade which was death without form of trial, completed this settlement, the design of which was to shut up the remaining Catholic inhabitants from all intercourse with mankind, and all communion with the other inhabitants of their own country. A new survey of the whole kingdom was also ordered, undel the direction of Dr. William Petty, the fortunate economist, who founded the house of Lansdowne. By him the surface of the kingdom was estimated at ten millions and a half plantation acres, three of which were deducted for waste and water. Of the remainder, above 5,000,000 were in Catholic hands in 1641 ; 800,000 were church and college lands; and 2,000,000 were in possession of the Protestant settlers of the reigns of James and Elizabeth. Under the Protectorate, 5,000,000 acres were confis- cated ; this enormous spoil, two-thirds of the whole island, went to the soldiers and adventurers who had served against the Irish, or had contributed to the military chest, since 1641 except 700,000 acres given in " exchange" to the banished in Clare and Connaught ; and 1,200,000 confirmed to " innocent Papists." Such was the complete uprooting of the ancient tenantry or clansmen, from their original holdings, that during the survey, orders of Parliament were issued, to bring back individuals from C< nnaught to point out the boundaries of parrishes in Munster. It cannot be imputed among the sins so freely laid to the historical account of the native legislature, that an Irish parliament had 550 POPULAR BISTORT OF IBKLAHD. any share in sanctioning this universal spoliation. Cron.well an ticipated the union of the kingdoms by a hundred and fifty years, when he summoned, in 1653, that assembly over which "Praise God Barcbones " presided; members for Ireland and Scotland sat on the same benches with the commons of England. Oliver 7 ! first deputy in the government of Ireland was hia son-in-law, Fleetwood, who had married the widow of Ireton ; but his real representative was his fourth son, Henry Cromwell, commander- iu-chief of the army. In 1657, the title of Lord Deputy was transferred from Fleetwood to Henry, who united the supreme civil and military authority in his own person, until the eve of the restoration, of which he became an active partisan. We may thus properly embrace the five years of the Protectorate as the period of Henry Cromwell's administration. In the absence of a parliament, the government of Ireland waa vested iu the deputy, the commander-in-chief, and four commis- sioners, Ludlow, Corbett, Jones, and Weaver. There was, more- over, a High Court of Justice, which perambulated the kingdom, and exercised an absolute authority over life and property, greater than even Strafford's Court of Castle Chamber had pretended to. Over this court presided Lord Lowther, assisted by Mr. Justice Donnellan, by Cooke, solicitor to the Parliament on the trial of King Charles, and the regicide, Reynolds. By this court, Sir Phclim 0'.Neill, Viscount Mayo, and Colonels O'Toole and Bagnal], were condemned and executed ; by them the mother of Colonel Fitzpatrick was burnt at the stake ; and Lords Muskerry and Clanmaliere set at liberty, through some secret influence. The commissioners were not behind the High Court of Justice in execu- tive offices of severity. Children under age, of both sexes, were captured by thousands, and sold as slaves to the tobacco planter! of Virginia and the West Indies. Secretary Thurloe informs Henrj Cromwell that "the Committee o* the Council have authorized 1 000 girls and as many youths, to be taken up for that purpose.' 1 Sir William Petty mentions 6,000 Irish boys and girls shipped to ihe West Indies. Some cotemporary accounts make the total number of children and adults PO transported 100,000 soula. To this decimation, we may add 84,000 men of fighting age, who had permission to enter the armies of foreign powers, at peace with POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 661 the commonwealth. The chief commissioners, sitting at Dublin, had their deputies in a commission of delinquencies, sitting at Athlone, and another of transportation, sitting at Loughre*. Under their superintendence, the distribution made of the soil among the Puritans " was nearly as complete as that of Canada by the Israelites." Whenever native laborers were found abso- lutely necessary for the cultivation of the estates of their new masters, they were barely tolerated "as the Gibeonites had been by Joshua." Such Irish gentlemen as had obtained pardona, were obliged to wear a distinctive mark on their dress under pain of death ; those of inferior rank were obliged to wear a round black spot on the right cheek under pain of the branding iron and the gallows ; if a Puritan lost his life in iny district in- habited by Catholics, the whole population were held subject to military execution. For the rest, whenever " Tory" or recusant fell into the hands of these military colonists, or the garrisons which knitted them together, they were assailed with the war cry of the Jews " That thy feet may be dipped in the blood of thine ene- mies, and that the tongues of thy dogs may be red with the same." Thus penned in between " the mile line " of the Shannon ( and " the four-mile line " of the sea, the remnant of the Irish nation passed seven years of a bondage unequaled in severity by any thing which can be found in the annals of Christendom. The conquest was not only a military but a religious subjuga- tion. The 27th of Elizabeth the old act of uniformity waa rigorously enforced. The Catholic lawyers were disbarred and silenced ; the Catholic schoolmasters were forbidden to teach, un- der pain of felony. Recusants, surrounded in glens and caves, offering up the holy sacrifice through the ministry of some daring priest, were shot down or smoked out like vermin. The ecclesi- astics never, in any instance, were allowed to escape. Among those who suffered death during the short space of the Protecto- rate, are counted " three bishops and three hundred ecclesiastics." The surviving prelates were in exile, except the bedridden Bishop of Kilmore, who for years had been unable to officiate. So that, now, that ancient hierarchy which in the worst Danish wars had still recruited its ranks as fast as they were broken, seemed on the very eve of extinction. Throughout all the island no epi 552 POPULAR HISTORY 01* IRELAJTD. copal hand remained to bless altars, to ordain priests, or to eon firm the faithful The Irish church as well as the Irish state, touched its lowest point of suffering and endurance in the decade which intervened between the death of Charles L and the death of Cromwell. The new population imposed upon the kingdom, soon split up into a multitude of sects. Some of them became Quakers ; many adhered to the Anabaptists ; others, after the Restoration, con- formed to the established church. That deeper tincture of Puritanism which' may be traced in the Irish, as compared with the English establishment, took it origin even more from tbe Cromwellian settlement than from the Calvinistic teachings of Archbishop Usher. Oliver died in 1658, on his " fortunate day," the 3d of Sep- tember, leaving England to experience twenty months of repub- lican intrigue and anarchy. Eichard Cromwell Lambert Lud low Monk each played his part in th : t stormy interval, till, the time being ripe for a restoration, Charles II. landed at Dover on the 23d of May, 1660, and WAS carried in triumph to London, POPULAR UISXOKY OS IRELAND 53 BOOK X. FROM THE RESTORATION OF CHARLES II TO THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE L CHAPTER I. REIGN OF CHARLES II. HOPE is dear to the heart of man, and of all her votaries none have been more constant than the Irish. Half a century of the Stuarts had not extinguished their blind partiality for the de- scendants of the old Scoto-Irish kings. The restoration of that royal house was, therefore, an event which penetrated to the remotest wilds of Connaught, lighting up with cheering expects tion the most desolate hovels of the proscribed. To the Puritans settled in Ireland, most of whom, from the mean condition of menial servants, common soldiers and subaltern officers, had be- come rich proprietors, the same tidings brought apprehension and alarm. But their leaders, the Protestant gentry of an earlier date, wealthy, astute and energetic, uniting all their influence for the common protection, turned this event, which seemed at one time to threaten their ruin, to their advantage and greater secu- rity. The chief of these greater leaders was the accomplished Lord Broghill, whom we are to know during this reign under his more famous title of Earl of Orrery. The position of the Irish as compared with the English Puri- tans, was essentially different in the eyes of Ormond, Clarendon and the other councillors of the king. Though the former repre- sented dissent as against the church, they also represented the English as against the Irish interest, in Ireland. As dissenters they were disliked and ridiculed, but as colonists they could not be disturbed. When national antipathy was placed in oae icalc 47 654 POPULAR BISTORT OF IRELAKD. and religious animosity in the other, the intensely national feeling of England for the Cromwellians, as Englishmen settled in a hos- tile country, prevailed over every other consideration. In this, as in all other conjunctures, it has been the singular infelicity of the one island to be subjected to a policy directly opposite to that pursued in the other. While in England it was considered wise and just to break down the Puritans as a party through the court, the pulpit and the press ; to drive the violent into exile, and to win the lukewarm to conformity ; in Ireland it was decided to confirm them in their possessions, to leave the government of the kingdom in their hands, and to strengthen their position by the Acts of Settlement and Explanation. These acts were hailed as " the Magna Chart* of Irish Protestantism," but so far as the vast majority of the people were concerned, they were as cruelly unjust as the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, or the edieta which banished the Moors and Jews from the Spanish peninsula. The struggle for possession of the soil inaugurated by the con- fiscations of Elizabeth and James, was continued against great odds by the Catholic Irish, throughout this reign. Though the royal declaration of Breda which preceded the restoration had not mentioned them expressly, they still claimed under it not only the "liberty to tender consciences," but that "just satisfaction" to those unfairly deprived of their estates, promised in that decla- ration. Accordingly, several of the old gentry returned from Connaught or places abroad, took possession of their old hr mes, or made their way at once to Dublin or London to urge their claims to their former estates. To their dismay, they found in Dublin, Coote and BroghSU established as Lords Justices, and the new parliament the first that sal for twenty years composed of an overwhelming majority of Undertakers, adventurers and Puri- tan representatives of boroughs from which all the Catholic "lectors had been long excluded. The Protestant interest, or "ascendancy party," as it now began to be commonly called, counted in the Commons 198 members to 64 Catholics; in the House of Lords, *"2 Protestant to 21 Catholic peers. The former elected Sir Audley Mervyn their Speaker, and the able but curiously intricate and quaint discourses of the ancient colleague of Kelly and Darcy in the assertion of Irish legiilative indepen- POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 566 dence, shows how different was the spirit of Irish Protestantism in 1661 as compared with 1641. The Lords chose Bramhall, the long-exiled Bishop of Derry, now Archbishop of Armagh, as their Speaker, and attempted to compel their members " to take the sacrament " according to the Anglican ritual. The majority of both houses, to secure the good will of Ormond voted him the sum of 30,000, and then proceeded to consider " the Bill of Settle- ment," in relation to landed property. The Catholic bar, which had been apparently restored to its freedom, presented a striking array of talent, from which their co-religionists selected those by whom they desired to be heard at the bar of the House. The venerable Darcy and the accomplished Belling were no longer their oracles of the law ; but they had the services of Sir Nicholas Plunkett an old confederate, of Sir Richard Nagle, author of the famous " Coventry Letter," of Nugent, afterwards Lord Riverston, and other able men. In the House of Lords they had m intrepid ally hi the Earl of Kildare, and in England an agent equally in- trepid, in Colonel Richard Talbot, afterwards Earl of TyrconneU. The diplomatic and parliamentary struggle between the two in- terests, the disinherited and the new proprietory, was too pro- tracted, and the details are too involved for elucidation in every part; but the result tells its own story. In 1676 in the fifteenth year of the restoration the new settlers possessed above 4,500,000 acres, to about 2,250,000 still retained by the old owners. These relative proportions were exactly the reverse of those existing before the Cromwellian settlement ; a single generation had seen this great revolution accomplished hi landed property. The Irish parliament having sent over to England the htada of their bill, according to the constitutional rule established by Poyning's Act, the Irish Catholics sent over Sir Nicholas Plun- kett to obtaii. modifications of its provisions. But Plunkett was met in England with such an outcry from the mob and the press as to the alleged atrocities of the confederate war, and his own former negotiations on the continent, that he was unable to effect anything ; while Colonel Talbot, for his too warm expostulations with Ormond, was sent to the Tower. An order of council, for- bidding Plunkett the presence, and declaring that " no petition r further address be made from the Roman Catholics of Ireland, 556 POPULAR HI8T3RY OF IRELAND. as to the Bill of Settlement," closed the controversy, and the Ad oon after received the ro^al assent. Under this act, a court was established at Dublin, to try the claims of " nocent" and " innocent" Notwithstanding every in fluence which could be brought to bear on them, the judges, wh were Englishmen, declared in their first session, one hundred an- sixty eight innocent to nineteen nocent. Proceeding in this spirit " to the great loss and dissatisfaction of the Protestants," the latter, greatly alarmed, procured the interference of Ormond, now Lord Lieutenant (1662), in effecting a modification of the com- mission, appointing the court, by which its duration was limited to an early day. The consequence was, that while less than 800 claims were decided on when the fatal day arrived, over 3,000 were left unheard, at least a third of whom were admitted even by their enemies to be innocent. About 600 others had been restored by name in the Act of Settlement itself; but, by the Act of Explanation (1605), "no Papist, who had not been adjudged innocent," under the former act, could be so adjudged thereafter, " or entitled to claim any lands or settlemente." Thus, even the inheritance of hope, and the reversion of expectation, were ex- tinguished forever for the sons an* 1 daughters of the ancient gentry of the kingdom. The religious liberties of this people, so crippled in property and political power, were equally at the mercy of the mob and of the monarch. To combat the war of calumny waged against them by the Puritan press and pulpit, the leading Catholics re- solved to join in an official and authentic declaration of their true principles, as to the spiritual power of the Pope, their allegiance to the prince, end their relations to their fellow subjects of uther denominations. With this intention a meeting was held at the house of the Marquis of Clanrickarde, in Dublin, at which Lords Clancarty, Cnrlingford, Fingnl, Castlehaven, and Inchiquin, and the leading commoners of their faith, were present. At this meeting, Father Peter Walsh, a Franciscan, and an old courtier of Ormond's, as " Procurator of all the Clergy of Ireland," secular and regular, produced credentials signed by the surviving biphops or thoir vicars including the Primate O'Reilly, th Bishops of Meath, Ardagh, Kilmore, and Ferns. Richard Bel- HISTORY OF IRELAND. 667 ling, the secretary to the first Confederate Council, and envoy to Rome, submitted the celebrated document known as " The Re- monstrance," deeply imbued with the spirit of the Gallican church of that day. It was signed by about seventy Catholic peers and commoners, by the Bishop of Kilmore, by Procurator Walsh, and by the townsmen of Wexford almost the only urban community of Catholics remaining in the country. But the propositions it contained as to the total independency of the temporal on the spiritual power, and the ecclesiastical patronage of princes, was condemned at the Sorbonne, at Louvain, and at Rome. The regular orders, by their several superiors, utterly rejected it; the exiled bishops withdrew their proxies from Father Walsh, and disclaimed his conduct ; the Internuncio at Brussels, charged with the affairs of the British Isles, denounced it as contrary to the canons ; and the elated Procurator found himself involved in a controversy from which he never after- wards escaped, and with which his memory is still angrily associated. The conduct of Ormond in relation to this whole business of the Remonstrance, was the least creditable part of his administra- tion. Writhing under the eloquent pamplilets of the exiled Bishop of Ferns, keenly remembering his own personal wrongs against the former generation of bishops, of whom but three or four were yet living, he resolved " to work that division among the Romish clergy," which he had long meditated. With this view, he connived at a meeting of the surviving prelates and the superiors of regular orders, at Dublin, in 1666. To this synod safe conduct was permitted to the Primate O'Reilly, banished to Belgium nine years before ; to Peter Talbot, Archbishop of Dublin, John Burke, Archbishop of Tuam, Patrick Plunkett, Bishop of Ardagh, the vicars-general of other prelates, and the superiors of the regulars. This venerable body deliberated anxiously for an entire week, Father Walsh acting as embassador between them and the Viceroy ; at length, in spite of all politic consider- ations, they unanimously rejected the servile doctrine of tha " Remonstrance." substituting instead a declaration of their own dictation. Ormond now cast off all affectation of liberality ; Pri- mate O'Reilly was sent back to hia banishment, th other prelate* 47* 658 POPULAR BISTORT OF IRELAND. and clergy were driven back to their hiding-places, or into exile abroad, and the wise, experienced, high-spirited duke, did not hesitate to avail himself of " the Popish plot" mania, which soon after broke out, to avenge himself upon an order of men whom he could neither break nor bend to his purposes! Of 1,100 secular priests, and 700 regulars, still left, only sixty-nine had signed tho Claurickarde House .Remonstrance. An incident of this same year 1666 illustrates more forcibly than description could do, the malignant feeling which had been cxi-itcd in England, against everything Irish. The importation of Irish cattle had long been considered an English grievance, it was now declared by law " a nuisance." The occasion taken tc pass this statute was as ungracious as the act itself was despicable. In consequence of " the great fire," wliich still glows for us in the immortal verse of Dry den, the Irish had sent over to the distressed, a contribution of 15,000 bullocks. This was considered by the generous recipients a mere pretence to preserve the trade in cattle between the two kingdoms, and accordingly both houses, after some sharp resistance in the Lords', gravely enacted that the im- portation of Irish beef into England was " a nuisance," to be abated. From this period most probably dates the famous English sarcasm against Irish build. The act prohibiting the export of cattle from Ireland, and the equally exelusive and unjust Navigation Act originally devised by Cromwell so paralyzed every Irish industry, that the Puritan party became almost as dissatisfied as the Catholics. They main- tained a close correspondence with their brethren in England, and began to speculate on the possibilities of another revolution. Ormorid, to satisfy their demands, distributed 20,000 stand of arms among them, and reviewed the Leinster Militia, on the Cur- rngh, in 1 667. The next year ho was recalled, and Lords Robarta, Berkely, and Essex, successively appointed to the government. The first, a Puritan and almost a regicide, held office but a few months ; the second, a cavalier and a friend of toleration, for two years ; while Essex, one of those fair-minded but yielding charac- ters known in the next reign as "Trimmers," petitioned for hi own recall, and Ormond's restoration, in 1676. The only event* which marked those hut nine years from Ormond'i removal til] POPULAR HISTORY 0V IRELAND. 559 his reappointment were the surprise of Carrickfergus by a party of unpaid soldiers, and their desperate defence of that ancient stronghold ; the embassies to and from the Irish Catholics and th* court, of Colonel Richard Talbot; and the establishment of ex tensive woollen manufactories at Thomastown, Oallan, and Kil kenny, under the patronage of Ormond. CHAPTER II. REIGN OF CHARLES H. (CONCLUDED.) FOR the third tune, the aged Ormond, now arrived at the period usually allotted to the life of man, returned to Ireland, with the rank of viceroy. During the ensuing seven years, he clung to power with all the tenacity of his youth, and all the policy 01 his prime ; they were seven years of extraordinary sectarian panic and excitement the years of the Cabal, the Popish plot, and the Exclusion Bill, in England and of fanatical conspiracies and ex~ plosions almost as dangerous in Ireland. The Popish plot mania held possession of the English people much longer than any other moral epidemic of equal virulence. In the month of October, 1678, its alleged existence in Ireland was commuicated to Ormond ; in July, 1681, its most illustrious victim, Archbishop Plunkett, perished on the scaffold at Tyburn. "Within these two points of time what a chronicle of madnesa, folly, perjury, and cruelty, might be written ? Ormond, too old in statecraft to believe in the existence of these incredible plots, was also too well aware of the dangerous element of fanaticism represented by Titus Gates, and his imitators, to sub- ject himself to suspicion. On the first intelligence of the plot, he instantly issued his proclamation for the arrest of Archbishop Tal- bot, of Dublin, who had been permitted to return from exile under the rule of Lord Berkely, and had since resided with his brother Colonel Talbot, at Cartown, near Maynooth. This prelate was of Ormond' s own age, and of a family aa ancient ; while his learn* t>60 POPULAR HISTORY Of IRELAND. Ing, courage, and morality, made h m an ornament to his order lit was seized in his sick bed at Cartowii, carried to Dublin in a chair, and confined a close prisoner in the castle, where he died two years later. He was the last distinguished captive destined to end his days in that celebrated state prison, which has sine* been generally dedicated to the peaceful purposes of a reflected royalty. Colonel Talbot was at the sume time arrested, but allowed to retire beyond seas ; Lord Mountgarret, an octogenarian, and in ui dotage, was seized, but nothing could be made out against him ; a Colonel Peppard was also denounced from England, but no such person was found to exist. So far the first year of the plot had passed over, and proved nothing against the Catholic Irish. But the example of successful villainy in England, of Gates idolized, pensioned, and all-powerful, extended to the sister kingdom, and brought an illustrious victim to the scaffold. This was Oliver Plunkett, a scion of the noble family of Fingal, who had been Archbishop of Armagh, since the death of Dr. O'Reilly, in exile, in 1669. Such had been the prudence and circumspection of Dr. Plunkett, during his perilous administration, that the agents of Lord Shaftesbury, sent over to concoct evidence for the occasion, were afraid to bring him to trial in the vicinage of his arrest, or in his own country. Accordingly, they caused him to be removed from Dublin to London, contrary to the laws and customs of both Kingdoms, which had first been violated towards state prisoners in the case of Lord Maguire, forty years before. Dr. Plunkett after ten months' confinement without trial in Ire- land, was removed, 1 680, and arraigned at London, on the 8th of June, 1C81, without having had permission to communicate with hia friends or to send for witnesses. The prosecution was con- ducted by Maynard and Jeffries, in violation of every form of law, and every consideration of justice. A " crown agent," whose name is given as Gorman, was introduced by " a stranger " in court, and volunteered testimony in his favor. The Earl of Essex interceded with the king on his behalf, but Charles answered' almost in the words of Pilate " I cannot pardon him, because I dare not. Ilia blood be upon your conscience ; you could have laved him if you plei sed. H The Jury after a quarter of an hour'f POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 561 deliberation brought in their verdict of guilty, and the brutal chief-justice condemned him to be hung, emboweled, and quar- tered on the 1st day of July, 1681. The venerable martyr, for such he may well be called, bowed his head to the bench, and exclaimed : De n gratias ! Eight years from the very day of his execution, on the banks of that river beside which he had been seized and dragged from his retreat, the last of the Stuart kings was stricken from his throne; and his dynasty stricken from his- tory ! Does not the blood of the innocent cry to Heaven for vengeance ? The charges against Dr. Plunkett were, that Le maintained treasonable correspondence with France and Rome, and the Irish on the continent ; that he had organized an insurrection in Louth, Monaghon, Cavan, and Armagh ; that he made preparations for the landing of a French force at Carlingford ; and that he had held several meetings to raise men and money for these purposes. Utterly absurd and false as these charges were, they still indicate the troubled apprehensions which filled the dreams of the ascendency party. The fear of French invasion, of new insurrections, of the resumption of estates, haunted them by night and day. Every sign was to them significant of danger, and every rumor of con- spiracy was taken for fact. The report of a strange fleet off the Southern coast, which turned out to be English, threw them all into panic ; and the Corpus Christ! crosses which the peasantry affixed to their doors, were nothing but signs for the Papist de- stroyer to pass by, and to spare his fellows in the general mas- sacre of Protestants. Under the pressure of these panics, real or pretended, procla- mation after proclamation issued from the castle. By one of these instruments, Ormond prohibited Catholics from entering the Castle of Dublin, or any other fortress ; from holding fairs or markets within the walls of corporate towns, and from carrying arms to such resorts. By another, he declared all relatives of known Tories a Gaelic term for a driver of prey to be arrested, and banished the kingdom, within fourteen days, unless such Tories were killed, or surrendered, within that time. Where thii device failed to reach the destined victims as in the celebrated casa of Count Redmond O'Hanlon it is to be feared that he did. 62 >OPtJLAR BISTORT 0* not hesitate to whet the dagger of the assassia, which was stifl sometimes employed, even in the British Islands, to remove a dangerous antagonist. Count O'Hanlon, a gentleman of ancient lineage, as accomplished as Orrery, or Ossory, was indeed an outlaw to the code then in force ; but the stain of his cowardly assassination must forever blet and rot the princely escutcheon of James, Duke of Ormoud. The violence of religious and social persecution began to sub- side during the last two or three years of Charles II. Monmouth's banishment, Shaftesbury's imprisonment, the execution of Russell and Sidney on the scaffold, marked the return of the English public mind to political pursuits and objects. Early in 1686, the king was taken mortally ill. In bis last moments he received the rites of the Catholic church, from the hands of Father Huddle eton, who was said to have saved his life at the battle of Worces- ter, and who was now even more anxious to save his souL This event took place on the 16th of February. King Jamea was immediately proclaimed successor to his brother. One of his first acts was to recall Ormond from Ireland and to appoint in his place the Earl of Clarendon, son of the historian and statesman of the Restoration. Ormond obeyed, not without regret ; he survived his fall about three years. He was interred in West- minster in 1688, three months before the landing of William, and the second banishment of the Stuarts. CHAPTER III. rat STATE OF RELIGION AND LEARNING IN IRELAND DDRINO THB SEVENTEENTH OENTUBT. BEFORE plunging into the troubled torrent of the revolution of 1688, let us cast a glance back on the century, and consider th fate of learning and religion during those three generations. If we divide the Irish literature of this century by subject*, w shall find extant a respectable body both in quantity and POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 663 quality, of theology, history, law, politics, and poetry. If we divide it by the languages in which that literature was written, ire may consider it as Latin, Gaelic, and English. I. Latin continued throughout Europe, even till this late day, the language of the learned, but especially of theologians, jurists, and historians. In Latin, the great tomes of O'Sullivan, Usher, Colgan, Wadding, and White, were written volumes which re- main as so many monuments of the learning and industry of that age. The chief objects of these illustrious writers were, to restore the ancient ecclesiastical history of Ireland, to rescue the memory of her saints and doctors from oblivion, and to introduce the native annals of the kingdom to the attention of Europe. Though Usher differed in religion, and in his theory of the early connection of the Irish with the Roman Church, from all the rest, yet he stands preeminent among them for labor and research. The Waterford Franciscan, Wadding, can omy be named with him for inexhaustible patience, various learning, and untiring seal. Both were honored of princes and parliaments. The Con- 'ederates would have made Wadding a cardinal ; Ki ag James made Usher an archbishop : one instructed the Westminster Assembly ; the other was sent by the King of Spain to maintain the thesis of the Immaculate Conception at Rome, and subsequently was entrusted by the Pope to report upon the propositions of Jan- senius. O'Sullivan, Conde de Berehaven, in Spain, and Peter White, have left us each two or three Latin volumes on the history of th country, highly prized by all subsequent writers. But the most indispensable of the legacies left us in this tongue, are Colgan's ' Acta Sanctorum " from January to March, and Dr. John Lynch's " Cambrensis E versus." Many other works and authors might be mentioned, but these are the great Latinista to whom we are indebted for the most important services rendered to our national history. IL In the Gaelic literature of the country we count Geoffrey Keating, Dnald McFirbis, and " the Four Masters " of Donegal Few writers have been more rashly judged than Keating. A poet, as well as a historian, he gave a prominence in the early chapters of his history to bardic tales, which English critics have seized upon to damage hia reputation for truthfulness and good 564 POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. cense. But these tales be gives as tales as curious ai d illustratiTt rather than as credible and unquestionable. The purity of Us style is greatly extolled by Gaelic critics ; and the interest of his narrative, even in a translation, is undoubted. McFirbis, n annalist and genealogist by inheritance, is known to us not ouiy for his profound native lore, and tragic death, but also for the assistance he rendered Sir James Ware, Dr. Lynch, and Roderick O'Flaherty. The master-piece, however, of our Gaelic literature of this age, is the work now called " the Annals of the Four Mas- ters." In the reign of James I., a few Franciscan friars, living partly in Donegal Abbey and partly in St. Anthony's College, at Lou vain, undertook to collect and collate all the manuscript re- mains of Irish antiquity they could gather or borrow, or be allowed to copy. Father Hugh Ward was the head of this group, and by him the lay brother Michael O'Clery, one of the greatest benefactors his country ever saw, was sent from Belgium to Ire- land. From 1620 to 1630, O'Clery traveled through the kingdom, buying or transcribing everything he could find relating to the lives of the Irish saints, which he sent to Louvain, where Ward and Colgan undertook to edit and illustrate them. Father Ward died in the early part of the undertaking, but Father Colgan spent twenty years in prosecuting the original design, so far as concerned our ecclesiastical biography. After collecting these materials, Father O'Clery waited, as he tells us, on " the noble Fergall O'Gara," one of the two knighta elected to represent the county of Sligo in the Parliament of 1 684, and perceiving the anxiety of O'Gara, " from the cloud which at present hangs over our ancieihlc 01 such a project, could not allay their terrors. They rushed into England by every port, and inflamed still more the hostility which already prevailed against King James. In Ulster, David Cairnes, of Knockmany, the Rev. John Kelao, of Ennislnllen, a Presbyterian, and Rev George Walker, of Donagh- pK>re, ta\ Anglican minister, were active instruments of the Prinof FOPULA'R HISTORY OF IRKLAND. BTl of Orange. On the 7th of December the gates of D^rry were shut by " the youthhood '' egainst the Earl of Antrim and his High- landers. Enniskillen was seized by a similar impulse of the popu- lar will, and an association was quickly formed throughout Ulster ji imitation of the English association which had invited over William, under the auspices of Lord Blaney, Sir Arthur Raw- don, Sir Clotworthy Skeffington, and others, "for the mainte- nance of the Protestant religion and the dependancy of Ireland upon England." By these associates, Sligo, Coleraine, and the fort of Culmore, at the mouth of the Foyle, were seized for King William. While the Town Council of Derry, in order to gain time, despatched one ambassador with one set of instructions to Tyrconnell, and another, with a very different set, to " the Com. mittee for Irish Affairs," which sat at Whitehall, under the presi- dency of the Earl of Shrewsbury. CHAPTER V. KINO JAMES IN IRKLAND. IRISH PARLIAMENT OF 1689. A FEW DATS after his arrival in France, James despatched a messenger to Tyrconnell, with instructions expressing great anxiety as to the state of affairs in Ireland. " I am sure," wrote the fugitive monarch, " you will hold crat to the utmost of your power, and I hope this king will so press the Hollanders, that the Prince of Orange will not have men to spare to attack you." All the aid he could obtain from Louis at the moment was 7,000 or 8,000 muskets, which were sent accordingly. Events succeeded each other during the first half of the year 1689 with revolutionary rapidity. The con mentions of England and Scotland, though far from being unanimous, declared by im- mense majorities, that James had abdicted, and that William and Mary should be offered the crowns of both kingdoms. In February thy were proclaimed as king and queen of " England, Franc*, 374 POPULAR HMTORY OF ai.vr. The royal entry into Dublin WM the crowning POPULAR HISTORY C7 IRELAND. 575 pageant of this delusive restoration. With the tact and taste fof Buch demonstrations hereditary in the citizens, the trades aad arts were marshalled before him. Two venerable harpers played on their national instruments near the gate by which he entered; a number of religious in their robes, with a huge cross at their head, chanted as they went ; forty young girls dressed in white, danced the ancient Rinka, scattering flowers as they danced. The Earl of Tyrconnell, lately raised to a dukedom, the judges, the mayor and corporation, completed the procession, which marched over newly sanded streets, beneath arc-hes of ever- greens and windows hung with " tapestry and cloth of Arras." Arrived at the castle the sword of state was presented to him by the deputy, and the keys of the city by the recorder. At the inner entrance, the primate, Dr. Dominick Macguire, waited in his robes to conduct him to the chapel, lately erected by Tyr- connell, where Te Dciun was solemnly sung. !Er-t of all the incidents of that striking ceremonial, nothing more ^xmerfully impressed the popular imagination than the green flag floating from the main tower of the castle, bearing the significant inscrip- tion " Now or Never Now and Forever." A fortnight was devoted by James in Dublin to daUy and nightly councils and receptions. The chief advisers who formed his court were the Count d'Ayaux, Ambassador of France, the Earl of Melfovt, principal Secretary of State, the Duke of Tyr- connell, Lieutenant-General Lord MountcasheL, Chief Justice Nu- gent, and the superior officers of the army, French and Irish, One of the first things resolved upon at Dublin was the appoint- ment of the gallant Viscount Dundee as Lieutenant-General in Scot- land and the despatch to his assistance of an Irish auxiliary force which served under that renowned chief with as much honor as their predecessors had served under Montrose. Communicationa were also opened through the Bishop of Chester with the west of England Jacobites, always numerous in Cheshire, Shropshire, and other counties nearest to Ireland. Certain changes were then made in the Privy Council ; Chief Justice Keating's attend- ance was dispensed with as one opposed to the new policy, but his judicial functions were left untouched. Dr. Cartwright Bishop of Chester, and the French Ambassador were sworn la, 570 POPULAR BISTORT Of IRILAKI*. and writs were issued convoking the Irish Parliament for the 7th day of May following. Intermitting, for the present, the military events which marked the early months of the year, we will follow the acts and deliber- ations of King James's parliament of 1689. The houses met, according to summons, at the appointed time, in the building known as "the Inns of Court," within a stone's throw of the castle. There were present 228 Commoners, and 46 members of the Upper House. In the Lords, several Protestant noblemen and prelates took their seats, and some Catholic peers of ancient date, whose attainders had been reversed, were seen for the first time in that generation in the front rank of their order. In the lower house the University and a few other constituencies were represented by Protestants, but the overwhelming majority were Catholics, either of Norman or Milesian origin. The Iring made a judicious opening speech, declaring his intention to uphold the rights of property, and to establish liberty of conscience alike for Protestant and Catholic. He referred to the distressed state of trade and manufactures, and recommended to the attention of the houses those who had been unjustly deprived of their estates under the " Act of Settlement." Three measures passed by this Parliament entitle its members to be enrolled among the chief assertors of civil and religious liberty. One was the " Act for establishing Liberty of Conscience," followed by the supplemental act, that all persons should pay tithes only tc the clergy of their own communion. An act abol- ishing writs of error and appeal into England, established the judicial independance of Ireland; but a still more necessary measure repealing Poyning's La\v, was defeated through the per- onal hostility of the king. An act repealing the Act of Settle- ment was alo passed, under protest from the Protestant lords, and received the royal sanction. A bill to establish Inns of Court, for the education of Irish law students, was, however, rejected by the king, and lost; an " Act of Attainder," against persons in arms against the sovereign, whose estates lay in Ire- land, was adopted. Whatever may be the bias of historians, it cannot be denied that this Parliament showed a spirit worthy of the representatives of a free people. "Though Papists," POPULAR HIBTORT OF IRELAND. 5 Mr. Grattan, our highest parliamentary authority, " they wer not slaves ; they wrung a constitution from King James before they accompanied him to the field." The king, unfortunately, had not abandoned the arbitrary principles of his family, even in his worst adversity. His inter ference with the discussions on Poyning's Law, and the Inns of Court bill, had shocked some of his most devoted adherents. But he proceeded from obstructive to active despotism. He doubled, by his mere proclamation, the enormous subsidy of 20,0^ monthly voted him by the Houses. He established by the same authority a bank, and decreed in his own name a bank-restriction act. He debased the coinage, and established a fixed scale of prices to be observed by all merchants and traders. In one respect but in one only he grossly violated his own professed purpose of establishing liberty of conscience, by endeavoring to force fellows and scholars on the University of Dublin contrary to its statutes. He even went so far as to appoint a provost and librarian without consent of the senate. However we may con- demn the exclusiveness of the college, this was not the way to correct it ; bigotry on the one hand will not justify despotism on the other. More justifiable was the interference of the king for the resto- ration of rural schools and churches, and the decent maintenance of the clergy and bishops. His appointments to the bench were also, with one or two ezceptious, men of tSie very highest charac- ter. "The administration of justice during this brief period," jays Dr. Cooke Taylor, " deserves the highest praise. With the axeeption of Nugent and Fitton, the Irish judges would hare been an honor to any bench." 67S POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. CHAPTER VI. U REVOLUTIONARY WAR. CAMPAIGN OF 1689. SIEGES OF DK&lf AND EXMSKLLLEX. WHEN Tyrconnell met the king at Cork, he gave his majesty a plain account of the posture of military affairs. In Ulster, Lieutenant-General Richard Hamilton, at the head of 2,500 regu- lar troops, was holding the rebels in check, from Charlemont to Coleraine ; in Munster, Lieutenaut-General Justin McCarthy, Lord Monntcashel, had token Bandon and Castiemartyr ; throughout the four provinces, the Catholics, to the number of fifty regiments (probably 30,000 men), had volunteered their services ; but for all these volunteers he had only 20,000 old arms of all kinds, not over 1,000 of which were found really valuable. There were besides these, regiments of horse, TyrconnelTs, Russell's, and Gal- moy's, and one of dragoons, eight small pieces of artillery, but neither stores in the magazines, nor cash in the chest While at Cork, Tyrconnell, in return for his great exertions, was created a duke, and general-in-chief, with De Rosen as second in com- mand. A week before James reached Dublin, Hamilton had beaten the rebels at Dromore, and driven them in on Coleraine, from before which he wrote urgently for reinforcements. On receipt of thia communication, the council exhibited, for the first time, those radical differences of opinion, amounting almost to factions oppo- sition, which crippled all King James's movements at this period. One party strenuously urged that the king himself should miuh northward with such troops as could be spared ; that his personal appearance before Derry, would immediately occasion the surren- der of that city, and that he might, in a few weeks, finish in per- son, the campaign of Ulster. Another, at whose head was Tyrconnell, endeavored to dissuade his majesty from this course, but he at length decided in favor of the plan of Melfort and his friends. Accordingly, he marched out of Dublin, amid torrents of A.pril rain, on the eighth of that month, intending to form a junction with Hamilton, at Strabane, and thence to advance to Derry. The POPULAR HISTORY OF IBKLAND. 579 march was a weary one through a couiitry stripped bare of jvery sign of life, and desolate beyond description. A week was spc nt be- tween Dublin and Omagh ; at Omagh news of an English fleet on the Foyle, caused the king to retrace his steps hastily to Charlemont. At Charlemont, however, intelligence of fresh suc- cesses gained by Hamilton and De Rosen, at Cladyford and Strabane, came to restore his confidence ; he instantly set for- ward despite tho tempestuous weather, and the almost impassable roads, and on the eighteenth reached the Irish camp at Johns- town, within four or five miles of Derry. It was now four months since " the youthhood" of Derry had shut the wr.^crgate against Lord Antrim's regiment, and established within thc-ir walls a strange sort of government, including eighteen clergymen and the town democracy. The military com- mand remained with Leiuteiiant-Colonel Lundy, of Lord Mount- joy's regiment, but the actual government of the town was vested first, in " Governor " Baker, and afterwards in the Reverend George Walker, Rector of Donaghmore, best known to us as Gov- ernor Walker. The town council had despatched Mr. Cairnes, and subsequently Captain Hamilton, founder of the Abercorn peerage, to England for succor, and had openly proclaimed Wil- liam and Mary as King and Queen. Defensive works were added, where necessary, and on the very day of the affair of Cladyford, 480 barrels of gunpowder were landed from English ships and conveyed within the walls. As the Royalist forces concentrated towards Derry, the chiefs of the Protestant Association fell back before them, each bringing to its garrison the contribution of his own followers. From the valley of the Bann, over the rugged summits of Carntogher, from the glens of Donegal, and the western sea coast round to Mayo, troops of the fugitives hurried to the strong town of the London traders, as to a city of refuge. Enniskillen alone, resolute in iti insular situation, and in a courage akin to that which actuated the defenders of Derry, stood as an outpost of the main object of attack, and delayed the junction of the Royalists under Mount- cashel with those under Hamilton and De Rosen. Coleraine was abandoned. Captain Murray, the commander of Culmore, forced his way at the head of 1,500 men into Derry, contrary to th 580 POPULAR HIBTOKY OF IBELASD. wishes of the vacillating and suspected Lundy, and, from the m* incut of his arrival, infused his own determined spirit into all ranks of the inhabitants. Those who had advised King James to present himself in person before the Pro' estant stronghold, had not acted altogether upon presumption. It is certain that there were Jacobites, even in Derry. Lundy, the governor, either despairing of its defence, or undecided in his allegiance between James and William, had opened a correspondence with Hamilton and De Rosen. But the true answer of the brave townsmen, when the king advanced too near their walls, was a cannon shot which killed one of his staff, and the cry of " No Surrender " thundered from the walls. James, awakened from his self-complacent dream by this unexpected in- ception, returned to Dublin, to open his Parliament, leaving General Hamilton to continue the seige. Colonel Lundy, dis- trusted, overruled, and menaced, escaped over the walls by night disguised as a common laborer, and the party of Murray, Baker, Walker, and Cairnes, reigned supreme. The story of the siege of Derry of the heroic constancy of its defender^ of the atrocities of De Rosen and Galmoy the clem- ency of Maumont the forbearance of Hamilton the struggles fur supremacy among its magnates the turbulence of the towns- folk the joyful raising of the siege all these have worthily em- ployed some of the most eloquent pens in our language. The relief came by the breaking of the boom across the harbor's mouth on the last day of July ; the bombardment had commenced on the 21st of April ; the gates had been shut on the 7th of De* cember. The actual siege had lasted above three months, and the blockade about three weeks. The destruction of life on both side* has never been definitely stated. The besieged admit a loss of 4, all who had served King James, on taking the oath of allegiance prescribed in Art. IX., as follows: ' I, A. B., do solemnly promise and swear that I will be faith. ful and bear true allegiance to their majesties, King William and Queen Mary ; so help me God." Arts. III., IV., V. and VI. extended the provisions of Arts. I. and II. to merchants and other classes of men. Art VII. permit* * every nobleman and gentleman compromised in the said articl FOPULAB HISTORY OF IRELAND. b99 to carry side arms, and keep " a gun in their houses." Art. VIIL gives the right of removing gooda and chattels without search. Art. IX. is as follows : " The oath to be administered to such Roman Catholics as uub- tnit to their majesties' government shall be the oath aforesaid, and no other" Art. X. guarantees that " no person or persons who shall at any time hereafter, break these articles, or any of them, shall thereby make or cause any other person or persons to forfeit or lose the benefit of them." Arts. XI. and XII. relate to the ratifi- cation of the articles " within eight months or sooner." Art. XIII. refers to the debts of " Colonel John Brown, commissary of the Irish army, to several Protestants," and arranges for their satisfaction. These articles were signed, before Limerick, at the well known " Treaty Stone," on the Clare side of the Shannon, by Lord Scravenmore, Generals Mackay, Talmash, and De Ginkle, and the Lords-Justices Porter and Coningsby, for King William, and by Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, Viscount Galmoy, Sir Toby Butler, and Colonels Purcell, Cusack, Dillon, and Brown, for the Irish. On the 24th of February following, royal letters patent confirmatory of the treaty were issued from Westminster, in the name of the king and queen, whereby they declared, that " we do for us, our heirs, and successors, as far as in us lies, ratify and confirm the same and every clause, matter, and thing therein contained. And as to such parts thereof, for which an act of Parliament shall be found to be necessary, we shall recommend the same to be made good by Parliament, and shall give our royal assent to any bill or bills that shall be passed by our two houses of Parliament to that purpose. And whereas it appears unto ns, that it was agreed between the parties to the said articles, that after the words Lim- erick, Clare, Kerry, Cork, Mayo, or any of them, in the second of the said articles ; which words having been casually omitted by the writer of the articles, the words following, viz. : ' And all such as are under their protection in the said counties,' should be inserted, and be part of the said omission, was not discovered till after the said articles were signed, but was taken notice of before thp secor-.d town was surrendered, and that our said justices and 600 POPULAR BISTORT OF IRELAND. generals, or one of them, did promise that the said clause should be made good, it being within the intention of the capitulation, and inserted in the foul draft thereof: Our further will and pleas- ure is, and we do hereby ratify and confirm the said omitted words, viz., ' And all such as are under their protection in the Baid counties,' hereby, for us, our heirs and successors, ordaining and declaring that all and every person and persons therein con- cerned shall anfl may have, receive, and enjoy the benefit thereof, in such and the same manner as if the said words had been in- serted in their proper place in the said second article, any omis- sion, defect, or mistake in the said second article in any wise not- withstanding. Provided always, and our will and pleasure is, that these our letters patent shall be enrolled in our court of chancery, in our said kingdom of Ireland, within the space of one year next ensuing." But the Ascendancy party were not to be restrained by the filth of treaties, or the obligations of the sovereign. The Sun- day following the return of the Lords Justices from Limerick, Dopping, Bishop of Meath, preached before them at Christ's church, on the crime of keeping faith with Papists. The grand jury of Cork, urged on by Cox, the Recorder of Kinsale, one of the his- torians of those times, returned in their inquest that the restor- ation of the Earl of Clancarty's estates " would be dangerous to the Protestant interest." Though both William and George I., interested themselves warmly for that noble family, the hatred 01 the new oligarchy proved too strong for the clemency of kings, and the broad acres of the disinherited McCarthys, remained to enrich an alien and bigoted aristocracy. In 1692, when the Irish Parliament met, a few Catholic peers, and a very few Catholic commoners took their seats. One of the first acts of the victorious majority was to frame an oath in dir- ect contravention to the oath prescribed by the ninth civil article of the treaty, to be taken by members of both Houses. This oath solemnly ai.'l explicitly denied " that in the sacrament of the Lord's supper there is any transubstantion of the elements ;" and as solemnly affirmed, " that the invocation or adoration of the Virgin Mary, or any other saint, and the sacrifice of the mass, as they are now used in the church of Rome, are damnable and POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 601 idolatrous." As a matter of course, the Catholic peers and com moners retired from both Houses, rather than take any such oath, and thus the Irish Parliament assumed, in 1692, that exclusively Protestant chsracter which it continued to maintain, till its ex- tinction in 1800. The Lord-Justice Sydney, acting in the spirit of his original instructions, made some show of resistance to the proscriptive spirit thus exhibited. But to teach him how they regarded his interference, a very small supply was voted, and the assertion of the absolute control of the Commons over all sup- plies a sound doctrine when rightly interpreted was vehem ently asserted. Sydney had the satisfaction of proroguing and lecturing the House, but they had the satisfaction soon after of seeing him recalled through their influence in England, and a more congenial viceroy in the person of Lord Capel sent over. About the same tune, that ancient engine of oppression, a Com- mission to inquire into estates forfeited, was established, and, in a short time, decreed that 1,060,792 acres were escheated to the crown. This was almost the last fragment of the patrimony of the Catholic inhabitants. When King "William died, there did not remain in Catholic hands " one-sixth part " of what their grandfathers held, even after the passage of the Act of Settle- ment. In 1695, Lord Capel opened the second Irish Parliament, sum- moned by King "William, in a speech in which he assured his delighted auditors that the king was intent upon a firm settlement of Ireland upon a Protestant interest." Large supplies were at once voted to his majesty, and the House of Commons then pro- ceeded to the appointment of a committee to consider what penal laws were already in force against the Catholics, not for the pur. pose of repealing them, but in order to add to their number. The principal penal laws then in existence were : 1. An act, subjecting all who upheld the jurisdiction of the Se of Rome, to the penalties of a premunire ; and ordering the oath of supremacy to be a qualification for office of every kind, for holy orders, and for a degree in the university. 2. An act for the uniformity of Common Prayer, imposing a fine of a shilling on all who should absent themselves from placet of worship of the established church on Sundays. 51 602 POPULAR BISTORT OF IRELAND. 8. An act, allowing the Chancellor to name a guardian to th child of a Catholic. 4. An act to prevent Catholics from becoming private tutors in families, without license from the ordinaries of their several parishes, and taking the oath of supremacy. To these, the new Parliament added, 1. An act to deprive Catholics of the means of educating their children at home or abroad, and to render them incapable of being guardians of their own or any other person's children; 2. An act to disarm the Catholics ; and, 3. Another to banish all the Catholic priests and prelates. Having thus violated the treaty, they gravely brought in a bill " to confirm the Articles of Limerick." " The very title of the bill," says Dr. Cooke Taylor, " contains evidence of its in- justice." It is styled, " A Bill for the Confirmation of Articles (not t/ie articles) made at the Surrender of Limerick." And the preamble shows that the little word the was not accidentally omitted. It runs thus : " That the said articles, or so much of them at may consist wiih the safety and welfare of your majesty't tubjects in these kingdoms, may be confirmed," fec. The parts that appeared to these legislators inconsistent with " the safety and welfare of his majesty's subjects," were the first article, which provided for the security of the Catholics from all disturbances on account of their religion ; those parts of the second article which confirmed the Catholic gentry of Limerick, Clare, Cork, Kerry, and Mayo, in the possession of their estates, and allowed all Catholics to exercise their trades and professions without ob- struction ; the fourth article, which extended the benefit of the peaoe to certait Irish officers then abroao ; the seventh article, which allowed the Catholic gentry to ride armed ; the ninth article, which provides that the oath of allegiance shall be the only oath required from Catholics ; and one or two others of Toinor importance. All of these are omitted in the bill for " The tonfirmation of Articles made at the Surrender of Limerick." The Commons passed the bill without much difficulty. The House of Lords, however, contained some few of the ancient nobility, and some prelates, who refused to acknowledge the dog- ma, " that no faith should be kept with Papists," as an article cf their creed. The bill waa strenuously resisted, and whn it wac POPULAR HISTORY OP IRELAND. 603 At length carried, a strong protest against it was signed by lordi Londonderry, Tyrone, and Duncannon, the barons of Ossory, Limerick, Killaloe, Kerry, Howth, Kingston, and Strabane, and, to their eternal honor be it said, the Protestant bishops of Kildara Elphin, Derry, Clonfert, and Killala 1 The only other political incidents of this reign, important to Ireland, were the speech from the throne in answer to an addresa of the English Houses, 'in which William promised to discourage the woolen and encourage the linen manufacture in Ireland, and the publication of the famous argument for legislative independ- ance, " The Case of Ireland Stated." The author of this tract, the bright precursor of the glorious succession of men, who, often defeated or abandoned by their colleagues, finally triumphed in 1782, was William Molyneux, member for the University of Dublin. Molyneux's book appeared in 1698, with a short, respectful, but manly dedication to King William. Speaking of his own motives in writing it, he says, " I am not at all concerned in wool or the wool trade. I am no wnys interested in forfeiturea or grants. I am not at all concerned whether the bishop or the society of Derry recover the lands they contest about." Such were the domestic politics of Ireland at that day; but Moly- neux raised other and nobler issues when he advanced these six propositions, which he supported with incontestible ability. "1. How Ireland became a kingdom annexed to the crown of England. And hers we shall at large give a faithful narrative of the first expedition of the Britons into this country, and King Henry II.'s arrival here, such as our best historians give us. " 2. We shall inquire whether this expedition and the English settlement that afterwards followd thereon, can properly be called a conquest? or whether any victories obtained by the Eng- lish in any succeeding ages in this kingdom, upon any rebellion, may be called a conquest thereof ? " 3. Granting that it were a conquest, we shall inquire what title a conquest gives. " 4. We shall inquire what concessions have been from time to time made to Ireland, to take off what even the most rigorous asserters of a conquerer'a title do pretend to. And herein wt hall show by what degrees th English form of government, POPULAR HISTORY 0> IRELAND. and tin English statute laws, came to be received among as and this shall appear to be wholly by the consent of the people und the parliament of Ireland. " 5. We shall inquire into the precedents and opinions of the (earned in the laws relating to this matter, with observations thereon. " 6. We shall consider the reasons and arguments that may be farther offered on one side and t'other; and we shall draw some general conclusions from the whole." The English Parliament took alarm at these bold doctrines seldom heard across the channel since the days of Patrick Darcy and the Catholic Confederacy. They ordered the book to be burned by the hands of the common hangman as of " dangerous tendency to the crown and people of England, by denying the power of the king and parliament of England to bind the king- dom and people of Ireland, and the subordination and depend- ence that Ireland had, and ought to have, upon England, a being united and annexed to the imperial crown of England.' They voted an address to the king in the same tone, and received an answer from his majesty assuring them that he would enforce the laws securing the dependence of Ireland on the imperial crown of Great Britain. But William's days were already numbered. On the 8th of March, 1702, when little more than fifty years of age, he died from the effects of a fall from his horse. His reign over Ireland is synonymous to the minda of that people of disaster, proscrip- tion and spoliation ; of violated faith and broken compacts ; but these wrongs were lone in his name rather than by his orders; often without his knowledge, and sometimes against his will. Kigid as that will was, it was forced to bend to the anti-Popery utorin which swept over the British Islands after the abdication of King James; but the vices and follies of his times ought no more be laid to the personal account of William than of James or Louis, against whom he fought POPULAR BISTORT OF IRELAND. 605 CHAPTER XL REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE. THI reign of Queen Anne occupies twelve years (1702 to 1714). The new sovereign, daughter of James by hia first mar- riage, inherited the legacy of William's wars, arising out of the European coalition. Her diplomatists, and her troops, under the leadership of Marlborough, continued throughout her reign to combat against France, in Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands the treaty of Utrecht being signed only the year before her majesty's decease. In domestic politics, the main occurrences were the struggle of the Whigs and Tories, immortalized for us in the pages of Swift, Steele, Addison, and Bolingbroke ; the limita- tion of the succession to the descendants of the Electress Sophia, in the line of Hanover ; and the abortive Jacobite movement on the queen's death which drove Ormond and Atterbury into exile. In Ireland, this la the reign, par excellence, of the penal code. From the very beginning of the queen's reign, an insatiate spirit of proscription dictated the councils of the Irish obligarchy. On the arrival of the second and last Duke of Ormond, in 1708, as Lord-Lieutenant, the commons waited on him in a body, with a bill " for discouraging the further growth of Popery," to which, the duke having signified his entire concurrence, it was accord- ingly introduced, and became law. The following are among the most remarkable clauses of this act : The third clause provides, that if the son of an estated Papist, shall conform to the established religion, the father shall be incapacitated from selling or mortga- ging his estate, or disposing of any portion of it by will. The fourth clause prohibits a Papist from being the guardian of hia own child ; and orders, that if at any time the child, though ever BO young, pretends to be a Protestant, it shall be taken from it own father, and placed under the guardianship of the nearest Protestant relation. The sixth clause renders Papists incapable f purchasing any manors, tenements, hereditaments, or any rentt 51* 606 POPULAR BISTORT OF IRELAND. or profits arising out of the same, or of holding any lease of liv* or other lease whatever, for any term exceeding thirty-one years. And with respect even to such limited leases, it further enacts, that if a Papist should hold a farm producing a profit greater than one-third of the amount of the rent, his right to such should im- mediately cease, and pass over entirely to the first Protestant who should discover the rate of profit. The seventh clause prohibits Papists from succeeding to the properties or estates of their Pro- testant relations. By the tenth clause, the estate of a Papist, not having a Protestant heir, is ordered to be gavelled, or divided in equal shares between all his children. The sixteenth and twenty- fourth clauses impose the oath of abjuration, and the sacramental test, as a qualification for office, and for voting at elections. The twenty-third clause deprives the Catholics of Limerick and Gal- way of the protection secured to them by the articles of the treaty of Limerick The twenty-fifth clause vests in her majesty all %dvowsons possessed by Papists. Certain Catholic barristers, living under protection, not yet excluded from the practice of their profession, petitioned to be heard at the bar of the House of Commons. Accordingly, Mr. Malone, the ancestor of three generations of scholars and orators, Sir Stephen Rice, one of the most spotless characters of the age, formerly chief-justice under King James, and Sir Theobald Butler, were heard against the bill. The argument of Butler, who stood at the very head of his profession, remains to us almost in its en- tirety, and commands our admiration by its solidty and and dignity. Never was national cause more worthily pleaded ; never was the folly of religious persecution more forcibly exhibited. Alluding to the monstrous fourth clause of the bill, the great advocate ex- claimed : " It is natural for the father to love the child ; but we all kn(nr that children are but too apt and subject, without any such rberty as this bill gives, to slight and neglect their duty to their parents ; and surely such an act as this will not be an instrument of restraint, but rather encourage them more to it " It is but too common with the son, who has a prospect of an estate, when once he arrives at the age of one and twenty, to think the '>!! faflif-r t<*n long in the wny between him and it; and how POIULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 607 much more will he be subject to it, when, by this act, he shall have liberty, before he comes to that age, to compel and force my estate from me, without asking my leave, or being liable to account with me for it, or out of his share thereof, to a moiety of the debts* portions, or other encumbrances, with which the estate might have been charged before the passing this act ! " Is not this against the laws of God and man ? Against the rules of reason and justice, by which all men ought to be governed ? Is not this the only way in the world to make children become undutiful ? and to bring the gray head of the parent to the grave with grief and tears ? " It would be hard from any man ; but from a son, a child, the fruit of my body, whom I have nursed in my bosom, and tendered more dearly than my own life, to become my plunderer, to rob me of my estate, to cut my throat, and to take away my bread, is much more grievous than from any other and enough to mako the most flinty of hearts to bleed to think on it. And yet this will be the case if this bill pass into a law; which I hope thia honorable assembly will not think of, when they shall more seri- ously consider, and have weighed these matters. " For God's sake, gentlemen, will you consider whether this is according to the golden rule, to do as you would be done unto ? And if not, surely you will not, nay, you cannot, without being liable to be charged with the most manifest injustice imaginable, take from us our birthrights, and invest them in others before our faces." When Butler and Malone had closed, Sir Stephen Rice was heard, not in his character of council, but as one of the petitioners affected by the act. But neither the affecting position of that great jurist, who from the rank of chief baron had descended to the cuter bar, nor the purity of his life, nor the strength of hia argument, had any effect upon the oligarchy who heard him. Ho was answered by quibbles and cavils, unworthy of record, and was finally informed that any rights which Papists " pretended to be taken from them by the Bill, was in their own power to remedy, by conforming, which in prudence they ought to do ; and that they had none to blame but themselves." Next day the bill passed into law. The remnant of the clergy were next attacked. On the I7tl| 608 POPULAR UI8TORT OF IRELAND. of March, 1706, the Irish Commons resolved, that " infcrming against Papists was an honorable service to the government," and that all magistrates and others who failed to put the penal laws into execution, " were betrayers of the liberties of the kingdom." But even these resolutions, rewards, and inducements were in- sufficient to satisfy the spirit of persecution. A further act was passed, in 1 709, imposing additional penal- ties. The first clause declares, that no Papist shall be capable of holding an annuity for life. The third provides, that the child of a Papist, on conforming, shall at once receive an annuity from his father ; and that the Chancellor shall compel the father to discover, upon oath, the full value of his estate, real and per- sonal, and thereupon make an order for the support of such con- forming child or children, and for securing such a share of the property, after the father's death, as the court shall think fit. The fourteenth and fifteenth clauses secure jointures to Popish wives who shall conform. The sixteenth prohibits a Papist from teaching, even as assistant to a Protestant master. The eigh- teenth gives a salary of 30 per annum to Popish priests who shall conform. The twentieth provides rewards for the discovery of Popish prelates, priests, and teachers, according to the follow, ing whimsical scale: For discovering an archbishop, bishop vicar-general, or other person, exercising any foreign ecclesiastical jurisdiction, 60; for discovering each regular clergyman, and each secular clergyman not registered, 20, and for discovering each Popish schoolmaster or usher, 10. The twenty-first clause empowers two justices to summon before them any Papist over eighteen years of age, and interrogate him when and where he last heard mass said, and the names of the persons present, and likewise touching the residence of any Popish priest or school- master ; and if he refuse to give testimony, subjects him to a fine of 20, or imprisonment for twelve months. Several other penal laws were enacted by the same parliament, of which we can only notice one ; it excluded Catholics from the office of sheriff, and from grand juries, and enacts, that, in trial* upon any statute for strengthening the Protestant interest, th plaintiff might challenge a juror for being a Papist, which clud- jenge the judge was to allow. POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELA1O. COS By a royal proclamation of the same year, all "registered priests " were to lake " the oath of abjuration before the 25th of March, 1710," under penalty of premunire. Under this proclama tion and the tariff of rewards just cited, there grew up a class of men, infamous and detestable, known by the nickname of " priest hunters." One of the most successful of these traffickers in blood, was a Portuguese Jew, named Garcia, settled at Dublin. He was very skillful at disguises. " He sometimes put on the mien of a priest, for he affected to be one, and thus worming himself into the good graces of some confiding Catholic, got a clue to the whereabouts of the clergy." In 1718, Garcia succeeded in arrest- ing seven unregistered priests, for whose detection he had a sum equal to two or three thousand dollars of American money. To such an excess was this trade carried, that a reaction set in, and a Catholic bishop of Ossory, who lived at the time these acts were still in force, records that " the priest-catchers' occupation became exceedingly odious both to Protestants and Catholics," and that himself had seen " ruffians of this calling assailed with a shower of stones, flung by both Catholics and Protestants." But this creditable reaction only became general under George IL, twenty years after the passage of the act of Queen Anne. We shall have to mention some monstrous additions made to the code during the first George's reign, and 6ome attempts to repair and perfect its diabolical machinery, even so late as George III ; but the great body of the penal law received its chief accessions from the oligarchical Irish parliament, under Queen Anne. Hitherto, we have often had to point out, how with all its constitutional defects with the law of Poynings, obliging heads of bills to be first sent into England fettering its freedom of initiative ; how, notwithstanding all defects, the Irish parliament had asserted, at many critical periods, its own and the people's rights, with an energy worthy of admiration. But the collective bigots of this reign, were wholly unworthy of the name of a parliament. They permitted the woolen trade to be sacrificed without a struggle, they allowed the bold prop, ositions of Molyneux, one of their own number, to be condemned and reprobated without a protest. The knotted lash of Jonathan Swift was never more worthily aprMed, than to "the Legion 610 POPULAR BISTORT OF IRBLAND. Club,' which he has consigned to such an unenviable immortal ity. Swift's inspiration may have been mingled with bitter di appointment and personal revenge; but, whatever motives am mated him, his fearless use of his great abilities must alwayi make him the first political, as he was certainly the first literary character of Ireland at that day. In a country so bare and naked as he found it; with a bigotry so rampant and united before him ; it needed no ordinary courage and capacity to evoke anything like public opinion or public spirit. Let us be just to that most unhappy man of genius ; let us proclaim, that Irish nationality, bleeding at every pore, and in danger of perishing by the wayside, found shelter on the breast of Swift, and took new heart from the example of that bold churchman, before whom the parliament, the bench of bishops, and the viceroy trembled. CHAPTER XIL THE IRISH SOLDIERS ABROAD DURING THE REIGNS OK WILLIAM AND ANNE. THE close of the second reign from the seige of Limerick, im- poses the duty of casting our eyes over the map of Europe, in quest of those gallant exiles whom we have seen, in tens of thousands, submitting to the hard necessity of expatriation. Many of the Meath mnd Leinster Irish, under their native commanders, the Kavanaghs and Nugents, carried their swords into the service of William's ally, the Emperor of Austria, and distinguished themselves in all the campaigns of Prince Eugene. Spain attracted to her standard the Iiish of the northwest, the O'Donnella, the O'Reillys and O'Garas, whose regiments, during more than one reign, continued to be known by names of Ulster origin. In 1707, the great battle of Almanza, which decided the Bpanich succession, was determined by O'Mahony's foot and Fitzj.'imes's Iri*h horse. The next year Spain had five Irish regi- ments in her regular army, three of foot nnd two of dragoons, under the command of Lacy, Lawless, Wogan, O'Reilly and O'Gara. But it was in Franc*- that the Irish served in thi POPULAR HISTOKT OF IRELAND. Oil greatest number, and made the most impressive history toi themselves and their descendants. The recruiting agents of France had long been in the habit of crossing the narrow seas, and bringing back the stalwart son! of the western Island to serve their ambitious kings, in every corner of the continent. An Irish troop of horse served, in 1652, under Turenne, against the great Conde\ In the campaigns of 1673, 1674 and 1675, under Turenne, two or three Irish regi- ments were in every engagement along the Rhine. At Alten- heim, their commander, Count Hamilton, was created a major- general of France. In 1690, these old regiments, with the six new ones sent over by James, were formed into a brigade, and from 1690 to 1693, they went through the campaigns of Savoy and Italy, under Marshal Catinat, against Priuce Eugene. Justin McCar- thy, Lord Mountcashel, who commanded them, died at Baregea of wounds received at Staffardo. At Marsiglia, they routed, in 1693, the allies, killing Duke Schomberg, son to the Huguenot general who fell at the Boyue. The " New " or Sarsfield's brigade was employed under Lux- embourg,against King William, in Flanders, in 1692 and 1693. At Namur and Enghien, they were greatly distinguished, and William more than once sustained heavy loss at their hands, Sarsfield, their brigadier, for these services, was made mareschal- de-camp. At Landen, on the 29th of July, '98, France again triumphed to the cry, " Remember Limerick!" Sarsfield, lead- ing on the fierce pursuers, fell moi-tally wounded. Pressing his hand upon the wound, he took it away dripping with blood, and only said, " Oh, that this was for Ireland I" In the war of the Spanish succession, the remnants of both bri- gades, consolidated into one, served under their favorite leader, the Marshal Duke of Berwick, through nearly all his campaigns in Belgium, Spain and Germany. The third Lord Clare, after- wards Field-Marshal Count Thomond, was by the Duke's side at Phillipsburg, in 1733, when he received his death-wound from the explosion of a mine. These exiled Clare O'Briens commanded for three generations their famous family regiment of dragoons. The first who followed king James abroad died of wounds re- ceived at the battle of Ramillies ; the third, with better fortune, 612 POPULAR HJ6IO&X O I&KLAND. outlived for nearly thirty years the glorious day of Fontenoy. The Irish cavalry regiments in the service of France wer She^on's, Galmoy's, Clare's, and Killmallock's ; the infantry were known as the regiments of Dublin, Charlemont, Limerick and Athlone. There were two other infantry regiments, known as Luttrel's and Dorrington's and a regiment, of Irish marines, of which the Grand Prior, Fitzjames, was colonel. During the latter years of Louis XIV., there could not have been less, at any one time, than from 20,000 to 3u,OOU Irish in his armies, and during the entire century, authentic documents exist to prove that 450,000 natives of Ireland died in the military service of France. In the dreary reigns of William, Anne, and the two first Georges, the pride and courage of the disarmed and disinherited population, abiding at home, drew new life and vigor from the exploits of their exiled brethren. The channel smuggler and the vagrant ballad-singer kept alive their fame for the lower class of the population, while the memoirs of Marlborough and Eugene, issuing from the Dublin press, communicated authentic accounts of their actions, to the more prejudiced, or better educated. The blows they struck at Landen, at Cremona, and at Almanza, were sensibly felt by every British statesman ; when, in the bitterness of defeat, an English king cursed " the laws that deprived him of such subjects," the doom of the penal code was pronounced. The high character of the famous captains of these brigades was not confined to the field of battle. At Paris, Vienna, and Madrid, their wit and courtesy raised them to the favor of princes, over the jealousy of all their rivals. Important civil and diplo- matic offices were entrusted to them embassys of peace and war the government of provinces, and the highest administrative offices of the state. While their kinsmen in Ireland were de- clared incapable of filling the humblest public employments or of exercising the commonest franchise, they met British ambas sadora abroad as equals, and checked or countermined the im- perial policy of Great Britain. It was impossible that such a contrast of situations should not attract the attention of all think- ing men ! It was impossible that such reputations should shin before all Europe without reacting powerfully on the fallen for tune? of Ireland I POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 613 BOOK IX. FROM THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE I. TO THE LEGISLATIVE UNION OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. CHAPTER I. ACCESSION OF GEORGE I. SWIFTS LEADERSHIP. THE last years of Queen Anne had been years of intrigue and preparation with the Jacobite leaders throughout the three king- doms. At their head stood Ormond, the second and last Duke of his name, and with him were associated at one stage or another of his design, Bolingbroke, Orrery, Bishop Atterbury, and other influential persons. It was thought that had this party acted promptly on the death of the queen, and proclaimed James III. (or " the Pretender," as he was called by the partisans of the new dynasty), the Act of Succession might have remained a dead letter, and the Stuarts recovered their ancient sovereignty. But the partisans of the elector were the first in the field, and King George was accordingly proclaimed, on the 1st of August, st London, and on the 6th of August, at Dublin. In Dublin, where serious apprehensions of a Jacobite rising were entertained, the proclamation was made by the glare of torches at the extraordinary hour of midnight. Two or three arrests of insignificant persons were made, and letters to Swift being found on one of them, the dean was thought by his friends to be in some danger. But it is not correct to say, as many writers have done, that he found it necessary to retire from Dub- lin. The only inconvenience he suffered was from the hootinga and re^ings of the Protestant rabble in the street, and a brutal threat of personal violence from a young nobleman, upjn whom be revenged himself in a characteristic petition to the House of 52 614 POPULAR BISTORT OF IRELAND. Lords " for j rotection against the said lord." Pretending not to b quite sure of his assailant, he proceeds to explain : " Your petitioner is informed that the person who spoke the words above mentioned is of your Lordships' house, under the style and title of Lord Blaney ; whom your petitioner remembers to have introduced to Mr. Secretary Addison, in the Earl of Wharton's government, aiid to have done him other good offices at that time, because he was represented as a young man of some hopes and a broken fortune." The entire document is a curious picture of the inso- lence of the ascendancy party of that day, even towards digni- taries of their own church who refused to go all lengths in the only politics they permitted or tolerated. It was while smarting under these public indignities, and ex- cluded from the society of the highest class in his own country, witli two or three exceptions, that Swift laid the foundations of his own and his country's patriotism, among the educated middle class of the Irish capital. From the college and the clergy he drew Dr. Sheridan, ancestor of six generations of men and women of genius ! Doctors Delaney, Jackson, Helsham, Walmsley, Stopford (afterwards bishop of Cloyne), and the three reverend brothers (i rat tan. In the city he selected as his friends and companions four other G rattans, one of whom was lord-mayor, another phy- sician to the castle, one a school master, the other a merchant. " Do you know the Grattans ?" he wrote to the lord-lieutenant, Lord Carteret ; " then pray obtain their acquaintance. The Grattans, my lord, can raise 10,000 men." Among the class rep- resented by this admirable family of seven brothers, and in that of the tradesmen immediately below them, of which wo may take his printers, Waters and Faulkner for types, Swift's haughty and indignant denunciations of the oligarchy of the hour pro duced striking effects. The humblest of the community began to raise their heads, and to fix their eyes steadily on pub'io affairs and public characters. Questions of currency, of trade, of the administration of justice and of patronage, were earnestly discussed in the press and in society, and thus by slow but grad- ually ascending steps a spirit of independence was promoted where hitherto only servility had reigned. The obligations of his cotemporaries to Swift are not to t* POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 615 counted simply by what he was able to originate or to advocate in their behalf for not much could be done in that way, in such time*, and in such a position as his but rather in regaro to tha enemies and inaligners of that people, whom he exposed and pun- ished. To understand the value of his example and inspiration, we must read over again his castigations of Wharton, of Burnet. of Boulter, of Whitshed, of Allan, and all the leaders of the oligarchy, in the Irish Parliament. When we have done so, we shall see at once, how his imperial reputation, his personal position, and every faculty of his powerful mind were employed alike to combat in- justice and proscription, to promote freedom of opinion and of trade, to punish the abuses of judicial power, and to cultivate and foster, a spirit of self reliance and economy among all classes especially the humblest. In his times, and in his position, with a cassock " entangling his course," what more could have been ex- pected of him ? The Parliament which met in 1715 elected, according to the then usage, for the lifetime of the king commenced its career by an act of attainder against the Pretender, accompanied by a reward of 50,000 for his apprehension. The Lords-Justices, the Duke of Grafton and the Earl of Gal way, recommended in their speech to the Houses, that they should cultivate such unanimity aimong themselves as " at once to put an end to all other distinctions in Ireland, but that of Protestant and Papist." In the same speech, and in all the debates of that reign, the Catholics were spoken of as " the common enemy," and all who sympathized with them, aa " enemies of the constitution." But far as this Parliament was from all our ideas of what a national legislature ought to be, it was precisely at this period, when the administration could not be worse, that the foundation was laid of the great contest for legis- lative independence, which was to continue through three genera, tiona, and to constitute the main staple of the Irish history of this century. In th year 1717, the English House of Lords entertained and decided, as a court of last resort, an appeal from the Irish courts, already passed on by the Irish Lords', in the famous real-estate case of Annesley versus Sherlock. The proceeding was novel, fciid was protested against in the English house nt the time by 616 POFULAB HISTORY OF IRELAND. the Duke of Leeds, and in the Irish, by the majority of the whole house. But the British Parliament, not content with claiming the power, proceeded to establish the principle, by the declaratory act 6th George I. for securing the dependence of Ireland on the crown of Great Britain. This statute, even more objectionable than the law of Poynings, continued nnrepealed till 1782, not- withstanding all the arguments and all the protests of the Irish patriot party. The Lords of Ireland, unsupported by the bigoted and unprincipled oligarchy in the Commons, were shorn of their appellate jurisdiction, and their journals for many years contain few entries of business done, beyond servile addresses to succes- sive viceroys, and motions of adjournment. In their session of 1728, the ascendancy party in the Common! proceeded to their last extreme of violence against the prostrate Catholics. An act was introduced founded on eight resolutions, " further to prevent the growth of Popery." One of these resolu- tions regularly transmitted to England by the viceroy proposed that every priest, arrested within the realm, should suffer the penalty of castration ! For the first time, a penal law was re- jected with horror and indignation by the English Privy Council, and the whole elaborate edifice, overweighted with these last pro- positions, trembled to its base. But though badly shaken, it was yet far from coming down. " Do not tlie corruptions and villainies of men," said Swift to his friend Delaney, " eat your flesh and exhaust your spirits?" They certainly gnawed at the heart of the courageous dean, but at the same time, they excited rather than exhausted his spirits. In 1720 he resumed his pen, as a political writer, in his famous pr^posa. " for the universal use of Irish manufactures." Waters, the printer of this piece, was indicted for a seditious libel, before Chief Justice Whitahed, the immortal " coram nobi*," of the dean's political ballads. The jury were detained eleven hours, and sent ou f nine times, to compel them to agree on a verdict. They at length finally declared they could not agree, and a no/, pro*, was soon after entered by the crown. This trial of Swift's printer in 1720 is the first of a long series of duels with the erown lawyers, which the Irish press has since maintained with M much firmness and self-sacrifice, as any press ever exhibited. POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 617 And it may be said that never, not even under martial law, was a conspicuous example of civic courage more necessary, cr more dangerous. Browne, Bishop of Cork, had been in danger of de- privation for preaching a sermon against the well-known toast to the memory of King William ; Swift was threatened, as we see, a few years earlier, with personal violence by a Whig lord, and pelted by a Protestant rabble, for his supposed Jacobitism ; his friend, Dr. Sheridan, lost his Munster living for having accident- ally chosen as his text, on the anniversary of King George's coro- nation, " sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." Such was the intolerance of the oligarchy towards their own clergy. What must it have been to others ! The attempt to establish a National Bank, and the introduction of a debased copper coinage, for which a patent had been granted to one William Wood, next employed the untiring pen of Swift. The half-penny controversy, was not, as is often said, a small mat- ter ; it was nearly as important as the bank project itself. Of tbs 100,000 worth coined, the intrinsic value was shown to be not more than 6,000. Such was the storm excited against the patentee, that his Dublin agents were obliged to resign their con- nection with him, and the royal letters-patent were unwillingly canceled. The bank project was also rejected by Parliament, adding another to the triumphs of the invincible Dean. During the last years of this reign, Swift was the most power-- fill and popular person in Ireland, and perhaps in the empire. The freedom with which he advised Oarteret the viceroy, and remonstrated with Walpole, the premier, on the misrule of his country, was worthy of the ascendancy of his genius. No man of letters, no churchman, no statesman of any country in anj age, ever showed himself more thoroughly independent, in his intercourse with men in office, than Swift. The vice of -Ireland was exactly the other way, so that in this respect also, the patriot was the liberator. Rising with the rise of public spirit, the great churchman, in his fourth letter, in the assumed character of M. B. Drapier, con- fronted the question of legislative independence. Alluding to the puLiphlet of ilolyneux, published tliirty years before, he pronounced its arguments invincible, and the contrary ay stern 62* 618 POPULAR H18TOBT OF IRELAND. " the very definition of slavery." " The remedy," he conclude*, addressing the Irish people, " is wholly in your own hands, and therefore I have digressed a little, in order to refresh and con tinue that spirit so seasonably raised among you, and to let yon see, that, by the laws of God, of nature, of nations, and of your country, you are, and ought to be, as free a people ax your brethren in England." For this letter also, the printer, Harding, was in* dieted, but the Dublin grand jury, infected with the spirit of the times, unanimously ignored the bilL A reward of 300 was then issued from the castle for the discovery of the author, but no informer could be found base enough to betray him. For a time, however, to escape the ovations he despised, and the excitement which tried his health, Swill retired to his friend Sheridan's cot- tage on the banks of Loch Rumor, in Cavan, and there recreated himself with long rides about the country, and the composition of the Travels of the immortal Gulliver. Sir Robert Walpole, alarmed at the exhibition of popular intel- ligence and determination evoked by Swift, committed the gov- ernment of Ireland to his rival Lord Carteret whom he was besides not sorry to remove to a distance and appointed to the Bee of Armagh, which fell vacant about the tune of the currency dispute, l)r. Hugh Boulter, Bishop of Bristol, one of his owr areatures. This prelate, a politician by taste and inclination modeled his policy on his patron's, as far as his more contracted sphere and inferior talents permitted. To buy members in mar- ket overt, with peerages, or secret service money, was his chief means of securing a parliamentary majority. An Englishman by birth and education ; the head of the Protestant establishment in Ireland, it was inevitable that his policy should be English and Protestant, in every particular. To resist, depress, disunite, and defeat the believer* in the dangerous doctrines of Swift and Molyneux, was the sole rule of his nearly twenty years' political supremacy in Irish affairs. (1724-1742.) The master of a princely income, endowed with strong passions, unlimited patron- age, and great activity, he may be said to have reigned rather than led, even when the nominal vicefoyalty was in the .ands of such able and accomplished men as Lords Carteret, Donmt and Devonshire. His failure in his first state trial, against Harding POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 619 th i :inter, nothing discouraged him ; he had come into Ireland to secure the English interest, by uprooting the last vestiges of Popery and independence, and he devoted himself to those objects with persevering determination. In 1727 the year of George the First's decease he obtained the disfranchisement of Catholic electors by a clause quietly inserted without notice, in a Bill regu- lating elections ; and soon after he laid the foundations of those nurseries of proselytism, " the Charter Schools." CHAPTER II. EBIGN OF GEORGE IT. GROWTH OF PUBLIC SPIRIT THE " PATEIOT * PARTY LORD CHESTERFIELD'S ADMINISTRATION. THE accession of King George II. in 1727, led to no consider- able changes, either in England or Ireland. Sir Robert "Walpole continued supreme in the one country, and Primate Boulter in the other. The Jacobites, disheartened by their ill success in 1715, and repelled rather than attracted by the austere character of him they called King James III., made no sign. The new king's first act was to make public the declaration he had addressed to the Privy Council, of his firm resolution to uphold the existing constitution " in church and state." The Catholic population, beginning once more to raise their beads, thought this a suitable occasion to present a humble and loyal address of congratulation to the Lords Justices, in the absence of the viceroy. Lord Delvin and several of their num- ber accordingly appeared at the Castle, and delivered their address, which they begged might be forwarded to the foot of the throne. No notice whatever was taken of this document, either at Dublin or London, nor were the class who signed it permitted by law to " testify their allegiance " to the sovereign, for fifty years later down to 1778. The Duke of Dorset, who succeeded Lord Carteret as viceroy IE 1731, unlike his immediate predecessor, refrained from suggest Ing additional severities against the Catholics. His firs*, term of 020 POPULAR HISTORY 0V IRELAND. office two years was almost entirely occupied with th fiercest controversy which had ever waged in Ireland between the Established Church and the Protestant Dissenters. The ground of the dispute was the sacramental test, imposed by law upon the members of both houses, and all burgesses and councillors of corporate towns. By the operations of this law, when rigidly enforced, Presbyterians and other dissenters were as effectually excluded from political and municipal offices as Catholics them- selves. Against this exclusion it was natural that a body ao numerous, and possessed of so much property, especially in Ulster, should make a vigorous resistance. Relying on the great share they had in the revolution, they endeavored, though in effectually, to obtain under King William the repeal of the Test Act of King Charles II. Under Queen Anne they were equally unsuccessful, as we may still read with interest in the pages of Swift, De Foe, Tennison, Boyse, and King. Swift, especially, brought to the controversy not only the zeal of a churchman, but the prejudices of an Anglo Irishman, against the new-corners in the north. He upbraids them in 1708, as glad to leave their barren hills of Lochaber for the fruitful vales of Down and An- trim, for their parsimony and their clannishnesa. He denied to them, with bitter scorn, the title they had assumed of " Brother Protestants," and as to the Papists, whom they affected to des- pise, they were, in his opinion, as much superior to the Dissent- ers, as a lion, though chained and clipped of its claws, is a stronger and nobler animal than an angry cat, at liberty to fly at the throats of true churchmen. The language of the Presby- terian champions was equally bold, denunciatory, and explicit. They broadly intimated, in a memorial to parliament, that under the operatior of the test, they would be unable to take up arms again, aa they ad done in 1688, for the maintenance of the Protestant succession; a covert menace of insurrection, which Swift and their other opponents did not fail to make the most of Still farther to embarrass them, Swift got up a paper making out much stronger case in favor of the Catholics than of " their brethren, the Dissenter 5 ," and the controversy closed, for that age, in the complete triumph of the established clergy. This iniquitous deprivation of equal civil rights, accompanied POPULAR HISTORY Ol IRELAND. 621 with the onerous burthen of tithes falling heaviest on the culti- vators of the soil, produced the first great Irish exodus to the North American Colonies. The tithe of agistment or pasturage, lately abolished, had made the tithe of tillage more unjust and unequal. Outraged in their dearest civil and religious rights, thousands of the Scoto-Irish of Ulster, and the Milesian and Anglo-Irish of the other provinces, preferred to encounter the perils of an Atlantic flitting rather than abide under the yoke and lash of such an oligarchy. In the year 1729, five thousand six hundred Irish landed at the single port of Philadelphia ; in the next ten years they furnished to the Carolinas and Georgia the majority of their immigrants ; before the end of this reign, several thousands of heads of families, all bred and married in Ireland, were rearing up a free posterity along the slopes of the Blue Ridge in Virginia and Maryland, and even as far north as the valleys of the Hudson and the Merrimac. In the ranks of the thirteen United Colonies, the descendants of those non-conform- ists were to repeat, for the benefit of George III., the lesson and example their ancestors had taught to James II. at Enniskillen and at Derry. Swift, with all his services to his own order, disliked, and was disliked by them. Of the bishops he has recorded his utter con- \ tempt in some of the most cutting couplets that even he ever te. Boulter he detested ; Narcissus Marsh he despised ; with Dr. King, of Dublin, Dr. Bolton, of Cashel, and Dr. Horte, of Tuam, he barely kept up appearances. Except Sterne, Bishop of Clogher, Berkely, Bishop of Cloyne, and Stopford, his successor, he entertained neither friendship nor respect for one of that order. And on their part, the right reverend prelates cordially reciprocated his antipathy. They resisted his being made a member hi the Linen Board, a Justice of the Peace, or a Visito? of Trinity College. Had he appeared amongst them in parlia ment as their peer, they would have been compelled to accep. him as a master, or combine against him as an enemy. No wonder, then that successive viceroys shrank from nominating him to any of the mitres which death had emptied ; " the original sin of hii birth" was iggravat.ed in their eyes by the actual sin of his patriotism. No wonder the sheets of paper that littered his desk, 622 POPULAR HISTORY OP IRELAND. before he sunk into his last sad scene of dotage, were found scribbled all over with his favorite lines " Better we all were in our graves, Than live in slavery to slaves." But the seeds of manly thought he had so broadly sown, though for a season hidden even from the sight of the sower, were not dead, nor undergoing decay. With something of the prudence of their founder, " the Patriot party," as the opposition to the Castle party began to be called, occupied themselves at first with questions of taxation and expenditure. In 1729, the Castle at- tempted to make it appear that there was a deficit that in short '' the country owed the goverment" the large sum of 274,000 1 The Patriots met this claim, by a motion for reducing the cost of all public establishments. This was the chosen ground of both parties, and a more popularly intelligible ground could not be taken. Between retrenchment and extravagance, between high taxes and low, even the least educated of the people could easily decide; and thenceforward for upwards of twenty years, no session was held without a spirited debate on the supplies, and the whole subject of the public expenditure. The Duke of Devonshire, who succeeded the Duke of Dorset as viceroy in 1737, contributed by his private munificence and lavish hospitalities to throw a factitious popularity round his administration. No Dublin tradesman could find it in his heart to vote ngainst the nominee of so liberal a nobleman, and the public opinion of Dublin was as yet the public opinion of Ire- land. But the Patriot party though unable to stem successfully the tide of corruption and seduction thus let loose, held their difficult position in the legislature with great gallantry and ability. New men had arisen during the dotage of Swift, who revered his tun \5ira, and imitated his prudence. Henry Boyle, speaker of the House of Commons, afterwards Earl of Shannon ; Anthony Malone son of the confrere of Sir Toby Butler, and afterwards Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Edward O'Brien, member for Clare, and his son, Sir Lucius, member for Ennie were the pillars of the party. Out of doors, the most active spirit among the Patriots, was Charles Lucas, a native of Clare, who from hui POPULAR HISTORY OF IRSLAND. 623 fcpothecnry'd shop in Dublin, attempted, not without both talents, zeal and energy, to play the part of Swift, at the press and among the people. His public writings, commenced in 174.1, brought him at first persecution and exile, but they afterwards conducted him to the representation of the capital, and an honor- able niche in his country's history. The great event which may be said to divide into two epochs the reign of George II. was the daring invasion of Scotland in 1746, by " the young Pretender" Charles Edward. This brave and unfortunate Prince, whose adventures will live forever in Scottish song and romance, was accompanied from France by Sir Thomas Sheridan, Colonel O'Sullivau, and other Irish refugees, Btill fondly attached to the house of Stuart. It is not to be sun- posed that these gentlemen would be without correspondents in Ire- land, nor that the state of that country could be a matter of indiffer- ence to the astute advisers of King George. In reality, Ireland was almost as much their difficulty as Scotland, and their choice of a viceroy, at this critical moment, showed at once their esti- mate of the importance of the position, and the talents of the man. Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, a great name in the world of fashion, in letters, and in diplomacy, is especially memorable to us, for his eight months' viceroyalty ever Ireland. That office had been long the object of his ambition, and he could hardly have attained it at a time better calculated to draw out his eminent administrative abilities. By temper and conviction opposed to persecution, he connived at Catholic worship under the very walls of the Castle. The sour and jaundiced bigotry of the local oligarchy he encountered with bon mots and raillery. The only " dangerous Papist " he had seen in Ireland, he declared to the king on his return, was a celebrated beauty of that religion Miss Palmer. Relying on the magical effect of doing justice to all classes, and seeing justice done, he was enabled to spare four regiments of troops for the war in Scotland, instead of demanding additions to the Irish garrisons. But whether to diminish the influence which his brilliant administration had created in England, or through the machinations of the oligarchy, till powerful at Dublin, within ten days from the decisive bat C24 POPULAR BISTORT OF IRELAND. tie of Culloden, he was recalled. The fruits of bis policy might be already observed, as he walked on foot, his countess on his arm, to the place of embarkation, amid the acclamations of aD ranks and classes of the people, and their affectionate prayers for his speedy return. CHAPTER m. THX LAST JACOBITE MOVEMENT. THE IRISH SOLDIERS ABROAD. FRENCH EXPEDITION UNDER THTJROT, OR O'FARRELL. THE mention of the Scottish insurrection of 1745 brings natu- rally with it another reference to the history of the Irish soldiers in the military service of France. This year was in truth the most eventful in the annals of that celebrated legion, for while it was the year of Fontenoy and victory on the one hand, it was on the other the year of Culloden and defeat The decisive battle of Fontenoy, in which the Franco-Irish troops bore so decisive a part, was fought on the 1 1th of May, 1745. The French army, commanded by Saxe, and accompanied by King Louis, leaving 18,000 men to besiege Namur, and 6,000 to guard the Scheldt, took a position between that river and the %Uies, having their centre at the village of Fontenoy. The British and Dutch, under the king's favorite son, the Duke of Cumberland, were 65,000 strong; the French 45,000. After a hard day's fighting, victory seemed to declare so clearly against France, that King Louis, who was present, prepared for flight. At this moment Marshal Saze ordered a final charge by the seven Irish regiments under Counts Dillon and Thomond. The tid wa turned, beyond expectation, to the cry of " Remember Limer- ick P France was delivered, England checked, and Holland re duced from a first to a second-rate power upon that memorable day. But the victory was dearly bought One fourth of all th Irish office, including Count Dillon, were killed, and one-third of all the men. The whole number slain on the side of Franc* rOPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 625 was sel down at 7,000 by English accounts, while they admitted for theuselves alont, 4,000 British and 3,300 Hanoverians and Dutch "Foremost of all," says the just-minded Lord Mahon, " were the gallant brigade of Irish exiles." It was this defeat of his favorite son which wrung from King George II. the oft-quoted malediction on the laws which deprived him of such subjects. The expedition of Prince Charles Edward was undertaken and conducted by Irish aid, quite as much as by French or Scottish. The chief parties to it, besides the old Marquis of Tullibardin* and the young Duke of Perth, were the Waterses, father and son, Irish bankers at Paris, who advanced one hundred and eighty thousand hvres between them; Walsh, an Irish merchant at Kantz, who put a privateer of eighteen guns into the venture ; Sir Thomas Geraldine, the Pretender's agent at Paris ; Sir Thomas Sheridan, the prince's preceptor, who with Colonels O'Sullivan and Lynch, Captain O'Neil, and other officers of the brigade, formed the staff, on which Sir John McDonald, a Scottish officei in the Spanish service, was also placed. Fathers Kelly and O'Brien volunteered in the expedition. On the 22d of June, 1746, with seven friends, the prince embarked in Walsh's vessel, the Doutelle, at St. Nazaire, on the Loire, and on the 19th of July landed on the northern coast of Scotland, near Moidart. The Scottish chiefs, little consulted or considered beforehand, came slowly and dubiously to the landing-place. Under their patriarchal control there were still in the kingdom about a hun- dred thousand men, and about one-twelfth of the Scottish popu- lation. Clanronald, Cameron of Lochiel, the Laird of McLeod, and a few others, having arrived, the royal standard was unfurled on the 19th of August, at Glenfinin, where that evening twelve hundred men the entire army BO far were formed into camp, under the orders of O'Sullivan. From that day until the day of Cnlloden, O'Sullivan seems to have maneuvered the prince's for- ces. At Perth, at Edinburgh, at Preston, at Manchester, at Cul- loden, he took command in the field, or in garrison ; and even after the sad result, he adhered to his sovereign's son with an honorable fidelity which defied despair. Charles, on his part, placed full confidence in his Irish officers. In his proclamation after the battle of Preston, he declared it WM ft 626 POPULAR HISTORY OP IRKL1KD. not bis intention to enforce on the people of England, Scotland or Ireland, " a religion they disliked." In a subsequent paper, he asks, " Have you found reason to love and cherish your govern- ors as the fathers of the people of Great Britain and Ireland ? Has a family upon whom a faction unlawfully bestowed the dia- dem of a rightful prince, retained a due sense of so great a trust and favt>r ? " These and his other proclamations betrayed an Irish pen ; probably Sir Thomas Sheridan's. One of Charles's English adherents, Lord Elcho, who kept a journal of the cam- paign, notes, complainingly, the Irish influence under which be acted. " The prince and his old governor, Sir Thomas Sheridan/ are especially objected to, and the " Irish favorites," are censured in a body. While at Edinburgh, a French ship, containing some arms, supplies, and " Irish officers," arrived ; at the same time efforts were made to recruit for the prince in Ireland ; bit the agents being taken in some cases, the channel narrowly watched, and the people not very eager to join the service, few reeru~'ta were obtained. The Irish in France, as if to cover the inaction of their country- men at home, strained every nerve. The Waterses and O'Brien of Paris were liberal bankers to the expedition. Into their hands James " exhausted his treasury " to support his gallant son. At Fontainebleau, on the 23d of October, Colonel O'Brien, on the part of the prince, and the Marquis D'Argeusson for Louis XV., formed a treaty of " friendship and alliance," one of the clauses of which was, that certain Irish regiments, and other French troops, should be sent to sustain the expedition. Under Lord John Drummond a thousand men were shipped from Dunkirk, and arrived at Montrose in the Highlands about the time Charles had penetrated as far south as Manchester. The officers, with the prince, here refused to advance on London with so small a force ; a retreat was decided on ; the sturdy defence of Carlisle, and victory of Falkirk, checked the pursuit ; but the overwhelm- ing force of the Duke of Cumberland compelled them to evacu- aie Edinburgh, Perth, and Glasgow operations which consumed February, March, and the first half of April, 1746. The next plan of operations seems to have been to concentrate b. the western Highlands, wil i Inveiness for headquarters. Tht POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 627 town Charles easily got, but Fort George, a powerful fortress, built upon the site of the oastle where Macbeth was said to have murdered Duncan, commanded the Lough. Stapleton and hii Irish, captured it, however, as well as the neighboring Fort Au- gustus. Joined by some Highlanders, they next attempted Fort William, the last fortress of King George in the north, but on the 3d of April were recalled to the main body. To cover Inverness, his headquarters, Charles resolved to give battle. The ground chosen, flanked by the river Nairn, was spotted with marsh and very irregular ; it was called Cul- loden, and was selected by O'Sullivan. Brigadier Stapleton and Colonel Kerr reported against it as a field of battle ; but Charles adopted O'Sullivan's opinion of its fitness for Highland warfare. When the preparations for battle began, " many voices exclaimed, ' We'll give Cumberland another Fontenoy !' " The Jacobites were placed in position by O'Sullivan, " at once their adjutant and quartermaster general," and, as the burghers of Preston thought, " a very likely fellow." He formed two lines, the great clans being in the first, the Ogilvies, Gordons, and Murrays; the French and Irish in the second. Four pieces of cannon flanked each whig, and four occupied the centre. Lord George Murray commanded the right wing, Lord John Drummond the left, and Brigadier Stapleton the reserve. They mustered in all less than five thousand men. The British formed in three lines, ten thousand strong, with two guns between every second regi- ment of the first and second line. The action commenced about noon of April 16th, and before evening half the troops of Prince Charles lay dead on the field, and the rest were hopelessly bro- ken. The retreat was pell-mell, except where " a troop of the Irish pickets, by a spirited fire, checked the pursuit, which a body of dragoons commenced after the Macdonalds, and Lord Lewis Gor- don's regiments did similar service." Stapleton conducted the French and Irish remnant to Inverness, and obtained for them by capitulation " fair quarter and honorable treatment." The unhappy prince remained on the field almost to the last. " It required," says M r. Chambers, " all the eloquence, and in- ded all the active exertion, of O'Sullivan to make Charles quit the field. A cornet in his service, wht n questioned on this sub 628 frOPULAB BISTORT OF IRELAND. ject at the point of death, declared he saw O'Sullivan, after using entreaties in vain, turn the head of the prince's horse and drag kirn away." From that night forth, O'Sullivan, O'Neil, and a poor sedan carrier of Edinburgh, called Burke, accompanied him in all hia wan ierings and adventures among the Scottish islands. At Long Island they were obliged to part company, the prince proceeding aloue with Miss Flora McDonald. He had not long left, when a French cutter hove in sight and took off O'Sullivan, intending to touch at another point, and take in the prince and OTTeiL The name night she was blown off the coast, and the prince, after many other adventures, was finally taken off at Badenoch, on the 15th of September, 1746, by the L'Heureux, a French armed vessel, in which Captain Sheridan (son of Sir Thomas), Mr. O'Beirne, a lieutenant in the French army, " and two other gentlemen," had adventured in search of him. Poor O'Neil, in seeking to rejoin his master, was taken prisoner, carried to London, and is lost from the record. O'Sullivan reached France safely, where, with Stapleton, Lynch, and the Irish and Scotch officers, he was wel- comed and honored of all brave men. Such was the last struggle of the Stuarts. For years after, the popular imagination in both countries clung fondly to Prince Charles. But the cause was dead. As if to bury it forever, Charles, in despair, grew dissipated and desponding. In 1756, "the British Jacobites" sent Colonel McNamara, as their agent, to induce him to put away his mistress, Miss Walsingham, a de- mand with which he haughtily refused to comply. In 1766, when James III. died at Avignon, the French king and the Pope re- fused to acknowledge the prince by the title of Charles III. When the latter died, in 1788, at Rome, Cardinal York content*] himself with having a medal struck, with the inscription " Henri. CUB IX., Anglic Rex." He was the last of the Stuarta. Notwithstanding the utter defeat of the Scottish expedition, and the scatterment of the surviving companies of the brigade on all sorts of service from Canada to India, there were many of the exiled Irish in France, who did not yet despair of a national in- Burreotion ngidnat the house of Hanover. In the year 1769, an Imp ising expedition was fitted out at Brest under Admiral Co* *OPULAB HISTORY OF IRELAMD. 629 flans, and another at Dunkirk, under Commodore Thurot, whose real name was O'Farrell. The former, soon after putting to sea, was encountered at Quiberon by th English under Hawke, and completely defeated ; but the latte entered the British channel Unopposed, and proceeded to the appointed rendezvous. While cruising in search of Conflaus, the autumnal equinox drove the intrepid Thurot into the Northern ocean, and compelled him to winter among the frozen friths of Norway and the Orkneys. One of his five frigates returned to France, another was never heard of, but with the remaining three he emerged from the Scottish Islands, and entered Loch Foyle early in 1760. He did not, however, attempt a landing at Derry, but appeared suddenly be- fore Carrickfergus, on the 21st of February, and demanded its surrender. Placing himself at the head of his marines and sail- ors, he attacked the town, which, after a brave resistance by the commandant, Colonel Jennings, he took by assault. Here, for the first time, this earlier Paul Jones heard of the defeat of his admi- ral ; after levying contributions on the rich burgesses and pro- prietors of Carrickfergus and Belfast, he again put to sea. Hia ships, battered by the wintry storms which they had undergone in northern latitudes, fell in near the Isle of Man with three Eng- lish frigates, just out of port, under Commodore Elliott. A gal- lant action ensued, in which Thurot, or O'Farrell, and three hun- dred of his men were killed. The survivors struck to the victors, and the French ships were towed in a sinking state, into the port of Ramsay. The life thus lost in the joint service of France and Ireland, was a life illustrative of the Irish refugee class among whom he became a leader. Left an orphan in childhood, O'Farrell, though of a good family, had been bred in France in so menial a condition that he first visited England as a domestic servant. From that condition he rose to be a dexterous and successful captain in the contraband trade, so extensive in those times. In this capacity he visited almost every port of either channel, acquiring that ac- curate knowledge which added to his admitted bravery and capacity, placed him at length at the head of a French squadron. " Throughout the expedition," says Lord Mahon, " the honor and humanity of this brave adventurer are warmly acknowledged bj 53* 630 POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. his enemies. " He fought his ship," according to the same author, " until the hold was almost filled with water, and the deck COT" eued with dead bodies." CHAPTER IV. REIGN OF GEORGE H. (CONCLUDED.) MALONE*8 LEADERSHIP. THE Earl of Harrington, afterwards, Duke of Devonshire, suc- ceeded Lord Chesterfield in the government, in 1Y46. He waa provided with a prime minister in the person of the new Arch- bishop of Armagh, Dr. George Stone, whose character, if he waa not exceedingly calumniated by his cotemporaries, might be com- pared to that of the worst politicians of the worst ages of Europe. Originally, the son of the jailor of Winchester, he had risen by dint of talents, and audacity, to receive from the hands of hia sovereign, the illustrious dignity of Primate of Ireland. But even in this exalted office, the abominable vices of his youth accom- panied him. His house at Leixlip, was at once a tavern and a brothel, and crimes which are nameless, were said to be habitual under his roof. " May the importation of Ganymedes into Ire- land, be soon discontinued," was the public toast, which disguised under the transparent gauze of a mythological allusion, the in- famies of which ho was believed to be the patron. The prurient page of Churchill, was not quite so scrupulous, and the readers of the satire entitled " The Times," will need no further key to the horrible charges commonly received on both sides of the channel, against Primate Stone. The viceroyalty of In-hind, which had become an object of ambition to the first men in the empire, was warmly contested by the Earl of Harrington and the Duke of Dorset. The former, through his Stanhope influence and connections, prevailed over his rival, and arrived in Ireland warmly recommended by the popular Chesterfield. During his administration, Primate Stone, proceeding from one extreme to another, first put forward th dangerous theory, that all surplus revenue belonged of right to FOfULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 631 the crown, and might be paid over by the Vice-Treasurers, to his majesty's order, without authority of Parliament. At this period, notwithstanding, the vicious system of her land tenures, and her recent losses by emigration, Ireland found herself in possession of a considerable surplus revenue. Like wounds and bruises in a healthy body, the sufferings and deprivations of the population rapidly disappeared under the ap- pearance even of improvement in the government. The observant Chesterfield, who continued through life warmly attached to the country in which his name was remembered with so much affec- tion, expresses to his friend Chevenix, Bishop of "Waterford, in 1751, his satisfaction at hearing "that Ireland improves daily, and that a spirit of industry spreads itself, to the great increase of trade and manufactures." This new-born prosperity the pri- mate and politicians of his school would have met by an annual depletion of the treasury, instead of assisting its march by the reduction of taxes, and the promotion of necessary public works. The surplus was naturally regarded, by the Patriot party, in the light of so much national capital ; they looked upon it as an im. provement fund, for the construction of canals, highways and breakwaters, for the encouragement of the linen and other manu- factures, and for the adornment of the capital with edifices worthy of the chief city of a flourishing kingdom. The leader of the Patriot party, Anthony Malone, was compared at this period, by an excellent authority, to " a great sea in a calm." He was considered, even by the fastidious Lord Shel- burne, the equal, in oratory, of Chatham and Mansfield. He seems to have at all times, however, sunk the mere orator in the states- man, and to have used his great powers of argument even more in council, than in the arena. His position at the bar, as Prime Sergeant, by which he took precedence even of the Attorney- General, gave great weight to his opinions on all questions of constitutional law. The roystering country gentlemen, who troubled their heads but little with anything besides dogs and horses, pistols and claret, felt secure in their new-fledged patriot- ism, under the broad aegis of the law extended over them by the most eminent lawyer of his age. The speaker of the Commons, Henry Boyle, aided and assisted Malone, and when left free to oom 632 POPULAR BISTORT Of IKELAKD. bat OIL the floor, his high spirit and great fortune gave additional force to his example and confidence to his followers. Both were t en too cautious to allow their adversaries any parliamentary advantage over them, but not so their intrepid coadjutor out of doors, Apothecary Lucas. He, like Swift, rising from local and municipal grievances to questions affecting the constitution of Parliament itself, was in 174$, against all the efforts of his frienda in the llouse of Commons declared by the majority of that house to be, " an enemy to his country," and a reward was accordingly Issued for his apprehension. For a tune he was compelled to retire to England; but he returned, to celebrate in his Freeman's Journal the humiliation of the primate, and the defeat of the policy both of Lord Harrington, and his successor the Duke of Dorset. This nobleman, resolved to cast his predecessor into the shade by the brilliancy of his success, proceeded to take vigorous meas- ures against the patriots. In his first speech to Parliament in 1751, he informed them Ms majesty " consented " to the appro- priation of the surplus revenue, by the House of Commons, and a clause was added to the annual supply bill in the English council* containing the same obnoxious word, " consent." On this occa- sion, not feeling themselves strong enough to throw out the bill, and there being no alternative but rejection or acceptance; the Patriots permitted it to pass under protest. But the next session, when a similar addition was made, the Commons rejected the supply bill altogether, by a majority of 122 to 117. This was a measure of almost revolutionary consequence, since it left every branch of the public service unprovided for, for the ensuing twelve months. Both the advisers of the king in England, and the viceroy in Ireland, seemed by their insane conduct as if they desired to pro. voke such a collision. Malone's patent of precedence as Prime Sergeant was canceled ; the speaker was dismissed from the Privy Council, and the surplus revenue was withdrawn from the vice- treasurer, by a king's letter. The indignation of the Dubliners at these outrages rose to the utmost pitch. Stone, Healy, Hutchin- on, and others of the Castle party, were waylaid and menaced In the streets and the viceroy himself hooted wherever he ap- POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 633 peared. Had the popular leaders been men less cautious, or less influential, the year 1753 might have witnessed a violent revolu- tionary movement. But they planted themselves on the authority of the constitution, they united boldness with prudence, and they triumphed. The primate and his creatures raised against them in vain the cuckoo cry of disloyalty, both in Dublin and London. The English Whigs, long engaged themselves in a similar strug- gle with the overgrown power of the crown, sympathized with the Irish opposition, and defended their motives both in society and in Parliament. The enemies of the Dorset family as naturally took their part, and the duke himself was obliged to go over to protect his interest at court, leaving the odious primate, as one of the Lords-Justices. At his departure his guards were hardly able to protect him from the fury of the populace, to that water- Bide to which Chesterfield had walked on foot, seven years before, amid the benedictions of the same people. The Patriots had at this crisis a great addition to their strength, in the accession of James, the twentieth Earl of Kildare, succes. eively Marquis and Duke of Leinster. This nobleman, in the prime of life, married to the beautiful Emily Lennox, daughter of the Duke of Richmond, followed Dorset to England, and pre- sented to the king, with his own hand, one of the boldest memo- rials ever addressed to a sovereign by a subject. After reciting the past services of his family in maintaining the imperial connection, he declared himself the organ of several thousands of his majesty's liege subjects, " as well the nobles as the clergy, the gentry, and the commonalty of the kingdom. He dwells on the peculation and extravagance of the administration, under " the Duumvirate " of the viceroy and the primate, which he compares with the league of Strafford and Laud. He denounces more especially Lord George Sackville, son to Dorset, for his intermeddling in every branch of administration. He speaks of Dr. Stone as " a greedy churchman, who affects to b a second Wolsey in the senate." This high-toned memorial struck with astonishment the English ministers, who did not hesitate to hint, that, in a reign leas merciful, it would not have passed with impunity. In Ire- land it raised the hardy earl to the pinnacle of popular favor. A medal waa struck in his honor, representing him guarding a 634 1OPULAR BISTORT OF IRKLAHD. heap of treasure with u drawn sword, and the motto " Touch not, says Kildare." At the opening of the next parliament, he was a full hour making his way among the enthusiastic crowd, from his house in Kildare street to College Green. In little more than a year, the Duke of Dorset, whom English ministers had in vain endeavored to sustain, was removed, and the primate, by his majesty's orders, was struck from the list of privy councillors. Lord Harrington, now Duke of Devonshire, replaced the dis- graced and defeated Dorset, and at once surroui.4ed himself with advisers from the ranks of the opposition. The Earl of Kildare was his personal and political friend, and his first visit, on arriv- ing, was paid at Carton. The speaker, Mr. Boyle, the Earl of Bessborough, head of the popular family of the Ponsonbys, and Mr. Malone, were called to the privy council. Lucas, exalted rather than injured by years of exile, was elected one of the members for the city of Dublin, and the whole face of affairs promised a complete and salutaiy change of administration. After a year in office, Devonshire returned to England in ill- health, leaving Lord Kildare as one of the Justices, an office which he continued to fill, till the arrival in September, 1756, of John, fourth Duke of Bedford, as Lord Lieutenant, with Mr. Rigby " a good four bottle man," as chief secretary. The instructions of the Duke of Bedford, dictated by the genius and wisdom of Chatham, were, to employ " all softening and healing arts of government." His own desire, as a Whig, at the head of the Whig families of England, was to unite and con- solidate the same party in Ireland, so as to make them a powerful auxiliary force to the English Whigs. Consistently with this design, he wished well to the country he was sent to rule, and was sincerely desirous of promoting measures of toleration. But he found the Patriots distracted by success, and disorganized by the possession of power. The speaker who had straggled so suc- cessfully against his predecessors, was in the Upper House M Earl of Shannon, and the chair of the Commons was filled by John Ponsonby, of the Bessborough family. The Ponsonby following, and the Earl of Kildare's friends were at this period almost as much divided from each other in their views of public policy, as either wore fronr. the party of the primate. The Poor POPULAR HISTORY OP IRELAND. 635 onby party, still directed by Malone, wished to follow up the recent victory on the money bills, by a measure of Catholic relief, a tax upon absentees, and a reduction of the pension list, shamelessly burthened beyond all former proportion. Lord Kil- dare and his friends were not then prepared to go such lengths, though that high spirited nobleman afterwards came into most of these measures. After endeavoring in vain to unite these two interests, the Duke of Bedford found, or fancied himself com- pelled, in order to secure a parliamentary majority, to listen to the overtures of the obsequious primate, to restore him to the council, and to leave him together with his old enemy, Lord Shan- non, in the situation of joint administrators, during his journey to England, in 1758. The Earl of Kildare, it should be remarked, firmly refused to be associated with Stone, on any terms, or for any time, long or short. The closing of this important reign is notable for the first Catho- lic meeting held since the reign of Queen Anne. In the spring of 1757, four hundred respectable gentlemen attended by mutual agreement, at Dublin, among whom were Lords Devlin, Taafe, and Fingal, the antiquary Charles O'Conor, of Balanagar, the historian of the Civil Wars, Dr. Curry, and Mr. Wyse, a merchant of Waterford, the ancestor of a still better known laborer in the same cause. The then recent persecution of Mr. Saul, a Dublin merchant of their faith, for having harbored a young lady whose friends wished to coerce her into a change of religion, gave par- ticular significance to this assembly. It is true the proceedings were characterized by caution amounting almost to timidity, but the unanimous declaration of their loyal attachment to the throne, at a moment when French invasion was imminent, produced the best effect, and greatly strengthened the hands of the Clan- brassils, Ponsonbys, Malones, Dalys, and other advocates of an enlarged toleration in both houses. It is true no immediate legis- lation followed, but the way was prepared for future ameliora- tions by the discretion and tact of the Catholic delegates of 1757. They were thenceforth allowed at least the right of meeting and petitioning, of whinh they had long been deprived, and the restora- tion of which marks the first step in their gradual recovery of their wvil liberties. 036 POPULAR BISTORT OF IRELAND. In 1759, a rumor broke out in Dublin that a legislative union was in contemplation by the primate and his faction. On the 8d of December, the citizens rose en masse, and surrounded the house* of parliament. They stopped the carriages of members, and obliged them to swear opposition to such a measure. Some of thw Protestant bishops, and the Lord Chancellor, were roughly handled ; i privy councillor was thrown into the river ; the attorney gen- eral was wounded and obliged to take refuge in the college ; Lord Inchiquin was al-used till he said his name was O'Brien, when the rage of the people " was turned into acclamations. The spoaker, Mr. Ponsonby, and the chief secretary, Mr. Rigby, had to appear in the porch of the House of Commons, solemnly to assure the citizens that no union was dreamed of, and if it was pro- posed, that they would be the first to resist it Public spirit had evidently grown bold and confident, and we can well believe Secretary Rijrby when he writes to the elder Pitt, that "the O J mob " declared, " since they have no chance of numbers in the house, they must have recourse to numbers out of doors." CHAPTER V. ACCESSION OF OBOROE III. FLOOD'S LEADERSHIP. OOTBXWIAL PARLIAMENTS ESTABLISHED. GBOROE III., grandson of the late king, commenced, in Octo- oer, 1760, at the age of two and twenty, the longest reign in British history. Including the period of the regency, he reigned over his empire nearly sixty years, an extraordinary term of royal power, and quite as extraordinary for ita events as for iU extreme length. The great movement of the Irish mind, at the beginning of this reign, was the limitation of the duration of parliament, hitherto elected for the king's life. This reform, long advocated out of doors, and by the more progressive members within the honse, wns reserved for the new parliament under the new reign. To this parliament were returned several men of great promts^ POPULAR HI8TORT OF IRELAND. 637 inen of a new generation, nurtured in the school of Swift and Ma- lone, but going even beyond their masters in their determination to liberate the legislature of their country from the undue influ- ence of the crown and the castle. Among those new members were three destined to national celebrity, Dr. Lucas, Mr. Hussey Burgh, and Mr. Dennis Bowes Daly ; and one destined to univer- sal reputation Henry Flood. This gentleman, the son of a former Chief Justice, intermarried into the powerful oligarchic al family of the Beresfords, was only in his 28th year when first elected member for Kilkenny ; but, in point of genius and acquire- ments, he was even then the first man in Ireland, and one of the first in the empire. For a session or two he silently observed the forms of the house, preparing himself for the great contest to come ; but when at last he obtained the ear of his party he waa heard to some purpose. Though far from advocating extreme measures, lie had abundant boldness ; he was not open to the ob- jection leveled against the leader of the past generation, Mr. Malone, of whom Grattan said, " he was a colony-bred man, and he feared to bring down England upon Ireland," The Duke of Bedford vacated the viceroyalty in 1761, and Lord Halifax took his place. In the first parliamentary session, Dr. Lucas introduced his resolutions limiting the duration of par- liament to seven years, a project which Flood afterwards adopted and mainly contributed to carry. The heads of the bill embody- ing these resolutions were transmitted to London by the Lord- Lieutenant, but never returned. In 1763, under the government of the Marquis of Hertford, similar resolutions were introduced and carried, but a similar fate awaited them. Again they were passed, and again rejected, the popular dissatisfaction rising higher and higher with every delay of the reform. At length, in the session of 1767, "the Septennial Bill," as it was called, was returned from England, changed to octennial, and with this alter- ation it passed into law, in February, 1768. A new parliament the same year was elected under the new act, to which all the friends of the measure were triumphantly returned. The faithful Lucas, however, survived his success little better than two years ; be died amid the very sincere regrets of all men who wet-e not th enemies of their country. At his funeral the pall was borne by 64 638 POPULAR HISTOBT OF IRELAND. the Marquis of Kildire, Lord Charlemont, Mr. Flood, Mr. Burgh, Sir Lucius O'Brien and Mr. Ponsonby. Lord Halifax, and his chief secretary, Mr. Hamilton (known to us as " the single-speech Hamilton, " of literary history), re- ceived very graciously the loyal addresses presented by the Catho- lics, soon after his majesty's accession. In a speech from the throne, the viceroy proposed, but was obliged to abandon the pro- position, to raise six regiments of Catholics, under their own officers, to be taken into the service of Portugal, the ally of Great Britain. His administration was otherwise remarkable neither for its length nor its importance ; nor is there anything else of consequence to be mentioned of his lordship, except that hia nephew, and chief secretary, had the honor to have Edmund Burke for his private secretary, and the misfortune to offend him. During the government of the Marquis of Hertford, and his successor, Lord Townsend (appointed in 1768), the Patriot party contended on the ground of rendering the judges independent, diminishing the pension list, and modifying the law of Poynings, requiring heads of bills to be sent into England, and certified by both Privy Councils, before they could be passed upon by the legis- lature. The question of supply, and that of the duration of Parliament, being settled, these reforms were the next objects of exertion. When we know that the late king's mistresses, the Queen Dowager of Prussia, Prince Ferdinand, and other connec- tions of the royal family, equally alien to the country, were pen- sioners to the amount of thousands of pounds annually on the Irish establishment, we can understand more clearly the bitterness of the battle Mr. Flood and his colleagues were called upon to fight in assailing the old system. But they fought it resolutely snd perseveringly. Death had removed their most unscrupulous enemy, Primate Stone, during the Hertford administration, and the improved tone and temper of public opinion would not toler- ate any attempt to raise up a successor of similar character. Lord Townsend, an old campaigner and lion vivant, was expressly chosen as most capable of restoring the old system of government by closeting and corruption, but he found the Ireland of his day very materially altered from the defenceless province, which Stone and Dorset had attempted to cajole or to coerce, twenty yeara before, POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAKD. 639 The Parliament of 1769 the first limited Parliament which Ireland had seen since the revolution proved, in most repecta, worthy of the expectations formed of it. John Ponsonby waa chosen speaker, and Flood regarded, around him, well-filled benches and cheering countenances. 1 he usual supply bill waa passed and sent up to the castle, but on its return from England was found to be altered 15,000 men, among other changes, being charged to the Irish military establishment instead of 12,000, as formerly. The Commons resolute to assert their rights, threw out the bill, as had been done in 1753, and the Lord Lieutenant protesting in the House of Lords against their conduct, ordered them to be prorogued. Prorogation followed prorogation, till February, 1771, the interval being occupied in closeting and coquetting with members of the opposition, in the creation of new places, and the disposal of them to the relatives of those capable of being bought. No one was surprised, when the houses reas- sembled, to find that a bare majority of the Commons voted a fulsome address of confidence to the Lord Lieutenant. But this address, speaker Ponsonby indignantly refused to present. He preferred resignation to disgrace, and great was the amazement and indignation when his friend, Mr. Perry, elected by a bare majority, consented to take the post no longer a post of honor. In justice to Mr. Perry, however, it must be added that in the chair as on the floor of Parliament, he still continued the patriot that if he advanced his own fortunes, it was not at the expense of the country that some of the best measures passed by this and the subsequent Parliament, owed their final success, if not their first suggestion, to his far-seeing sagacity. The methods taken by Lord Townsend to effect his ends, not less than those ends themselves, aroused the spirit, and combined the ranks of the Irish opposition. The press of Dublin teemed with philippics and satires, upon his creatures and himself. The wit, the scholarship, the elegant fancy, the irresistible torrent of eloquence, as well as the popular enthusiasm, were against him, nd in 1772, borne down by these combined forces, he confessed his failure by resigning the sword of state into- the hands of Lord Harcourt. The new viceroy, according to custom, began his reign by taking 640 POPCLAB HI8IOBT 0* an exactly opposite course to his predecessor, and ended it by falling into nearly the same errors and abuses. He suggested an Absentee-tax, which was introduced by Flood, but rejected through the preponderating influence of the landed aristocracy. In pre- paring the tables of expenditure, he had caused arrears amounting to 265,000, and an annual increase of 100,000, to be added to the estimates. Moreover, his supply bill was discovered, at the second reading, to extend over two years instead of one a dis- covery which occasioned the greatest indignation. Flood raised his powerful voice in warning, not unmingled with menace ; Burgh declared, that if any member should again bring in such a bill, he would himself move his expulsion from the House ; while George Ogle, member for Wexford, proposed that the bill itself should be burned before -the porch, by the common hangman. He was reminded that the instrument bore the great seal ; to which he boldly answered, that the seal would help to make it burn the better. It was not thought politic to take notice of thia revolutionary retort. CHAPTER VI. KLui.I/8 LEADERSHIP. 8TATK OF TH* COUNTRY 1760 AND 1776. ENGLAND was engaged in two great ware during the period of Flood's supremacy in the Irish parliament the seven years' war, concluded by the peace of Paris in 17 63, and the American war, concluded by the treaty of Versailles, in 1788. To each of these Mars Ireland was the second largest contributor both aa to men 4i d money; and by both she was the severest sufferer, in her manufactures, her provision trade and her general prosperity. While army contracts and all sorts of military and naval expen- diture in a varietyof ways returned to the people of England the produce of their taxes, the Irish had no such compensation for the burdens imposed on their more limited resourced. The natu- ral result was, that that incipient prosperity which Chesterfield POPULAR BISTORT OF IRELAND. 641 hail 5d with pleasure in 17ol, was arrested in its growth, and fears began to be seriously entertained that the country would be driven back to the lamentable condition from which it had slowly and laboriously emerged during the reign of George II. The absence of employment in the towns threw the laboring classes more and more upon the soil for sustenance, while the landlord legislation of the period threw them as helplessly back upon other pursuits than agriculture. Agrarian injustice was en- countered by conspiracy, and for the first time in these pages, we have to record the introduction of the diabolical machinery of secret oath-bound association among the Irish peasantry. Of the first of these combinations in the southern counties, a cotempo- rary writer gives the following account : " Some landlords iu Muuster," he says, " have let their lands to cotters far above their value, and, to lighten their burden, allowed commonange to their tenants by way of recompense: afterwards, in despite of all equity, contrary to all compacts, the landlords enclosed these commons, and precluded their unhappy tenants from the only means of making their bargains tolerable." The peasantry of Waterford, Cork, and other southern counties met in tumultuous crowds, and demolished the new enclosures. The oligarchical majority took their usual cue on such occasions: they pronounced, at once, that the cause of the riots was " treason against the state ; " they even obtained a select committee to " inquire into the cause and progress of the Popish insurrection in Munster." Although the London Gazette, on the authority of royal commis- sioners, declared that the rioters " consisted indiscriminately ot persons of different persuasions," the Castle party would have it " another Popish plot." Even Dr. Lucas was carried away by the passions of the honr, and declaimed against all lenity, as coward- ly and criminal. A large military force, under the Marquis of Drogheda, was accordingly despatched to the suuth. The marquis fixed hia headquarters at Clogheen, in Tipperary, the parish priest of which was tl.e Rev. Nicholas Sheehy. The magistracy of the county, especially Sir Thomas Maude, "William Bagnel, John Bag. well. Daniel Toler and Parson Howitson, were among the chief maintainers of the existence of a Popish plot, to bring in th 54* 642 POPULAR HIBTORr OF IRELAND. French and the Pretender. Father Sheehy had long been fixed upon as their victim : largely connected with the minor gentry, educated in France, young, popular, eloquent and energetic, a stern denouncer of the licentious lives of the squires, and of the exact- ing tithes of the parsons, he was particularly obnoxious. In 1763, he was arrested on a charge of high treason, for drilling and enrolling Whiteboys, but was acquitted. Towards the close of 1 h at year, Bridge, one of the late witnesses against him, sud- denly disappeared. A charge of murder was then laid against the priest of Clogheen, and a prostitute named Dunlea, a vagranl lad named Lonergan, and a convicted horse stealer called Toohey were produced in evidence against him, after he had lain nearly i year in prison, heavily fettered. On the 12th of March, 1765, ht was tried at Clonmel, on this evidence ; and notwithstanding an alibi was proved, he was condemned and beheaded on the third day afterwards. Beside the old ruined church of Shandraghan, his well-worn tomb remains till this day. He died in his thirty- eighth year. Two months later, Edward Sheehy, his cousin, and two respectable young farmers named Buxton and Farrell, were executed under a similar charge, and upon the same testimony- All died with religious firmness and composure. The fate of their enemies is notorious ; with a single exception, they met deatha violent, loathsome and terrible. Maude died insane, Bagwell in idiocy, one of the jury commitied suicide, another was found dead in a privy, a third was killed by his horse, a fourth was drowned, a fifth shot, and so through the entire list. Toohey was hanged for felony, the prostitute Dunlea fell into a cellar and was killed, and the lad Lonergan, after enlisting as a soldier, died of a loath- some disease in a Dnblin infirmary. In 1767, an attempt to revive the plot was made by the Muno- ter oligarchy, without success. Dr. McEenna, Bishop of Cloyne, was arrested but enlarged ; Mr. Nagle, of Garnavilla (a relative of Edmund Burke), Mr. Robert Keating, and several respect- able Catholic gentlemen, were also arrested. It api>ears that Ed- mund Burke was charged by the ascendancy party with having " sent his brother Richard, recorder of Bristol, and Mr. Nagle, relation, on a mission to Monster, to levy money on the Popish body for the ne of the Whiteboys, who were exclusively Papist*." POPULAR HISTORY 0V IRELAND. 643 The fact was, that Burke did originate a subscription for the de- fence of the second batch of victims, who, through his ami other exertions, were fortunately saved from the fate of their predecessors. Contemporaneous with the Whiteboys were the northern agra- rians called " Hearts of Steel," formed among the absentee Lord Dowashire's tenants, in 1762; the "Oak Boys," so called from wearing oak leaves in their hats ; and the " Peep o'Day Boys," the precursors of the Orange Association. The infection of con- spiracy ran through all Ireland, and the disorder was neither Bhort-lived nor trivial. Right-Boys, Defenders, and a dozen other denominations descended from the same evil genius, whoever he was, that first introduced the system of signs, and passwords, and midnight meetings, among the peasantry of Ireland. The celebrated society of United Irishmen was the highest form which that principle, in our politics, ever reached. In its origin, it was mainly a Protestant organization. From the first, the Catholic bishops and clergy strenuously opposed these secret societies. The Bishop of Cloyne issued a reprobatory pastoral ; Father Arthur O'Leary employed his facile pen against them ; the Bishop of Ossory anathematized them in his diocese. Priests in Kildare, Kilkenny and Munster were often in personal danger from these midnight legislators j their chapels had been frequently nailed up, and their bishops had been often obliged to remove them from one neighborhood to another to prevent worse consequences. The infatuation was not to be Btayed : the evil was engrafted on society, and many a long year, and woful scene, and blighted life, and broken heart, was to signal- ize the perpetuation of secret societies among the population. These startling symptoms of insubordination and lawlessness, while they furnished plausible pretexts to the advocates of repres- eion, still further confirmed the Patriot party in their belief, that nothing short of a free trade in exports and imports, and a thorough system of retrenchment in every branch of the public service, could save the nation from bankruptcy and ruin. This was Flood's opinion, and he had been long recognized as the leading spirit of the party. The aged Malone, true to his principles of conciliation and constitutionalism to the last, passed away from the scene, in the midst of the exciting events of 1776. For som 644 POPULAK HISTORY OF IKELAHD. years before hia death, his former place had been filled by the younger and more vigorous member for Kilkenny, who, however, did not fail to consult him with all the deference due to his age, his services, and his wisdom. One of his last official acts, Tag, presiding ovci- the committee of the whole House, which voted the American contingent, but rejected the admission of German troops to supply their place. CHAPTER VII. ORATTAN'S LEADERSHIP. " FREE TRADE," AND THE VOUJNTEIRS, THE revolt of the American colonies against the oppressive legislation of the British parliament, was the next circumstance that deeply affected the constitutional struggle, in which the Irish parliament had so long been engaged. The similarity in the grievances of Ireland and the colonies, the close ties of kindred established between them, the extent of colonial commerce involved in the result, contributed to give the American Decla- ration of Independence more importance in men's eyes at Dublin, than anywhere else out of the colonies, except, perhaps, London. The first mention made of American affairs to the Irish legis- lature, was in Lord Townsend's message in 1775, calling for the despatch of 4,OuO men from the Irish establishment to America, and offering to supply their place by as many foreign Protestant (German) troops. The demand was warmly debated. The pro- position to receive the proffered foreign troops wis rejected by a majority of thirty -eight, and the contingent for America passed on a division, upon Flood's plea that they would go out merely as " 4,000 armed negotiators." This expression of the great parliamentary leader was often afterwards quoted to his preju- dice, but we must remember, that, at the time it was employed, no ouu .11 either side of the contest had abandoned all hopes of ,'romrn rlition, and that the significance of the phrase WM rather pointed against Lord North than against the colooiea. POPULAR HISTORY OF IRKLAND. 645 The 4,000 men went out, among them Lord Rawdon (afterwards Lord Moira), Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and many others, both officers and men, who were certainly no enemies of liberty, or the tolonies. Some slight relaxation of the commercial restrictions which operated so severely against Irish industry were made daring the same year, but these were more than counterbalanced by the em- bargo on the export of provisions to America, imposed in Febru- ary. 1776. This arbitrary measure imposed by order in council was so near being censured by the parliament then sitting, that the house was dissolved a month afterwards, and a new election ordered. To meet the new parliament it was thought advisable to send over a new viceroy, and accordingly Lord Buckinghamshire entered into office, with Sir Richard Herou as chief secretary. In the last session of the late parliament, a young protege of Lord Charlemont he was only in his twenty ninth year had taken his seat for the borough of Charlemont. This was Henry Grattan, son of the Recorder of Dublin, and grandson of one of those Grattans who, according to Dean Swift, " could raise 10,000 men." The youth of Grattan had been neither joyous nor robust ; in early manhood he had offended his father's conserva- tism ; the profession of the law, to which he was bred, he found irksome and unsuited to his tastes ; society as then constituted was repulsive to his over-sensitive spirit and high Spartan ideal of manly duty ; no letters are sadder to read, than the early cor- respondence of Grattan, till he had fairly found his inspiration in listening enraptured to the eloquent utterances of Chatham, or comparing political opinions with such a friend as Flood. At length he found a seat in the House of Commons, where during his first session he spoke on three or four occasions, briefly, modestly, and with good effect ; there had been no sitting during 1776, nor before October of the following year ; it was, therefore, in the sessions from "78 to '82 inclusive, that this young member raised himself to the head of the most eloquent men, in one of the most eloquent assemblies the world has ever seen. The fact of Mr. Flood, after fourteen years of opposition, hav tug accepted office under Lord Harcourf a administration, and 646 POPULAR BISTORT OF IRELAND. defended the American expedition and the embargo, had greatly lessened the popularity of that eminent man. There was indeed, no lack of ability still left in the ranks of the opposition for Burgh, Daly, and Yelverton were there ; but for a supreme spirit like Grattan whose burning tongue was ever fed from his heart of fire there is always room in a free senate, how many soever able and accomplished men may surround him. The fall of 1777 brought vital intelligence from America. Gen- eral Burgoyne had surrendered at Saratoga, and France had de- cided to ally herself with the Americans. The effect in England and in Ireland was immense. When the Irish houses met, Mr. Grattan moved an address to the king in favor of retrenchment, and against the pension list, and Mr Daly moved and carried an address deploring the continuance of the American war, with a governmental amendment assuring his majesty that he might still rely on the services of hifl faithful commons. The second Catholic relief bill authorizing Papists to loan money on mortgage* to lease lands for any period not exceeding 999 years to inherit and bequeath real property, so limited, passed, not without some difficulty, into law. The debate had been protracted, by adjourn- ment after adjournment, over the greatest part of three months ; the main motion had been further complicated by an amendment repealing the Test Act in favor of Dissenters, which was, fortun- ately, engrafted on the measure. The vote in the Commons, in favor of the bill so amended, was 127 yean to 89 nays, and in the Lords, 44 Content* to 28 Nonconients. In the English House of Commons, Lord Nugent moved, in April, a series of resolutions raising the embargo on the Irish provision trade ; abolishing, so far as Ireland was concerned, the most restrictive clauses of the Navigation Act, both as to ex- ports and imports, with the exception of the article of tobacco. Upon this the manufacturing and shipping interest of England taking the alarm, raised such a storm in the towns and citiee that the ministry of the day were compelled to resist the pro- poeed changes, with a few trifling exceptions. But Grattan had caught up, in the other island, the cry of " free trade," and the people echoed it after their orator, until the whole anipire dhook with the popular demand. POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 64 But what gave pith and power to the Irish demands was the en- rollment and arming of a numerous volunteer force, rendered abso- lutely necessary by the defenceless state of the kingdom. Mr. Flood had long before proposed a national militia, but being in op- position and in the minority, he had failed. To him and to Mr. Perry, as much as to Lord Charlemont and Mr. Grattan, the militia bill of 1778, and the noble army of volunteers equipped under its provisions, owed their origin. Whether this force was to be a regu- lar militia, subject to martial law, or composed of independent companies, was for some months a subject of great anxiety at the castle; but necessity at length precipitated a decision in favor of volunteer companies, to be supplied with arms by the state, but drilled and clothed at their own expense, with power to elect their own officers. The official announcement of this decision once made, the organization spread rapidly over the whole king- dom. The Ulster corps, first organized, chose as their com- mander the Earl of Charlemont, while those of Leinster elected the Duke of Leinster. Simultaneously, resolutions against the purchase of English goods and wares were passed at public meetings and by several of the corporate bodies Lists of the importers of such goods were obtained at the custom houses, and printed in handbills, to the alarm of the importers. Swift's sar- donic maxim, " to burn everything coming from England, except the coah" began to circulate as a toast in all societies, and the consternation of the castle, at this resurrection of the redoubta- ble Dean, wae almost equal to the apprehension entertained of him while living. While the castle was temporizing with both the military and the manufacture movement, in a vague expectation to defeat both, the press, as is usual in such national crises, teemed with publica- tions of great fervor and ability. Dr. Jebb, Mr. (afterwards Judge) Johnson, Mr. Pollock, Mr. Charles Sheridan, Father Arthur O'Leary, and Mr. Dobbs, M. P., were the chief workers in this department of patriotic duty. Cheered, instructed, re- strained within due bounds by these writings and the reported debates of parliament, the independent companies proceeded with their organization. In July, 1779, after all the resources of pre. YwicatJon had been exhausted, arms were issued to the several 848 POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. recognized corps, and the Irish volunteers became in reality national army for domestic protection and defence. When this point was reached, Mr. Grattan and his friends took anxious council as to their future movements. Parliament was to meet on the 12th of October, and in that sweet autumnal month, Grattan, Burgh and Daly met upon the seashore, near Bray, in view of one of the loveliest landscapes on earth, to form their plan for the session. They agreed on an amendment to the address in answer to the royal speech, demanding in explicit terms " free export and import " for Irish commerce. When par- liament met, and the address and amendment were moved, it was fonnd that Flood, Burgh, Hutchinson, and Gardiner, though all holding offices of honor and emolument under government, would vote for it. Flood suggested to substitute the simple term " free trade," and with this and one other verbal alteration suggested by Burgh, the amendment passed with a single dissenting voice. The next day the speaker, Mr. Perry, who was all along in the confidence of the movers of the amendment, Daly, Grattan, Burgh, Flood, Hutchinson, Ponsonby, Gardiner, and the whole house, went up with the amended address to the castle. The streets were lined with volunteers, commanded in person by the Duke of Lein- ct IT, who presented arms to the patriotic commons as they passed. Most of the leading members wore the uniform of one or other of the national companies, and the people saw themselves at the Bame moment under the protection of a patriotic majority in the legislature, and a patriot force in the field. No wonder their en- thusiastic cheers rang through the corridors of the castle with a strangely jubilant and defiant emphasis. It was not simply the spectacle of a nation recovering its spirit, but recovering it with all military 'eclat and pageantry. It was the disarmed armed and triumphant a revolution not only in national feeling," but in the externa. manifestation of that feeling. A change so profound Mtirrcd sentiments and purposes even deeper than itself, and sug- gested to the ardent imagination of Grattan the establishment of en- tire national independence, saving always the rights of the crown. The next day, the houses, not to be outdone in courtesy, voted their thanks to the volunteers for "their jnat and necessary exer. tionfl in defence of their country I " POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND, 648 CHAPTER VIIL SATTAN'S LEADERSHIP. LEGISLATIVE AND JUDICIAL INDEPEOTNC ESTABLISHED. THE task which Mr. Grattan felt called upon to undertake, was not revolutionary, in the usually accepted sense of the term. He was a Monarchist and a "Whig in general politics ; but he was an Irishman, proud and fond of his country, and a sincere lover of the largest religious liberty. With the independence of the judi- ciary and the legislature, with freedom of commerce and of con- ecience, he would be well content to stand by British connection. " The sea," he said, in his lofty figurative language, " protests against union the ocean against separation." But still, within certain legal limits, his task was revolutionary, and was under- taken under all the discouragements incident to the early stages of great constitutional reforms. Without awaiting the action of the English Parliament, in rela- tion to free trade, a public-spirited citizen of Dublin, Alderman. James Horan, demanded an entry at the custom house, for some parcels of Irish woolens,which he proposed exporting to Rotterdam, contrary to the prohibitory enactment, the 10th and llth of Wil- liam III. The commissioners of customs applied for instructions to the castle, and the castle to the Secretary of State, Franklin's friend, Lord Hillsborough. For the moment a collision similar to that which had taken place at Boston, on a not dissimilar issue, seemed imminent. A frigate was stationed off Howth, with in- structions, it was said, to intercept the prohibited woolens, but Alderman Horan, by the advice of his friends, allowed his appli- cation to remain on the custom house files. It had served its purpose of bringing home practically to the people, the value of the principle involved in the demand for freedom of exports and imports. At the same time that this practical argument was dis- fussed in every circle, Mr. Grattan moved in the House of Com- mon?, in amendment to the supply bill, that, "At this time it is inexpedient to grant new taxes." The government divided the 55 PrO POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. house, but to their mortification found only 47 supporters ; fol Grattan's amendment there were 170. A subsequent amendment against granting duties for the support of the loan fund, was also Jtrried by 138 to 100. These adverse votes were commonicated with great trepidation, by the Lord Lieutenant, to the British administration. At length Lord North thought it essential to make some concessions, and with this view he brought in resolutions, declaring the trade with the British colonize in America and Africa, and the free export of glass and woolens, open to the Irish merchant. A week later, similar resolutions were passed in the Irish Commons, and in February, 1780, " a free trade" hi the sense in which it had ben demanded, was established by law, placing Ireland in most re- spects, as to foreign and colonial commerce, on an equality with England. In February, the viceroy again alarmed the British administra- tion, with the reported movement for the repeal of " Poyning's law," the statute which required heads of bills to be transmitted to, and appoved in England, before they could be legislated upon. He received in reply, the royal commands to resist by every means in his power, any attempted " change in the constitution," and he succeeded in eliciting from the House of Lords, an address, strongly condemnatory of " the misguided men," who sought to raise such " groundless jealousies," between the two kingdoms. But the Patriot Commoners were not to be so deterred. They declared the repeal of Poyning's act, and the 6th of George I., to be their ultimatum, and notices of motion to that effect, were im- mediately placed on the journals of the House of Commons. In the early days of April, Grattan, who, more than any of our orators, except perhaps Burke, was sensitive to the aspects of external nature, and imbued with the poetry of her works, retired from the city, to his uncle Dean Mat-lay's house, Cellbridge Abbey, f< rmerly the residence of Swift's ill-fated Vaanessa. " Along the banks of that riyer," he said, many years afterwards, " amid the grovca wid bowers of Swift and Vannessa, I grew convinced that I was right ; arguments, unanswerable, came to ray mind, and what I 'hen presaged, confirmed me in my determination to per- *>ver*.' With an enthusiasm intensified and restrained but POPULAR BISTORT OF IRKLAHD. fl5J wonderful in the fire and grandeur of its utterance he rose in hia place, on the 19th of the month, to move that "the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland, are the only power competent to enact laws to bind Ireland." He was supported by Hussey Burgh, Yelverton, and Forbes ; Flood favored postponement, and laid tho foundation of his future estrangement from Grattan ; Daly was also for delay ; Fitzgibbon, afterwards Lord Clare, Provost Hufc chinson, and John Foster, afterwards Lord Oriel, resisted the motion. The Castle party moved in amendment that, " there being an equivalent resolution already on the journals of the House * alluding to one of the resolutions against Strafford's tyranny in lf>41 a new resolution was unnecessary. This amendment was carried by 136 to 79, thus affirming the formula of independence adopted in 1641, but depriving Grattan of the honor of putting it, in his own words, on the record. The substantial result, how- ever, was the same; the 19th of April was truly what Grattan described it, " a great day for Ireland." " It is with the utmost concern," writes the viceroy next day to Lord Hillsborough, " I must acquaint your lordship that although so many gentlemen expressed their concern that the subject had been introduced, the Bense of the House against the obligation of any statutes of the Parliament of Great Britain, within this kingdom, is represented to me to have been almost unanimous." Ten days later, a motion of Mr. Yelverton's to repeal Poyning's law, as far as related to the Irish privy council's supervision of heads of bills, was negatived by 180 to 105. During the remainder of the session the battle of independ- ence was fought on the Mutiny Bill The viceroy and the chief secretary, playing the game of power, were resolved that the influence of the crown should not be diminished, so far as the military establishments were concerned. Two justices of the peace in Sligo and Mayo, having issued writs of habeas corpux in favor of deserters from the army, on the ground that neither th British Mutiny Act, nor any other British statute, was binding on Ireland, unless confirmed by an act of its own legislature, brought up anew the whole question. Lord North, who, with al] his proverbial tact and good humor, in the House of Commons, ilways pursued the most arbitrary policy throughout the empire^ 054 FOPfLAB HISTORY OF IBKLAKD. proposed a perpetual Mutiny Bill for Ireland, instead of the Annual Bill, in force in England. It was introduced iu the Irish House of Commons by Mr. Gervase Parker Bushe, and, by a vote f>f two to one, postponed for a fortnight. During the interval, the British authorities remained obdurate to argument and re- monstrance. In vain, the majority of the Irish privy councillors advised concession ; in vain, Flood, who was consulted, pointed out the futility of attempting to force such a measure ; it was forced, and, under the cry of loyalty, a draft bill was carried through both houses, and remitted to England hi June. Early in August it was returned ; on the 12th it was read a first tune ; on the 16th a second; and it was carried through committee by 114 to 62. It was at this emergency the Volunteers performed the second act of their great drama of Ireland's liberation. A series of reviews were held, and significant addresses presented to Lord Camden (then on a visit to the country), Lord Charlemont, Mr. Flood, and Mr. Grattan. On the re-assembling of Parliament in August, when the bill was referred to, Mr. Grattan declared thai, he would resist it to the last ; that if passed into law, he and his friends would secede, and would appeal to the people in " a formal instrument." A new series of corporation and county meetings was convened by the Patriot party, which warmly condemned (lie Perpetual Mutiny Act, and as warmly approved the repeal of Poyning*s Act, and the 6th of George I. : questions which were all conceived to be intermixed together, and to flow from the assertion of a common principle. Parliament being prorogued in September, only threw the whole controversy back again into the furnace of popular agitation. The British government tried a lavish distribution of titles and a change of viceroys, Lord Carlisle being substituted in December for Lord Buckingham but the spirit abroad was too general and too earnest, to b quelled by the desertion of individuals, however numerous or influential. With Lord Carlisle, came, as chief secretary, Mr. E Jen, afterwards Lord Auckland ; he had been, with his chief, a peace commissioner to America, two years before, and had failed ; he was anintriguing nnd accomplished man, buthe proved himself as unequal as Heron or Rigby to combat the movement Independence FOPCLAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 058 Parliament was not again called together till the month o! October, 173- ; the interval being busily occupied on both sides with endeavors to create and sustain n party. Soon after the meeting, Mr. Grattan, seconded by Mr. Flood, moved for a limita- tion of the Mutiny Bill, which was lost ; a little later, Mr. Flood himself introduced a somewhat similar motion, which was also outvoted two to one ; and again, during the session, Mr. Yelver- ton having abandoned his promised motion against Poyning's law, on news of Lord Cornwallis's surrender reaching Dublin, Flood took it np, moved it, and was defeated. A further measure of relief for Roman Catholics, introduced by Mr. Gardiner, author of the act of 1778, and warmly supported by Grattan, was re- sisted by Flood in the one house, and Lord Charlemont in the other. It miscarried, and left another deposit of disagreement between the actual and the former leader of the Patriot party. Still no open rupture had taken place between the two Patriot orators. When the convention of the volunteers was called at Dungannon for the 16th of February, 1782, they consulted at Charlemont House as to the resolutions to be passed. They were agreed on the constitutional question ; Grattan, of his own gene- rous free will, added the resolution in favor of emancipation. Two hundred and forty-two delegates, representing 143 corps, unani- mously adopted the resolutions so drafted, as their own, and, from the old headquarters of Hugh O'Neil, sent forth anew an un- equivocal demand for civil and religious liberty. The example of Ulster soon spread through Ireland. A meeting of the Lein- ster volunteers, Mr. Flood in the chair, echoed it from Dublin ; the Munster corps endorsed it unanimously at Cork ; Lord Clan, rickarde summoned together those of the western counties at Portumna an historic spot, suggestive of striking associations. Strengthened by these demonstrations of public opinion, Mr. Grattan brought forward, on the 22d of February, his motion declaratory of the rights of Ireland. An amendment in favor of a six months' postponement of the question was carried ; but on the 16th of April, just two years from his first effort on the sub- ject (the administration of Lord North having fallen in the meantime), the orator had the satisfaction of carrying his arHresg declaratory of Irish legislative independence. It was on thi 55* 654 POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. occasion that he exclaimed : " I found Ireland on her knees ; 1 watched over her with a paternal solicitude ; I have traced her progress from injury to arms, and from arms to liberty. Spirit of Swift ! Spirit of Molyneux 1 your genius has prevailed I Ireland is now a nation ! in that new character I hail her ! and bowing to her august presence, I say, Esto perpetua I" Never was a new nation more nobly heralded into existence ! Never was an old nation more reverently and tenderly lifted up and restored ! The houses adjourned to give England time to consider Ireland's ultimatum. Within a month it was accepted by the new British administration, and on the 27th of May, the new Whig viceroy, the Duke of Portland, was authorized to announce from the throne the establishment of the judicial and legislative independence of Ireland. CHAPTER IX. THE ERA OF INDEPENDENCE. FIR81 rCRIOD. THE accession of the Rockingham administration to power, it 1782, was followed by the recall of Lord Carlisle, and the substi- tution, as viceroy, of one of the leading Lords of the Whig party. The nobleman selected to this office was William Henry, third Duke of Portland, afterwards twice prime minister ; then in the prime of life, possessed of a very ample fortune, and uniting in his own person the two great Whig families of Bentinck and Cavendish. The policy he was sent to represent at Dublin was nndoubtedly an imperial policy ; a policy which looked as anxi- ously to the integrity of the empire as any Tory cabinet could have desired ; but it was, in most other respects, a policy of con- ciliation and concession, dictated by the enlarged wisdom ef Burke, and adopted by the magnanimous candor of Fox. Yet by a genereus people, who always find it more difficult to resist liberal than an illiberal administration, it was, in reality, a policy more to be feared than welcomed ; for its almost certain effecti HISTORY OF IRELAND. 655 were to divide their ranks into two sections a moderate and an extreme paity between, whom the national cause, only half estab- lished, might run great danger of being lost, almost as soon as it was won. With the Duke of Portland was associated, as chief secretary, Colonel Fitzpatrick, of the old Ossory family, one of those Irish wits and men of fashion, who form so striking a group in the middle and later years of King George III. As the personal and political friend of Flood, Charlemont, and Grattan, and the first Irish secretary for several administrations, he shai ed the brilliant ovation with which the Duke of Portland was received, on hia arrival at Dublin ; but for the reason already mentioned, the im- perial in so far as opposed to the national policy, found an addi- tional advantage, in the social successes and great personal popu- larity of the new secretary. The critical months which decided the contest for independence April and May passed over fortunately for Ireland. The firmness of the leaders in both houses, the energy especially of Grattan, whose cry was " no time, no tune !" and the imposing attitude of the volunteers, carried the question. Lord Rocking- ham and Mr. Fox by letter, the new viceroy and secretary in per- son, had urged every argument for adjournment and delay, but Grattan's ultimatum was sent over to England, and finally and formally accepted. The demands were Jive. I. The repeal of the 6th of George I. II. The repeal of the Perpetual Mutiny Act. III. An Act to abolish the alteration or suppression of Bills. IV. An Act to establish the final jurisdiction of the Irish Courts and the Irish House of Lords. V. The repeal of Foy- ning's Law. This was the constitutional charter of 1782, which restored Ireland, for the first time in that century, to the rank and dignity of a free nation. Concession once determined on, the necessary bills were intro- duced in both parliaments simultaneously, and carried promptly intc law. On the 27th of May, the Irish houses were enabled to congratulate the viceroy that " no constitutional question any longer existed between the two countries." In England it wa proclaimed no less explicitly by Fox and his friends, that the in- dependency of the two legislatures, " was fixed and ascertaine4 650 POPULAR msroRY OP IRELAKD* forever." But there was, unfortunately, one ground for dispute still left, and on that ground Henry Flood and Henry Grattan farted, never to be reconciled. The elder Patriot whose conduct from the moment of his retire- ment from office, in consequence of his Free Trade vote and speech in '79, had been, with occasional exceptions arising mostly from bodily infirmity, as energetic and consistent as that of Grattan himself, saw no sufficient constitutional guarantee, in mere acta of parliament repealing other acts. He demanded " express re- nunciation " of legislative supremacy on the part of England while Grattan maintained the sufficiency of " simple repeal." It is possible even in such noble natures as these men had so strangely are we constituted that there was a latent sense of personal rivalry, which prompted them to grasp, each, at the larger share of patriotic honor. It is possible that there were other, and inferior men, who exasperated this latent personal rivalry. Flood had once reigned supreme, until Grattan eclipsed him in the sudden splendor of his career. In scholarship and in genius the elder Patriot was, taken all in all, the full peer of his suc- cessor ; but Grattan had the national temperament, and he found hia way more readily into the core of the national heart ; he was the man of the later, the bolder, and the more liberal school ; and such was the rapidity of his movements that even Flood, from '79 to '82, seemed to be his follower, rather than his coadju- tor. In the hopeful crisis of the struggle, the slower and more experienced statesman was for the moment lost sight of. The leading motions were all placed or left in the hands of Grattan by the consent of their leading friends ; the bills repealing the Mutiny Act, the 6th George I., and Poyning's law, were entrusted to Burgh, Yelverton, and Forbes ; the thanks of the house were voted to Grattan alone after the victory, with the substantial addition of 50,000 to purchase for him an estate, which should become an enduring monument of the national gratitude. The open rupture between the two great orators followed fast on the triumph of their common efforts. It was still the first month the very honeymoon of independence. On the 18th of June. Mr. Graf an took occasion to notice in his place, that a lsit British act relating to the importation of sugars, was so generally POPULAR HISTORY OP IRELAND. 657 worded as apparently to include Ireland ; but this was explained to be a mere error of the clerk, the result of haste, and on which would be promptly corrected. Upon this Mr. Flood first took occasion to moot the insufficiency of ".simple repeal," and the necessity of "express renunciation," on the part of England. On the 19th, he moved a formal resolution on the subject, which was superseded by the order of the day; but on the 19th of July, he again moved, at great length and with great power of logical and historical argument, for leave to bring in an Irish Bill of Rights, declaring " the sole and exclusive right of the Irish Par- liament to make laws in all cases whatsoever, external and inter- nal." He was supported by Sir Simon Bradstreet, Mr. English, and Mr. Walshe, and opposed by Grattan, who, in one of his finest efforts, proposed a counter resolution, "that the legislature of Ireland is independent; and that any person who shall, by writing or otherwise, maintain that a right in any other country, to make laws for Ireland, internally or externally, exists or can be revived, is inimical to the peace of both kingdoms." This ex- treme proposition pointing out all who differed from himself as public enemies the mover, however, withdrew, and substituted in its stead the milder formula, that leave was refused to bring in the bill, because the sole and exclusive right of legislation in the Irish parliament in all cases, whether externally or internally, hath been already asserted by Ireland, and fully, finally, and irrevocably acknowledged by the British Parliament. Upon this motion Flood did not think it advisable to divide the house, so it passed without a division. But the moot point thus voted down in parliament disquieted and alarmed the minds of many out of doors. The volunteers as generally sided with Flood as the parliament had sided with Grattan. The lawyer corps of the city of Dublin, containing all the great names of the legal profession, endorsed the constitu- tional law of the member for Kilkenny ; the Belfast volunteers did likewise ; and Grattan's own corps, in a respectful address, urged him to give his adherence to the views of " the best in- formed body of men in the kingdom," the lawyers' corps. Just at that moment Lord Abingdon, in the English House of Lords, gave notice of a mischievous motion to assert the external supr* 658 POPULAR HISTORY or IRHLAHD. macy of the English Parliament; and Lord Manslield, in ik King's Bench, decided an Irish appeal case, notwithstanding the recent statute establishing the judicial independence of the Irish courts. It is true the case had been appealed before the statute was passed ; and that Lord Abingdon withdrew his motion for want of a seconder ; but the alarm was given, and fhe populat mind in Ireland, jealously watchful of its new-born liberties, saw in these attempts renewed cause for apprehension. In opposition to all this suddenly awakened suspicion and jealousy, Grattan, who naturally enough assumed his own interest in preserving the new constitution to be quite equal to those who cast doubts on its security, invariably held one language. The settlement already made, according to his view, was final ; it was an international treaty ; its maintenance must depend on the ability and disposi- tion of the parties to uphold it, rather than on the multiplication of declaratory acts. Ireland had gone to England with a charter, not for a charter, and the nation which would insist upon the humiliation of another, was a foolish nation. This was the lofty light in which he viewed the whole transaction, and in this light, it must be added, he continued to view it till the last. Many of the chief English and Irish jurists of his time, Lord Camden, Lord Kenyon, Lord Erskine, Lord Kilwarden, Judges Chamber- lain, Smith and Kelly, Sir Samuel Rommilly, Sir Arthur Pigott, and several others, agreed fully in Grattan's doctrine, that the settlement of '82 was final and absolute, and " terminated all British jurisdiction over Ireland." But although these are all great names, the instinct of national self-preservation may be considered in such critical moments more than a counterpoise to the most matured opinions of the oracles of the law. Such must have been the conviction also of the English Parliament, for, im- loediately on their meeting in January, 1788, they passed the Act of Renunciation (23d George III.), expressly declaring their admission of the " exclusive rights of the parliament and court* of Ireland in matters of legislature and judicature." This waa Flood's greatest triumph. Six months before his doctrine ob- tained but three supporters in the Irish Commons ; now, at hia suggestion, and on his grounds, he saw it unanimously affirmed by the British Parliament. POPULAB BISTORT OT IRELAND. 659 On two other questions of the utmost importance these jeading spirits also widely differed. Grattan was in favor of, and Flood opposed to Catholic emancipation ; while Flood was in favor of, and Grattan, at that moment, opposed to, a complete reform of parliamentary representation. The Catholic question had its next great triumph after Flood's death, as will be mentioned fur- ther on ; but the history of the Irish reform movement of 1788, '84, and '86, may best be disposed of here. The Reformers were a new party rising naturally out of the popular success of 1782. They were composed of all but a few of the more aristocratic corps of the volunteers, of the towns- men, especially in the seaports and manufacturing towns, of the admirers of American example, of the Catholics who had lately acquired property and recognition, but not the elective franchise, of the gentry of the second and third degree of wealth, over- uled and overshadowed by the greater lords of the soil. The substantial grievance of which they complained was, that of the 800 members of the House of Commons, only 72 were returned by the people; 63 Peers having the power to nominate 123 and secure the election of 10 others; while 52 Commoners nominated 91 and controlled the choice of 4 others. The constitution of what ought to have been the people's house was, therefore, sub- stantially in the hands of an oligarchy of about a hundred great proprietors, bound together by the spirit of their class, by inter- marriage, and by the hereditary possession of power. To reduce this exorbitant influence within reasonable bounds, was the just and wise design to which Flood dedicated all his energies, after the passage of the Ad of Renunciation, and the success of which would certainly have restored him to complete equality with Grattan. In the beginning of 1783, the famous coalition ministry, of Lord North and Mr. Fox, was formed in England. They were* at first represented at Dublin Castle, for a few months, by Lord Temple, who succeeded the Duke of Portland, and established the order of Knights of Saint Patrick ; then by Lord Northing- ton, who dissolved Parliament early in July. A general election followed, and the reform party made their influence felt in all directions. County meetings were held ; conventions by district* 660 POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. and by provinces were called by the reforming Volunteers, ii July, Angust and September. The new Parliament was to b opened on the 14th of October, and the Volunteers resolved to call a convention of their whole body at Dublin, for the 10th of November. The Parliament met according to summons, but though search- ing retrenchment was spoken of, no promise was held out of a constitutional reform ; the limitation of the regular troops to a fixed number was declared advisable, and a vote of thanks to the Volunteers was passed without demur. But the proceedings of the houses were soon eclipsed by the portentous presence of the Volunteer Convention. One hundred ai. J sixty delegates of corps attended on the appointed day. The Royal Exchange was too small to aeeomodate them, so they adjourned to the Rotunda, accompanied by mounted guards of honor. The splendid and eccentric Bishop of Derry (Earl of Bristol), had his dragoon guards ; the courtly but anxious Charlemont had his troop of horse ; Flood, tall, emaciated, and solemn to sadness, was hailed with popular acclamations ; there also marched the popular Mr. Day, afterwards Judge, Robert Stewart, father of Lord Castle- reagh, Sir Richard Musgrave, a reformer also, in his youth, who lived to confound reform with rebellion in his old age. The Earl of Charlemont was elected president of this imposing body, and for an entire month Dublin was divided between the extraordinary spectacle of two legislatures one sitting at the Rotunda, and the other at College Green, many members of each being members of the other ; the uniform of the volunteer sparkling in the houses, and the familiar voices of both houses being heard de- liberating and debating among the volunteers. At length, on the 29th of November, after three weeks' labor- ions gestation, Flood brought before Parliament the plan of re* form agreed to by the convention. It proposed to extend the franchise to every Protestant freeholder possessed of a lease worth forty shillings yearly ; to extend restricted borough constituen- cies by annexing to them neighboring populous parishes ; that the voting should be held on one and the same day ; that pen. loners of the crown should be incapable of election ; that mem. bers accepting office should be subject to reelection ; that a stria POPULAR HISTORY OP IRELAND. 661 gent bribery oath should be administered to candidates returned , and, finally, that the duration of Parliament should be limited to three years. It was, indeed, an excellent Protestant Reform bill, for though the convention had received Father Arthur O'Leary with military honors, and contained many warm friends of Catholic rights, the majority were still intolerant of religiou* freedom. In this majority it is painful to have to record the names of Flood and Charlemont. The debate which followed the introduction of this proposed change in the constitution, was stormy beyond all precedent. Grattan, who just one month before (Oct. 28th) had that fierce vituperative contest with Flood familiar to every school-boy, in its worst and most exaggerated form, supported the proposal. The law officers of the crown, Fitzgibbon, Yelverion, Scott, de- nounced it as an audacious attempt of armed men to dictate to the house its own constitution. The cry of privilege and prero- gative was raised, and the measure was rejected by 157 to 77. Flood, weary in mind and body, retired to his home ; the Con- vention, which outsat the house, adjourned amid the bitter in- dignation of some, and the scarcely concealed relief of others. Two days later they met and adopted a striking address to th throne, and adjourned tine die. This was, in fact, the last Im- portant day of the Volunteers as a political institution. An attempt a month later to reassemble the convention, was dexter- ously defeated by the President, Lord Charlemont. The regular army was next session increased to 15,000 men ; 20,000 were voted to clothe and equip a rival force " the Militia " and the Parliament which had three times voted them its thanks, now began to look with satisfaction on their rapid disorganization nd disbandment. This, perhaps, is the fittest place to notice the few remaining years of the public life of Henry Flood. After the session of 1785, in which he had been outvoted on every motion he proposed, he retired from the Irish Parliament, and allowed himself to be persuaded, at the age of fifty-three, to enter the English. He was elected for "Winchester, and made his first essay on the new scene, on h'u favorite subject of representative reform. But his health was undermined; he failed, except on one or two occasions, to 66 602 rOPDLAB HIBTORT UF IRELAKD. catch the ear of that fastidious assembly, and the figure he made there somewhat disappointed his frends. He returned to Kil- kenny fe > die in 1791, bequeathing a large portion of his fortune to Trinhy College, to enrich its MS. library, and to found a per- manent professorship of the Irish language. " He was an oak of the forest," said Grattan, " too old to be transplanted at fifty." " He was a man," eaid one who also knew him well, Sir Jonah Barrington, "of profound abilities, high manners, and great ex- perieuce in the affairs of Ireland. He bad deep information, an extensive capacity, and a solid judgment" In his own magnifi- cent " Ode to Fame " he has pictured his ideal of the Patriot orator, who find* some consolation amid the unequal struggle with the enemies of his country, foreign and domestic, in a pro- phetic vision of his own renown. Unhappily, the works of this great man come down to us in as fragmentary a state as those of Chatham ; but enough remains to enable us to class him amongst the greatest masters of our speech, and, as far as the drawbacks allowed, among the foremost statesmen of his country. It ia painful to be left in doubt, as we are, whether he was ever reconciled to Grattan. The presumption, from the silence of their cotemporaries, is, that they they never met again as friends. But it is consoling to remember that in his grave, the Hurvivor rendered him that tribute of justice which almost takes the undying sting out of the philippic of 1783; it is well to know, also, that one of Grattau's latest wishes, thirty years after the death of Flood, when he felt his own last hours approaching, was, that it should be known that he " did not speak the vile buse reported in the Debates" in relation to his illustrious rival. The beet proof that what he did say was undeserved, is that that rival's reputation for integrity and public spirit has tor rived even his terrible onslaught. POPULAR BISTORT 07 IRELAND. 663 CHAPTER X THE ERA OF INDEPENDENCE. SECOND PERIOD., THE second period of the era of independence may be taid to embrace the nine years extending from the dissolution of the last Volunteer Convention, at the end of 1784, to the passage of the Catholic Relief Bill of 1*793. They were years of continued in- terest and excitement, both in the popular and parliamentary affairs of the country ; but the events are, with the exception of the last named, of a more secondary order, than those of the pre- vious period. The session of 1785 was first occupied with debates relating to what might be called the cross-channel trade between England and Ireland. The question of trade brought with it, necessarily, the question of revenue; of the duties levied in both kingdoms; of the conflict of their commercial laws, and the necessity of their assimilation ; of the appropriations to be borne by each, to the general expense of the army and navy ; of the exclusive right of the English East India Company to the Indian trade ; in short, the whole of the fiscal and commercial relations of the two coun- tries were now to be examined and adjusted, as their constitu- tional relations had been in previous years. The first plan came from the castle, through Mr. Thomas Orde, then chief secretary, afterwards Lord Bolton. It consisted of eleven propositions, embracing every division of the subject. They had been arrived at by consultation with Mr. Joshua Pirn, a most worthy Quaker merchant, the founder of an equally worthy family, Mr. Grattan, Mr. Foster and others. They were passed as resolutions in Ireland, and sent by Mr. Orde to England to see whether they would be adopted there also : the second Pitt, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, gave his concurrence, but when he Introduced to the English Parliament his resolutions twenty in number it was found that in several important respects they differed from the Irish propositions. On being taken up and pre- sented to the Irish Parliament, in August, the administration 664 POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. found they could command, in a full house, only a aajority of sixteen for their introduction, and so the whole arrangement wa* abandoned. No definite commercial treaty between the two king- doms was entered into until the Union, and there can be little doubt that the miscarriage of the convention of 1785, was one of the determining causes of that Union. The next session was chiefly remarkable for an unsuccessful attempt to reduce the Pension List. In this debate, Curran, who had entered the House in 1783, particularly distinguished him- self. A fierce exchange of personalities with Mr. Fitzgibbon led to a duel between them, in which, fortunately, neither was wound- ed, but their public hostility was transferred to the arena of the courts, where some of the choicest morceaux of genuine Irish wit were uttered by Curran, at the expense of his rival, first as Attor- ney-General, and subsequently as Chancellor. The session of 1787 was introduced by a speech from the throne, in whtch the usual paragraph in favor of the Protestant Charter Schools was followed by another advising the establish- ment of a general system of schools. This raised the entire question of education, one of the most difficult to deal with in the whole range of Irish politics. On the 10th of April, Mr. Orde, destined to be the author of just, but short-lived projects intro- duced his plan of what might be called national education. He proposed to establish four great provincial academies, a second university in some north-western county, to reform the twenty- two diocesan schools, so richly endowed under the 28th Henry VIII., and to affiliate on Trinity College two principal preparatory schools, north aud south. In 1784, and again in this very year, the humane John Howard had reported of the Irish Charter Schools, then half a century established, that they were " a di grace to all society." Sir J. Fitzpatrick, the Inspector of Prisons, confirmed the general impression of Howard : he found the chil- dren in these schools " puny, filthy, ill clothed, without linen, in- decent to look upon." A series of resolutions was introduced by Mr. Orde, as the basis of butter legislation in the next session; but it is to be regretted that the proposed reform never went far- ther than the introduction and adoption of these resolutions. The session of 1788 was signalized by a great domestic and * POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 665 great imperial discussion the Tithe question, and the Regency question. The Tithe question had slumbered within the walls of parliament ince the days of Swift, though not in the lonely lodges of the se- cret agrarian societies. Very recent outbreaks of the old agrarian combinations against both excessive rents and excessive tithes, in the Leinster as well as in southern counties, had called general at- tention to the subject, when Grattan, in 1787, moved that, if it should appear by the commencement of the following session that tran- quillity had been restored in the disturbed districts, the House would take into consideration the subject of tithes. Accordingly, very early in the next ensuing session, he moved for a committee on the subject, in a three-hours' speech, which ranks among the very highest efforts of his own or any other age. He was seconded by Lord Kingsborough, one of the most liberal men of his order, and sustained by Curran and Brownlow ; he was opposed by Attorney- General Fitzgibbon, and by Messrs. Hobart, Browne and Parsons. The vote was, for the Committee of Inquiry 49; against it, 121. A second attempt, a little later in the session, was equally unsuc- cessful, except for the moral effect produced out of doors by an- other of those speeches, which it is impossible to read even at this day, without falling into the attitude, and assuming the into, nation, and feeling the heartfelt inspiration of the orator. The Regency question was precipitated upon both parliament* by the mental disorder, which, for the second or third time, at- tacked George III., in 1788. The question was, whether the Prince of Wales should reign with as full powers as if his father were actually deceased; whether there should be restrictions or no restrictions. Mr. Pitt and his colleagues contended successfully for restrictions in England, while Mr. Fox and the opposition took the contrary position. The English Houses and people went with Pitt, but the Irish Parliament went for an unconditional regency. They resolved to offer the crown of Ireland to him they considered de facto their sovereign, as freely as they had rendered their allegiance to the incapable king ; but the Lord Lieutenant the Marquis of Buckingham declined to transmit their over-zealous address, and by the tune their joint delegation ef both Houses reached London, George III. had recovered I 56* 000 rOFULAfi BISTORT O? IRELAND. They received the most gracious reception at Carlton House, bul they incurred the implacable enmity of William Pitt, and creited a second determining cause in his mind in favor of an early legislative union. The prospect of the accession of the prince to power, -wrought a wonderful and a salutary change, though temporary, in the Irish Commons. In the session of 1789, Mr. Grattan carried, by 105 to 85, a two months', in amendment to a twelve-months' supply bilL Before the two months expired he brought in his police bill, hia pension bill, and his bill to prevent officers of the revenue from voting at elections, but e'er thea reforms could be passed into law, the old king recovered, the necessary majority was reversed, and the measures, of course, defeated or delayed till better times. Tiie triumph of 'MG oligarchy was in proportion to their fright. The House having passed a vote of censure on Lord Buckingham the viceroy, for refusing to transmit their address to the Regent, a threat was now held out that every one who had voted for the censure, holding an office of honor oremolumeutin Ireland, would be made " the victim of his vote." In reply to this threat a " Round Robin," was signed by the Duke of Leinster. the Arch- bishop of Timm, eighteen peers, all the leading Whig commoners the Ponsonbys, Langrishes, Grattan, Connolly, Curran, O'Neill, Day, Charles Francis Sheridan, Bowes Daly, George Ogle, etc., etc. declaring that they would regard any such proscription as an attack on the independence of Parliament, and would jointly oppose any administration who should resort to such proscription. But the bold and domineering spirit of Fitzgibbon the leader of the Castle party, then, and long afterwards did not shrink before even so formidable a phalanx. The Duke of Leinster was dis- missed from the honorary office of Master of the Rolls, the Earl of Shannon, from the Vice-Treasurership, William Ponsonby from tlie office of Postmaster general, Charles Francis Sheridan, from that of Secretary at War, and ten or twelve other prominent members of the Irith administration lost places and pensions tc the value of 20,000 a year, for their over-zeal for the Prince of Wales. At the same time, Mr. Fitzgibbon was appointed Lord Chancellor, a vacancy having opportunely occured, by She death of Lord Lifford, in the very midst of the prescriptive crisia POPULAR HISTORY OT IRELAirD. 6dt This elevation transferred him to the Upper House, where for the remaining years of the Parliament he continued to dogmatize and domineer, as he had done in the Commons, often rebuked, but never abashed. Indeed, the milder manners of the patrician body were ill suited to resist this ermined demagogue, whose motto through life was audacity, again audacity, and always audacity. The names of Wolfe, Toler, Corry, Coote, Beresford, and Cooke, are also found among the promotions to legal and administrative office ; names familiar to the last generation as the pillars of the oligar- chical faction, before and after the Union. To swamp the oppo- sition peers, the Earls of Antrim, Tyrone, and Hillsborough were made Marquises of Antrim, Waterford, and Downshire ; the Vis- counts Glenawley, Enniskillen, Erne, and Carysfort, were created Earls of Annesley.Enniskillen. Erne, and Carysfort. Then Judge Scott, became Viscount Clonmel ; then the Lordships of Loftus, Londonderry, Kilmaine, Cloncurry, Mountjoy, Glentworth, and Caledon, were founded for as many convenient Commoners, who either paid for their patents, in boroughs, or in hard cash. It was the very reign and carnival of corruption, over which pre- sided the invulnerable chancellor a true " King of Misrule." In reference to this appalling spectacle, well might Grattan exclaim " In a free country the path of public treachery leads to the block ; but hi a nation governed like a province, to the helm I" But the thunders of the orator fell and were quenched in the wide spreading waters of corruption. The Whig Club an out-of-door auxiliary of the opposition was a creation of this year. It numbered the chief signers of the " Round Robin," and gained many adherents. It exercised very considerable influence in the general election of 1790, and for the few following years, until it fell to pieces in the presence of the more ardent politics which preceded the storm of 1798. Backed though he was by Mr. Pitt, both as his relative and principal, the Marquis of Buckingham was compelled to resign the government, and to steal away from Dublin, under cover of night, like an absconding debtor. The Chancellor and the Spcake* Fitzgibbon and Foster, Irishmen at least by bi-th and in nam were sworn in as Justices, until the arriva] of the Earl of Westmoreland, in the ensuing January. 66 FoPULAft fliftTORY OF The two last viceroys of the decade thus closed, form a marked contrast worthy of particular portraiture. The Duke of Rutland, a dashing profligate, wa sent over, it was thought, to ruin pur lit liberty by undermining private virtue, a task in which he found a willing helpmate in his beautiful but dissipated Duchess. During his three years' reign were sown the seeds of that reckless private expenditure, and general corruption of manners, which drove so many bankrupt lords and gentlemen into the market overt, where Lord Castlereagh and Secretary Cooke, a dozen years later, pi-iced the value of their parliamentary cattle. Lord Rutland died of dissipation at little over thirty, and was suc- ceeded by the Marquis of Buckingham (formerly Lord Temple), the founder of the Irish Order of Chivalry, a person of the great- est pretensions, as a reformer of abuses and an enemy of govern, ment by corruption. Yet with all his affected superiority to the bse arts of his predecessor, the Marquis's system was still more opposite to every idea of just government, than the Duke's. The ore outraged public morals, the other pensioned and ennobled the betrayers of public trusts; the one naturalized the gamingtable and the keeping of mistresses as customs of Irish society ; the other sold or allowed the highest offices and honors of the state from a weighership in the butter market to an earl's coronet to be put up at auction, and knocked down to the highest bidder. How cheering in contrast with the shameful honors, flauntd abroad in those shameful days, are even the negative virtues of the Whig patricians, and how splendid the heroic constancy of Charlemont, Grattan, Curran, and their devoted minority of honest legislators I With Lord Westmoreland, was associated, as chief secretary, Mr. Hohnrt, formerly in the army, a man of gay, convivial habit* rery accomplished, and, politically, very unprincipled. These gentlemen, both favorites of Pitt, adopted the councillors, and continued the policy of the late viceroy. In pursuance of tlm policy a dissolution took place, and the general election of 1790 was ordered. We have already exhibited the influences which controlled the choice of members of the House of Commons. Of the one hundred and five groat proprietors, who owned two-thirdi of the si-atB, perhaps a fourth might be found in the ranks of th tOlTJLAR HISTORY OF IRELAND^ C60 Whig club. The Only other hope for the national party -^a in the boroughs, which possessed a class of freemen, engaged in trade, too numerous to be bought, or too public spirited to be dictated to. Both influences combined might hope to return a powerful minority, and on this occasion (1790) they certainly did so. Grat- tan and Lord Henry Fitzgerald were elected for Dublin, over the Lord Mayor and one of the Aldermen, backed by the whole power of the Castle ; Curran, Ponsonby, Brownlow, Forbes, and nearly all " the victims of their vote," were reflected. To these old familiar names were now added others destined to equal if not still wider fame: Arthur Wellesley, member for Trim, Arthur O'Connor, member for Phillipstown, Jonah Barrington, member for Tuam, and Robert Stewart, one of the members for the county Down, then only in his twenty-second year, and, next to Lord Ed- ward Fitzgerald, lately elected for Athy, the most extreme reformer among the new members. Arthur O'Connor, on the other hand, commenced his career with the court by moving the address in answer to the speech from the throne ! The new Parliament which met in July, 1790, unanimously re- elected Mr. Foster, Speaker ; passed a very loyal address, and after a fortnight's sitting, was prorogued till the following January. The session of '91 was marked by no event of importance ; the highest opposition vote seems to have been from 80 to 90, and the minis- terial majority never less than 60. The sale of Peerages, the East India trade, the Responsibility (for money warrants) Bill, the Barren Lands Bill, and the Pension Bill, were the chief topics. A committee to inquire into the best means of encour- aging breweries, and discouraging the use of spirituous liquors, was also granted, and some curious facts elicited. Nothing memorable was done, but much that was memorable was said, for the great orator had still a free press, and a home au- dience to instruct and elevate. The truth is, the barrenness of these two sessions was due to the general prosperity of the ccuntry, more even than to the dexterous management of Major Hobart and the Cabinet balls of Lord Westmoreland. Thx;re was, moreover, hanging over the minds of men the electric pressure of the wonderful events with which France shook the continent and made the Islands tremble. There was hasty hope, or idle POPULAR BISTORT O IRKLAXD. exultation, or pious fear, or panic terror, in the, hearts of the le*(l ing spectators of that awful drama, according to fihe prejudice! or principles they maintained. Over all the three kingdom* there was a preternatural calm, resembling that physical stillneM which in other latitudes precedes the eruption of volcanoes CHAPTER XL THE ERA OF INDEPENDENCE THIRD PERIOD: CATHOLIC RELIEF BILL or 1793. BEFORE relating the consequences which attended the spread of French revolutionary opinions in Ireland, it is necessary to exhibit the new and very important position assumed by the Roman Catholic population at that period. The relief bills in 1774 and 1778, by throwing open to catholics the ordinary means of acquiring property, whether movable or immovable, had enabled many of them to acquire fortunes, both in land and in trade. Of this class were the most efficient lead era in the formation of the Catholic Committee of 1790 Johi Keogh, Edward Byrne, and Richard McCormick. They were all men who had acquired fortunes, and who felt and cherished tho independence of self-made men. They were not simply Catholio agitators claiming an equality of civil and religious risrhts with their Protestant fellow-countrymen.; they were nationalists, in the broadest and most generous meaning of the term. They had con- tributed to the ranks and the expenses of the Volunteers ; they had swelled the chorus of Grattan's triumph, and borne their nlwre of the cost in many a popular contest. The new generation of Psotestant patriots such men as the Hon. Simon Bulter, Wolfa Tone, and Thomas Addis Emmet, were thetr intimate asso- ciates, shared their opinions, and regarded their exclusion from the pale of the constitution as a public calamity. Tnere was another and a smaller, but not less important clasa the remnant of the ancient Catholic peerage and landed gentry, Who, throngh four generations, had preferred civil death U> ro POPULAR BISTORT OP IRELAND. 67 1 ligious apostacy. It was impossible not to revere the heroic con stancy of that class, and the personal virtues of many among them. But they were, perhaps constitutionally, too timid aud too punctilious to conduct a popular movement to a successful issue. They had, after much persuasion, lent their presence to the com- mittee, but on some alarm, which at that time seems to have been premature, of the introduction of French revolutionary princi- ples among their associates, they seceded in a mass. A formal remonstrance against what remained, pretending to act for the Catholic body, was signed by Lord Kenmare and sixty-seven others, who withdrew. As a corrective, it was inadequate ; as a preventive, useless. It no doubt hastened in the end the evil it deprecated in the beginning ; it separated the Catholic gentry from the Catholic democracy, and thrust the latter more and more towards those liberal Protestants, mainly men of the middle class like themselves, who began about this time to club together at Belfast and Dublin, under the attractive title of " United Irish- men." "Whatever they were individually, the union of so many hereditary Catholic names had been of very great service to the committee. So long as they stood aloof, the committee could not venture to speak for all the Catholics ; it could only speak for a part, though that part might be nine tenths of the whole : this gave for a time a doubtful and hesitating appearance, to their proceedings. So low was their political influence, in 1791, that they could not get a single member of Parliament to present their annual petition. When at last it was presented, it was laid on the table and never noticed afterwards. To their further embarrassment, Mr. McKenna and some others formed " the Catholic Society," with the nominal object of spreading a knowledge of Catholic principles, through the press, but, covertly, to raise up a rival organization, under the control of the seceders. At this period John Keogh's talents for negotiation and diplo- macy saved the Catholic body from another term of anarchical imbecility. A deputation of twelve, having waited this year on the chief sec. retary with a list of the existing penal laws, found no intention, at the Castle, of further concession. They were "dismissed without " answer." Under these circumstances, the Committee met at 673 POPULAR HISTORY 07 IRELAND. Allen's Court. " It was their determination," siiya Keogh, " to give up the cause as desperate, lest a perseverance in what they considered an idle pursuit might not only prove ineffectual, but draw down a train of persecution on the body." Keogh endeaT- ored to rally them ; proposed a delegation to London, to be sent at the expense of the committee ; offered, at last, to go at his own charge, if they authorized him. This proposal was accepted, and Keogh went. " I arrived in London," he adds, " without any introduction from this country, without any support, any assist- ance, any instructions." He remained three months, converted Mr. Dundas, brought back with him the son of Burke as secre- tary, and a promise of four concessions: 1st. The magistracy. 3d. The grand juries. 3d. The sheriffs of counties. 4th. The jar. It was in this interview that Keogh, after obtaining Mr. Dundas's express permission and promise not to be offended, said to him, according to Charles Butler's account, " Since you give me this permission, and your deliberate promise not to be offended, I beg leave to repeat, that there is one thing which you ought to know, but which you don't suspect: yon, Mr. Dundaa, know nothing of Ireland." Mr. Dundas, as may be supposed, was greatly surprised ; but with perfect good humor told Mr. Keogh that he believed this was not the case ; it was true that he never had been in Ireland, but he had conversed with many Irishmen. " I have drunk," he said " many a good bottle of wine with Lord Ilillsborough, Lord Clare, and the Beresfords." " Yes, sir," said Mr. Keogh, "I believe you have; and that you drank many a good bottle of wine with them before you went to war with America." On the return of Keogh to Dublin, a numerous meeting was held to hear his report At this meeting, the fair promises of the English ministers were contrasted with the hostility of the Castle. The necessity of a strong organization, to overcome the > and hasten the ether, was felt by all : it was then decided to me committee into a Convention. By this plan, the Catholic* In each county and borough were called on to choose, in & private manner, certain electors, who were to elect two or more dele- gates, to represent the town or county in the general meeting at Dublin, on the 3d day of December following. A circular, igued POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 673 by Edward Byrne, chairman, and Richard McCormick, secretary explaining the plan and the mode of election, was issued on th 14th of January, aud the Catholics everywhere prepared to obey it. The corporations of Dublin and other cities, the grand juries of Derry, Donegal, Lei trim, Roscomrnon, Limerick, Cork, and other counties, at once pronounced most strongly against the proposed Convention. They declared it " unconstitutional," " alarming," " most dangerous ;" they denounced it as a copy of the National Assembly of France ; they declared that they would " resist it to the utmost of their power ;" they pledged "their lives and fortunes" to suppress it. The only answer of the Catholics was the legal opinion of Butler and Burton, two eminent lawyers, Protestants and King's counsellors, that the measule was entirely legal. They proceeded with their selection of delegates, and on the appointed day the Convention met. From the place of meeting, this convention was popularly called " the Back Lane Parliament." Above 200 members were present. The Convention proceeded (Mr. Byrne in the chair) to declare itself the only body competent to speak for the Catholics of Ire- land. They next discussed the substance of the proposed peti- tion to the king. The debate on this subject, full of life and color, has been preserved for us in the memoirs of Tone, who, although a Protestant, had been elected secietary to the Catholic committee. Great firmness was exhibited by Teeling, of Antrim, Bellew, of Galway, McDermott, of Sligo, Devereux, of Wexford, Sir Thomas French, and John Keogh. These ger.tlemen con. tended, and finally carried, without a division, though not with- out a two-days' debate, a petition asking complete and unrestricted emancipation. With tbe addition of the chairman and secretary, they were appointed as deputies to proceed to London, there to place the Catholic ultimatum in the hands of King George. The deputies, whether by design or accident, took Belfast on their way to England. This great manufacturing town, at the head of the staple industry of the north, had been in succession the h jadquarters of the Volunteers, the Northern Whigs and the United Irishmen. Bflf/ist had domardod in vain, for nearly* generation, that its 20,00!"' inhabitants should no longer be di* 67 674 POPULAR BISTORT OF IRKLAHD. franchised, while a dozen burgesses creatures of Lore Donegal controlled the representation. Community of disfranchis*- ment had made the Belfastians liberal ; the Catholic deputiei were publicly received with bonfires and ringing of bells, their expenses were paid by the citizens, and their carriage drawn along in triumph on the road to Port Patrick. Arrived at London, after much negotiation and delay with ministers, a day was fixed for their introduction to the king. It was Wednesday, the 2d of January, 1793 ; they were presented by Edmund Burke and the Home Secretary to George III., who " received them very graciously;" they placed in his hands the petition of their co-religionists, and, after some compliments, withdrew. In a few days, they were assured their case would be recommended to the attention of Parliament in the next royal speech, and so, leaving one of their number behind as " charg d' iffaires," they returned to Dublin highly elated. The Ticeroy, on their return, was all attention to the Catholics ; the secretary, who, a year before, would not listen to a petition, now labored to fix a limit to concession. The demand of com- plete emancipation, was not maintained in this negotiation aa firmly as in the December debates of " the Back Lane Parlia- ment." The shock of the execution of the King of France ; the efforts of the secret committee of the House of Lords to incul- pate certain Catholic leaders in the United-Irish system, and aa patrons of the Defenders ; the telling argument, that to press all ws to risk all, these causes combined to induce the sub-com- mittee to consent to less than the Convention Imd decided to insist npon. Negotiation was the strong ground of the government, and they kept it. Finally, the bill was introduced by the Chief Secretary, and warmly supported by Orattan, Cnrran, Ponsonby, Forbes, and Hutchinson, Provost of Trinity College. It was re- sisted in the lower house by Mr. Speaker Foster, Mr. Ogle, and Dr. Duigenan, an apostate, who exhibited all the bitterness of his class ; and in the upper house, by the Chancellor, the son of an apostate, and the majority of the lords spiritual. On the 9th day of April, 1793 ; it became the law of Ireland. " By one compre- honfiive clause." says Tone, " all penalties, forfeitures, disabilities, and incapacities arc removed , the property of the Catholic u POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 675 compleU'ly discharged from the restraints and limitations of the penal laws, and their liberty, in a great measure, restored, by the restoration of the right of elective franchise, so long withheld, so ardently pursued. The right of self-defence is established by the restoration of the privilege to carry arms, subject to a re- straint, which does not seem unreasonable, as excluding none but the very lowest orders. The unjust and unreasonable distinctions affecting Catholics, as to service on grand and petty juries, are done away ; the army, navy, and all other offices and places of trust are opened to them, subject to exceptions hereafter men- tioned. Catholics may be masters or fellows of any college here- after to be founded, subject to two conditions, that such college be a member of the university, and that it be not fouaded exclu- sively for the education of Catholics. They may be members of any lay body corporate, except Trinity College, any law, statute, or by-law of such corporation to the contrary notwithstanding. They may obtain degrees in the University of Dublin. These, and some lesser immunities and privileges, constitute the grant of the bill, the value of which will be best ascertained by refer- ring to the petition." It is true, Catholics were still excluded from the high offices of lord lieutenant, lord deputy, and lord chancellor. "What was much more important, they were excluded from sitting in Parliament from exercising legislative and judicial functions. Still the fran- chise, the juries, the professions, and the university, were impor- tant concessions. Their first fruits were Daniel O'Connell and Thomas Moore ! The committee having met to return thanks to the parliamen- tary supporters of the bill, their own future operations came also under debate. Some members advised that they should add reform to their programme, as the remnant of the penal laws were not sufficient to interest and attract the people. Some would have gone much further than reform ; some were well con- tent to rest on their laurels. There were ultras, moderate mon, and conservatives, even in the twelve. The latter were more nu- merous than "Wolfe Tone liked or expected. That ardent revolu- tionist had, indeed, at bottom, a strong dislike of the Catholic religion ; he united himself with that body because he needed a 676 poruLJU IIISTOBT or IRELAND. party; he remained with them because it gave him importance; but he chiefly valued the position as it enabled him to further an ulterior design an Irish revolution and a republic on the French plan. The example of France had, however, grown by this time rather a terror than an attraction to more cautions men than Tone. Edward Byrne, Sir Thomas French, and other leading Catholics, were openly hostile to any imitation of it, and the dinner at Daly's, to celebrate the passage of the act, was strongly anti-Gallican in spirit and sentiment. Keogh, McCormick, and McXevin, however, joined the United Irishmen, and the two lat- ter were placed on the Directory. Keogh withdrew, when, in 1795, that organization became a secret society. The bishops who had cheered on, rather than participated in the late struggle, were well satisfied with the new measure. They were, by education and conviction, conservatives. Dr. Plunkett, of Menth, Dr. Egan, of Waterford, Dr. Troy, of Dub- lin, and Dr. Moylan, of Cork, were the most remarkable for influ- ence and ability at this period. Dr. Butler, of Cashel, and his opponent, Dr. Burke, of Ossory, the head of the resolute old ultramontane minority, were both recently deceased. With tho exception of Dr. James Butler, bishop of Cloyne and Ross, who deserted his faith and order on becoming unexpectedly heir to an earldom, the Irish prelates of the reign of George III. were a most zealous and devoted body. Lord Dunboyne's fall was the only cause of a reproach within their own ranks. That unhappy pre- late made, many years afterwards, a death-bed repentance, was reconciled to his church, and bequeathed a large part of his inher- ited wealth to sustain the new national college, the founding of which, ever since the outbreak of the French revolution, the far aeein Burke was urging upon Pitt and all his Irish correspond- ents. In 1794, the Irish bishops having applied for " royal license" to establish academies pnd seminaries, were graciously received, and Lord Fitzwilliam's government the next session brought in the Act of Incorporation. It became law on the 5th of June, 1795, and the college was opened the following October with fifty Indents. Dr. ITusscy. afterwards bishop of Waterford, tho friend of Burke, who stood by his death-bed, was first President som POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 677 refugee French divines were appointed to professorships ; and the Irish Parliament voted the very handsome sum of 8,000 a year to the new foundation. Maynooth, whatever its after lot, was the creation in the first instance of the Irish Parliament. We have thus, in the third century after the reformation, after three great religious wars, after four confiscations, after the most Ingenious, cruel, and unchristian methods of oppression and proselytism, had been tried and had failed, the yrand spectacle of the Catholics of Ireland restored, if not fully, yet to the most precious of the civil and religious liberties of a people I So powerless against conscience is and ever must be coercion ! CHAPTER XII. THE KEA OF INDEPENDENCE. EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IN 1 IRELAND. SECESSION OF GRATTAN, CUKEAN, AND THEIR FRIENDS, FROM PARLIAMENT, IN 1797. THE ERA OF INDEPENDENCE which we have desired to mark dis- tinctly to the reader's mind, may be said to terminate in 1797, with the hopeless secession of Grattan and his friends from Par- liament. Did the events within and without the house justify that extreme measure? We shall proceed to describe them as they arose, leaving the decision of the question to the judgment of the reader. The session of 1 793, which extended into July, was, besides the Catholic Relief Bill, productive of other important results. Under the plea of the spread of French principles, and the wide-spread organization of seditious associations a plea not wanting in evi- dence an Arms Act was introduced and carried, prohibiting the Importation of arms and gunpowder, and authorizing domiciliary visits, at any hour of the night or day, in search of such arm*. Within a month from the passage of this bill, bravely but vainly opposed by Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and the opposition gener- ally, the surviving Volunteer corps, in Dublin and its vicinity, 57* 678 POPULAR HISTORT OF IRBLAMD. disbanded, their arms, artillery, and ammunition taken posGbasloa of either by force or negotiation, and the very wreck of that one* poworful patriot army s*ept away. In its stead, by nearly the Miii i n- majority, the militia were increased to 16,000 men, and the regulars from 12,000 to 17,000 thus placing at the absolute con- trol of the coruuiandcr-in chief, and the chiefs of the oligarchy, a standing army of 33,000 men. At the same period, Lord Clare (he had bceu made an earl in 1792), introduced his Convention Act, against the assemblage in convention of delegates purporting to represent the people. With G rattan only 27 of the Commons divided against this measure, well characterized as " the boldest step that ever yet was made to Introduce military government" " If this bill had been law," G rattan added, " the independence of the Irish Parliament, the emancipation of the Catholics, and even the English revolution of 1688, could never have taken place P The teller in favor of the Convention Act was Major Wellesley, member for Trim, twenty years later Duke of Wellington 1 It became and still remains the law of Ireland. Against this reactionary legislation we must credit the session of '93, besides the Catholic Relief Bill and the East India Trade Bill, with Mr. H rattan's Barren Lands Bill, exempting all newly reclaimed lands from the payment of tithes for a period of seven years; Mr. Forbes's Pension Bill, limiting the pension list to 80,( iOi) sterling per annum, and fixing the permanent civil list at 250,000 per annum ; and the excellent measure of the same in- valuable member, excluding from parliament all persons holding offices of profit under the crown, except the usual ministerial offi- cers, and those employed in the revenue service. This last salvo was forced i^a the bill by the oligarchical faction, for whose junior branohlHne revenue had long been a fruitful source of provision. Parliament met next, on the 21st of January, '94, and held hurt two-months' session. The most remarkable incidents of these two months were the rejection of Mr. George Ponsonby'a annual motion for parliamentary reform, and the sti iking posi- tion taken by (JuitUn, Curran, and all but seven or eight of their friends, in favor of the war agaiirst the French republic. MO Ponsonby proposed, in the spirit of Flood's plan ten years earlie% to unite to the boroughs four railed square of the adjoining cona POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 679 try, thus creating a counterpoise to the territorial aristocracy oq the one hand, and the patrons of boroughs on the other ; he also proposed to extend the suffrage to every tradesman who had served five years' apprenticeship, and give each county three in- stead of two members, leaving intact, of course, the forty-shilling freehold franchise. Not more than 44 members, however, divided in favor of the new project, while 142 voted against it ! Had it passed, the parliamentary history of the next six years could never have been written. It was on this Reform bill, and on the debate on the address, that Grattan took occasion to declare his settled and unalterable hostility to those " French principles," then so fashionable with all who called themselves friends of freedom, in the three king- doms. In the great social schism which had taken place in Eu rope, in consequence of the French revolution of 1789-'91, those kingdoms, the favorite seat of free inquiry, and free discussion, could not hope to escape. The effects were visible in every circle, among every order of men ; in all the churches, workshops, saloons, professions, into which men were divided. Amorg pub- licists, most of all, the shock was most severely felt : in England it separated Burke and Windham from Fox, Erskine, Sheridan, and Grey ; in Ireland it separated Grattan and Curran from Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Arthur O'Connor, Addis Emmett, "Wolfe Tone, and all those ardent, able, and honest men, who hailed the French, as the forerunner of a complete series of European republics, in which Ireland should shine out, among the brightest and the best. Orn^nn, who agreed with and revered Burke, looked upon th " auti-Jacobic war," as a just and necessary war. It was not in his nature to do anything by halves, and he therefore cordially supported the paragraph in the address pledging Ireland's sup- port to that war. He was a constitutionalist of the British, not of the French type. In the subsequent Reform debate he declared that he would always and ever resist those who sought to remodel the Irish constitution on a French original. He asserted, more- over, that great mischief had been already done by the advocates of such a design. " It" this design " has thrown back for the present the chance of any rational improvement in the represent- ation of the people," he cried, " and has betrayed > good reform 680 *OFULAB HISTOBT Of I&BLAKO. to the hopes of a shabby insurrection.'' Proceeding in his own coa- deiised, cry-ialline antithesis, he thus enlarged on his own opin ions : " There are two characters equally enemies to the reform of parliament, and equally enemies to the government the level- ler of the constitution and the friend of its abuses ; they take different roads to arrive at the same end. The levellers propose to subvert the king and parliamentary constitution by a rank and unqualified democracy the fiends of its abused propose to sup- port the king and buy the parliament, and in the end to overset both, by a rank and avowed corruption. They arc both incendi- aries ; the one would destroy government to pay his court to liberty ; the other would destroy liberty to pay his court to gov- ernment ; but the- liberty of the one would be confusion, and the government of the other would be pollution." We can well understand that this language pleased as little the United Irishmen as the Castle. It was known that in private he was accustomed to say, that " the wonder was not that Mr. Sheare* should die on the scaffold, but that Lord Clare was uot there be- side him." He stood in the midst of the ways, crying aloud, with the wisdom of his age and his genius, but there were few to heed his warnings. The sanguine innovator sneered or pitied ; the truculent despot scowled or menaced; to tho one hfe authority was an impediment, to the other his reputation was a reproach. It was a public situation as full of conflict as man erer occupied, and we ore not astonished, on a nearer view, that it led after three years hoping against hope, to the despairing secession of 1797. A bright gleam of better things shot for an mutant across the gloomy prospect, with which the year '94 closed for the country. Lord Westmoreland was recalled, and Lord Fitzwilliam, largely connected with Ireland by property, and one of the most just and liberal men in England, was to be his successor. The highest jxpectations were excited ; the bet men congratulated each other on the certain promise of bettA times close at hand ; and the nation, ever ready to believe whatever it wished to believe, saw in protect, the oligarchy restrained, the patriots triumphant, and the unfinished fabric of independence completed, and crowned with honor. This new reign, though one of the shortest, was one of th* POPULAR HISTORY RANGE AND HOLLAND. THE THREE EXPEDI- TIONS NEGOTIATED BY TONX AND LEWINES. THE close of the year 1795 saw France under the government of the Directory, with Carnot in the cabinet, and Pichegru, Jour- dain, Moreau, Iloche, and Buonaparte at the head of its armies. This government, with some change of persons, lasted from Octo- ber 1795 to November '99, when it was supplanted by the con- sular revolution. Within the compass of those four years lie the negotiations which were carried on and the three great expeditions which were fitted out by France and Holland, at the instance of the United Irishmen. On the 1st of February, 1796, Tone, who had sailed from Bel- last the previous June, arrived at Havre from New York, pos- sessed of a hundred guineas and some useful letters of introduc- tion. One of these letters, written in cipher, waa from the French Minister at Philadelphia to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Charles Lacroix; another wa& to the American Minister in France, Mr. Monroe, afterwards President of the United States, by whom he was most kindly received, and wisely advised, on reaching Paris. Lacroix received him courteously and referred him to a subordinate called Madgett, but after nearly three months wasted in interviews and explanations, Tone, by the ad- vice of Monroe, presented himself at the Luxembourg palace, and demanded audience of the " Organizer of Victory." Carnot also listened to him attentively, asked and obtained his true name. POPULAR HISTORY OF IRKLAND. 691 and gave him another rendezvous. He was next introduced to Clarke (afterwards Due de Feltre), Secretary at "War, the son of an Irishman, whom he found wholly ignorant of Ireland ; and finally, on the 12th of July, General Hoche, in the most frank and winning manner, introduced himself. At first the Directory proposed sending to Ireland no more than 5,000 men, while Tone pleaded for 20,000 ; but when Hoch6 accepted tlte command, he assured Tone he would go " in sufficient force." The " pacificator of La Vendee," as the young general was called he was only thirty-two, won at once the heart of the enthusiastic founder of the United Irishmen, and the latter seems to have made an equally favorable impression. He was at once presented with the com- mission of a chef de brigade of infantry a rank answering to that of colonel with us and was placed as adjutant on the gen- eral's staff. Hoch6 w.is all ardor and anxiety ; Carnot cheered him on by expressing his belief that it would be " a most brilliant operation ;" and certainly Tone was not the man to damp such expectations, or allow them to evaporate in mere complimentary assurances. During the autumn months the expedition was busily being fitted out at Brest, and the general headquarters were at Rennes. The Directory, to satisfy themselves that all was as represented by Tone, had sent an agent of their own to Ireland, by whom a meeting was arranged on the Swiss frontier between Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Arthur O'Connor, Dr. MacXevin, and Hoche\ From this meeting the secret of which he kept to himself the young general returned in the highest spirits, and was kinder than ever to his adjutant. At length, early in December, all was ready, and on the 16th the Brest fleet stood out to sea: 17 sail of the line, 13 frigates, and 13 smaller ships, carrying 15,000 picked troops, the elite of " the Army of the Ocean," and abundance of artillery and munitions of war. Tone was in the Indomptable, 80 guns, commanded by a Canadian named Bedout ; HochS and the Admiral in the frigate Fraternite ; Grouchy, so memorable for the part he played then and afterwards, was second in command. On the third morning, after groping about and losing each other In Atlantic fog, one-half the fleet (with the fatal exception of th Fraternite] found themselves close in with the coast of Kerry 692 FOPULAft HIST CRT OF IRELAND. They entered Bantry Bay, and came to anchor, ten ships of wr, and " a long line of dark hulls resting on the green water." Three or four days they lay dormant and idle, waiting for che General and Admiral; Bouvet, the Vice-Admiral, was opposed to moving in the absence of his chief; Grouchy was irresolute and nervous; but at lengt'h, on Christmas day, the council of war decided in favor of debarkation. The landing was to take place next morn- ing ; 6,50i> veterans were prepared to step ashore at daylight, but without their artillery, their military chest, and their general Two hours beyond midnight Tone was roused from sleep by the wind, which he found blowing half a gale. Pacing the gallery of the Indomptable till day dawned, he felt it rising louder and angrier, every hour. The next day it was almost a hurricane, and the Vice- Admiral's frigate, running under the quarter of the great 80 gun ship, ordered them to slip anchor and stand out tc sea. Tlie whole fleet was soon driven off the Irish coast; that part of it, in which Grouchy and Tone were embarked, made its entrance into Brest on New Year's day; the ship which carried Hoch6 and the Admiral, only arrived at La Rochelle on the 16th. The Directory and the General, so far from being discouraged by this failure, consoled themselves by the demonstration they had inudc, of the possibility of a great fleet passing to and fro, in British waters, for nearly a month, without encountering a single British vessel of war. Not so the Irish negotiator ; on him, light- hearted and daring as he was, the disappointment fell with crush- ing weight ; but he magnanimously carried GrouchVs report to 1'aris, and did his utmost to defend the unlucky general from a cabal which had been formed against him. While Tone was reluctantly following his new chief to the Meuse and the Rhine with a promise that the Irish expedition was delay- ed, not abandoned another, and no less fortunate negotiator, was raising up a new ally for the same cause, in an unexpected quar- tor. The Batavian republic, which had risen in the steps of J'icliegra's victorious army, In 1794, waa now eager to imitate the example of France. With a powerful fleet, and an unemployed army, its chiefs were quite ready to listen to any proposal which would rontore the maritime ascendancy of Holland, and bring back to the recollection of Europe the memory of the puissant POPULAR BISTORT Of IRELAND. 693 Dutch republic. In this state of affairs, the new agent of the Irish Directory, Edward John Lewines, a Dublin attorney, a man of great ability and energy, addressed himself to the Batavian government. He had been sent abroad with very general pow- ers, to treat with Holland, Spain, France, or any other govern- ment at war with England, for a loan of half a million sterling, and a sufficient auxiliary force to aid the insurrection. During two mouths' stay at Hamburg, the habitual route in those days from the British ports to tie continent, he had placed himself in com- munication with the Spanish agent there, and had, in forty days, received an encouraging answer from Madrid. On his way, pro- bably to Spain, to follow up that fair prospect, he reached the Netherlands, and rapidly discovering the state of feeling in the Dutch, or as it was then called the Balavian republic, he addressed himself to the Directors, who consulted Hoche, by whom iu turn Tone was consulted. Tone had a high opinion of Lewines, and at once proceeded with him to the Hague, where they were joined, according to agreement, by Hoche. The Dutch Committee of Foreign Affairs, the Commander-in-chief, General Dandaels, and the Admiral, De Winter, entered heartily into the project. There were in the Texel 16 ships of the line and 10 frigates, victualled for three months, with lo,000 men and 80 field guns on board. The only serious difficulty in the way was removed by the dis- interestedness of Hoche; the French Foreign Minister having demanded that 6,000 French troops should be of the expedition, and that Hoche should command in chief; the latter, to conciliate Dandaels and the Dutch, undertook to withdraw the proposal, aud gracefully yielded his own pretensions. All then was set- tled: Tone was to accompany Dandaels with the same rank he had in the Brest expedition, and Lewines to return, and remain, as " Minister-resident " at Paris. On the 8th of July, Tone was on board the flag-ship, the Vryheid, 74 guns, in the Texel, and " only waiting for a wind," to lead another navy to the aid of hia compatriots. But the winds, " the only unsubsidized allies of England," were strangely adverse. A week, two, three, four, five, passed heavily awav, without affording a sintrle-dav in which that mighty fleet ' O J > - could make an offing. Sometimes for an hour or two it shifted to 694 POPULAR HIBTORT OF IRELAND. the desired point, the sails were unclewed and the anchors short entd, but then, as if to torture the impatient exiles on board, it veered back again and settled steadily in the fatal south-west. At length, at the end of August, the provisions being nearly con- sumed, and the weather still unfavorable, the Dutch Directory resolved to land the troops and postpone the expedition. Do Winter, as is known, subsequently found an opportunity to work out, and attack Lord Duncan, by whom he was badly beaten. Thus ended Irish hopes of aid from Holland. The indomitable Tone rejoined his chief on the Rhine, where, to his infinite re- gret, Iloclto died the following month September 18th, 1797 of a rapid consumption, accelerated by cold and carelessness. " Heche"," said Napoleon to Barry O'Meara at Saint Helena, " was one of the first generals France ever produced. He was brave, intelligent, abounding in talent, decisive and penetrating. Had he landed in Ireland, he would have succeeded. He was accus- tomed to civil war, had pacified La Vend6e, and was well adapted for Ireland. He had a fine, handsome figure, a good address, was prepossessing and intriguing." The loss of such a patron, who felt himself, according to Tone's account, especially bound to fol- low up tlie object of separating Ireland from England, was a calamity greater and more irreparable than the detention of one fleet or the dispersion of the other. The third expedition, in promoting which Tone and Lewines bore the principal part, was decided upon by the French Direc- tory, immediately after the conclusion of peace with Austria, in October, 1797. The decree for the formation of "the Army of England," named Buonaparte Commander-in-Chief, with Desair as his second. Buonaparte consulted Clarke as to who he most confided in among the numerous Irish refugees then in Paris there were some twenty or thirty, all more or less known, and more or less in communication with the Directory and Clarke answered at once, " Tone, of course." Tone, with Lewines, the one in a military, the other in an ambassadorial capacity, had frequent interviews with the young conqueror of Italy, whom they usually found silent and absorbed, always attentive, some- times asking sudden questions betraying great want of knowledge of the British Islands, and occasionally, though rarely breaking POPULAB HISTORY OF IRELAND. 695 out into irresistible invectives against Jacobinism and the Eng- lish system, both of which he so cordially detested. Every assurance was given by the General, by the Directors, by Merlin du Douai, Barras, and Talleyrand especially, that the expedition against England would never be abandoned. Tone, in high spirits as usual, joined the division under the command of his country- nan, General Kilmaine, and took up his quarters at Havre, where ho had landed without knowing a soul in France two years before. The winter wore away in busy preparations at Havre, at Brest, and at La Rochelle,--and, which seemed mysterious to the Irish exiles at Toulon. All the resources of France, now without an enemy on the continent, were put forth in these preparations, But it soon appeared they were not put forth for Ireland. On the 20th of May, 1798 within three days of the outbreak in Dublin, W oxford, and Kildare Buonaparte sailed with the elite of all that expedition for Alexandria, and " the Army of Eng- land " became, in reality, " the Army of Egypt." The bitterness, the despondency, and desperation which seized on the Irish leaders in France, and on the rank and file of the United Irishmen at home, on receiving this intelligence, are suf- ficiently illustrated in the subsequent attempts under Humbert and Bompart, and the partial, ineffectual risings in Leinster, Ulster, and Connaught, during the summer and autumn of 1798. After all their high hopes from France and her allies, this was what it had come to at last I A few frigates, with three or four thousand men, were all that could be spared for the succor of a kingdom more populous than Egypt and Syria combined ; the granary of England, and the key of her Atlantic position. It might have been some comfort to the family of Tone to havs read, thirty years afterwards, in their American asylum, or foT the aged Lewines to have read in the Parisian retreat in which he died, the memorable confession of Napoleon at Saint Helena. " If instead of the expedition to Egypt, I had undertaken that to Ireland, what," he asked, " could England do now 1 On such chances," he mournfully added, "depend the deetiniee of en* 696 POPULA& HISTOBT OF CHAPTER XV. THE INSURRECTION OP IT is nc longer matter of assertion merely, but simple matter of fact, thf.t the English and Irish ministers of George III., re- garded the insurrectionary movement of the United Irishmen, as at once a pretext and a means, for effecting a legislative union between the two countries. Lord Camdcn, the viceroy who suc- ceeded Lord Fitzwilliam in March '95 with Mr. Pelham as his chief secretary, in a letter to his relative, the Hon. Robert Stewart, afterwards Lord Castlereagh, announced this policy, in unmistake- able terms, so early as 1793 ; and all the official correspondence published of late years, concerning that period of British and Irish history, establishes the fact beyond the possibility of denial. Such being the design, it was neither the wish nor the interest of the government, that the insurrection should be suppressed, unless the Irish constitution could be extinguished with it. To that end they proceeded in the coercive legislation described in a previous chapter ; to that end they armed with irresponsible power the military officers and the oligarchical magistracy ; with that view they quartered those yeomanry regiments which were known to be composed of Orangemen, on the wretched peasantry of the most Catholic counties, while the corps in which Catholic* or United Irishmen were most numerous, were sent over to Eng- land, in exchange for Scotch fencibles and Welsh cavalry. The outrages committed by all these volunteer troops, but above all by the Orange yeomanry of the country, were so monstrous that the gallant and humane Sir John Moore exclaimed, " if I were an Irishman, 1 would be a rebel F It was, indeed, impossible for any man however obscure, *r however eminent, to live longer in the country, without taking ides. Yet the choice was at best a hard and unhappy one. On the one side was the Castle, hardly concealing its intention of gotdiug on the people, in order to rob them of their Parliament ; POPULAR HISTORY Of IRELAND. 69) on the othar was the injured multitude, bound together by a secret system which proved in reality no safeguard against traitors in their own ranks, and which had been placed by its Protestant chiefs under the auspices of an infidel republic. Between th two courses men made election according to their bias or their necessities, or as they took local or general, political or theologi- cal views of the situation. Both houses of the legislature unani- mously sustained the government against the insurrection ; aa did the judges, the bar, and the Anglican clergy and bishops. The Presbyterian body were in the beginning all but unanimous for a republican revolution and the French alliance ; the great majority of the Catholic peasantry were, as the crisis increased, driven into the same position, while all their bishops and a major- ity of the Catholic aristocracy, adhered to that which they, with the natural tendency of their respective orders, considered the side of religion and authority. Thus was the nation sub- divided within itself; Protestant civilian from Protestant ecclesiastic, Catholic layman from Catholic priest, tenant from lord, neighbor from neighbor, father from son, and friend from friend. During the whole of '97, the opposing parties were iu a ferment of movement and apprehension. As the year wore on, the admin- istration, both English and Irish, began to feel that the danger was more formidable than they had foreseen. The timely storm which had blown Grouchy out of Bantry Bay, the previous Christ- ma. 1 ?, could hardly be reckoned on again, though the settled hos- tility of the French government knew no change. Thoroughly well informed by their legion of spies both on the Continent and in Ireland, every possible military precaution was taken. Tho Lord Lieutenant's proclamation for disarming the people issued iu May, was rigorously enforced by General Johnstone in the South, General Ilutchinson in the West, and Lord Lake in the North. Two hundred thousand pikes and pike heads were said to have been discovered or surrendered, during the year, and several thousand firelocks. The yeomanry, and English and Scotch corps amounted to 35,000 men, while the regular troops wjre increased to 50,000 and subsequently to 80,000, including three regiments of the Guards. The defensive works at Cork, and ether vulnerable points were strengthened at an immense cost; 59 698 POPULAR HISTORY Or IRELAND. the " Pigeon House " fort, near Dublin, waa enlarged, for tke city Itself waa pronounced by General Vallancey, Colonel Packenham, and other engineer authorities dangerously weak, if not wholly untenable. A system of telegraphic signals was established from all points of the coast with the Capital, and every precaution taken against the surprise of another French invasion. During the summer assize, almost every considerable town and circuit had its state trial The sheriffs had been carefully selected beforehand by the Castle, and the juries were certain to be of " the right sort," under the auspices of such sheriffs. Immense sums in the aggregate were contributed by the United Irish for ttie defence of their associates ; at the Down assizes alone, not less than seven hundred or eight hundred guineas were* spent in fees and retainers ; but at the close of the term, Mr. Beresford was able to boast to his friend Lord Auckland, that but one of all the accused had escaped the penalty of death or banishment ! The military tribunals, however, did not wait for the idle formal- ities of the civil courts. Soldiers and civilians, yeomen and towns- men, against whom the informer pointed his finger, were taken out, and summarily executed. Ghastly forms hung upon the thick-set gibbets, not only in the market places of country towns, and before the public prisons, but on all the bridges of the metro- polis. Many of the soldiers, in every military district were shot weekly and almost daily for real or alleged complicity with the rebels. The horrid torture of picketing, and the blood-stained Utah, were constantly resorted to, to extort accusations or con- fessions. Over all these atrocities the furious and implacable spirit of Lord Clare presided in Council, and the equally furious and implacable Luttrel, Lord Carhampton, as commander-in-chief. All moderate councils were denounced as nothing short of trea- son, and even the elder Beresford, the Privy Councillor, waa corn- pi Hod to complain of the violence of his noble associates, and hi* Inability to restrain the ferocity of hi* own nearest relatives meaning probably his son John Claudius, and his son in law, Sir George llill. It was while this spirit was abroad, a spirit as destructive M ver animated the councils of Sylla or Marius in old Rome, or prompted the decrees of Robesp.erro or Marat in France, that the POtWLAft Histomr o* IRELAND. 690 genius and courage of one man, redeemed the tost reputation of the law, and upheld against all odds the sacred claims of per- sonal liberty. This man was John Philpot Curran, the most dauntless of advocates, one of the truest and bravest of his race. Although a politician of the school of Grattan, and wholly un- tainted with French principles, he identified himself absolutely with his unhappy clients, " predoomed to death." The genius of patriotic resistance which seemed to have withdrawn from the Island with Grattan's secession from Parliament, now reappeared in the last place where it might have been expected in those courts of death, rather t'han of justice before those predeter- mined juries, beside the hopeless inmates of the crowded dock, personified in the person of Curran. Often at midnight, amid the dash of arms, his wonderful pleadings were delivered ; some- times, as in Dublin, where the court rooms adjoined the prisons, the condemned, or the confined, could hear, in their cells, his pierc- ing accents breaking the stillness of the early morning, pleading for justice and mercy pleading always with superhuman per severance, but almost always in vain. Neither menaces of arrest, nor threats of assassination, had power to intimidate that all- daring spirit ; nor, it may be safely said, can the whole library of human history present us a form of heroism superior in kind or degree to that which this illustrious advocate exhibited during nearly two years, when he went forth daily, with his life in his hand, in the holy hope to snatch some human victim from the clutch of the destroyer thirsting for his blood. In November, '97, some said from fear of personal consequen- ces, some from official pressure in a high quarter, Lord Carhamp- ton resigned the command of the forces, and Sir Ralph Aber- croinby was appointed in his stead. There could not be a more striking illustration of the system of terror patronized by goT- ernment than was furnished in the case of Sir Ralph as Com- mander-in-Chief. That distinguished soldier, with his half century of services at his back, had not been a week in Dublin before he discovered the weakness of the viceroy, and the violence of his principal advisers, the chancellor, tie speaker, Lord Castle- reagh and the Bereaforda. Writing in confidence to his son, he ays. " The abuses of all kinds T found here can scarcely be be- YOU I JPULAK BISTORT OJ IBELAM). lieved or enumerated." The instances he cites of such abuse* are sufficiently horrible to justify the strong language wliich brought d\vn on hia head so much hostility, when he declared in his proclamation of February, '98, that the Irish army wa " formidable to every one but the enemy." These well-known opinions were so repugnant to the Castle policy that that party held a caucus in the speaker's chambers, at which it was proposed to pass a rote of censure in Parliament on the General, whom they denounced as ' a sulky mule," " a Scotch beast," and by other similar names. Though the Parliamentary censure dropped' they actually compelled Lord Camden to call on him to retract his magnanimous order. To this humiliation the veteran etooped "for the sake of the king's service," but at the same time he proffered his resignation. After two months' correspondence, it was finally accepted, and the soldier who was found too jealous of the rights of the people to be a fit instrument of their des- truction, escaped from his high position, not without a profound sentiment of relief. His verdict upon the barbarous policy pur- sued in his time was always expressed, frankly and decisively. His entire correspondeifcce, private and public, bears one and the wune burthen the violence, cruelty, and tyranny of Lord Cam- den a chief advisers, and the pitiful weakness of the viceroy him- self Against the infamous plan of letting loose a lustful and bnit:il soldiery to live at " free quarters " on a defenceless and disarmed people an outrage against which Englishmen had taken perpetual security at their revolution, as may be see?) iu " the Bill of Rights," he struggled during hia six months' com- mand, but with no great success. The plan, with all its horrors, was upheld by the Lord-Lieutenant, and more than any other cause, precipitated the rebellion which exploded at last, just as Sir Ralph was allowed to retire from the country. His tempo, rary successor, Lord Lake, was troubled with no such scruples as the gallant old Scotsman. K vents followed each other in the first months of 1798, fast and furiously. Towards the tnd of February, Arthur O'Con lor. Father James Quigley, the brothers John and Benjamin iiinna, were arrested at Margate on their wny to France; on the Gth of March, the Proa newspaper^ the Dublin organ of the party, afl POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND. 701 the Star had been the ti later organ, was seized by government Lord Edward Fitzgerald and William Sampson being at the time in the office. On the 12th of March, on the information of the traitor, Thomas Reynolds, the Leinster delegates were seized in conclave, with all their papers, at the house of Oliver Bond, in Bridge street, Dublin. On the same information, Addis Emmett and Dr. MacNevin were taken in their own houses, and Sampson in the north of England : of all the executive, Lord Edward alone escaping those sent in search of him. This was, as Tone notes in his journal, on the ill news reaching France, "a terrible blow." O'Connor's arrest in Kent, Sampson's in Carlisle, and the other arrests in Bedfast and Dublin, proved too truly that treason waa at work, and that the much prized oath of secresy was no pro- tection whatever against the devices of the Castle and the de- pravity of its secret agents. The extent to which that treason extended, the number of their associates who were in the pay of their deadly enemies, was never known to the United Irish lead- ers ; time has, however, long since " revealed the secrets of the priaon-house," and we know now, that men they trusted with all their plans and hopes, such as McNally and McGucken, were quite as deep in the conspiracy to destroy them as Mr. Reynolds and Captain Armstrong. The most influential members of the Dublin Society remain- ing at large contrived to correspond with each other, or to meet by stealth after the arrest at Bond's. The vacancies in the Executive were filled up by the brothers John and Henry Sheares, both barristers, sons of a wealthy Cork banker, and former mem- ber of Parliament, and by Mr. Lawless, a surgeon. For two months longer these gentlemen continued to act in concert with Lord Edward, who remained undetected notwithstanding all the efforts of government, from the 12th of March till the 19th of May following. During those two months the new Directors devoted themselves with the utmost energy to hurrying on the armament of the people, and especially to making proselytes among the militia, where the gain of one man armed and di- ciplined was justly accounted equal to the enlistment of three or four ordinary adherents. This part of their plan brought tltt brothers Sheares into contac 1 ,, among others, with Captain John 69* 702 POPULAR HISTORY or IRKLAKD. 'Warnefo'.-d ArmBtrong, of the Queen's County Yeomanry, vhom they supposed they had won over, but who was, in reality, a better-class spy, acting under Lord Castlereagh's instructions. Armstrong cultivated them sedulously, dined at their table, echoed their opinions, and led the credulous brothers on to their des- truction. All al last was determined on ; the day of the rising waa fixed the 23d day of May and the signal was to be the simul- taneous stoppage of the mail coaches, which started nightly from the Dublin post office, to every quarter of the kingdom. But the counter-plot anticipated the plot Lord Edward, betrayed by a person called Higgins, proprietor of the Freeman's Journal, was taken on the 19th of May, after a desperate struggle with Majors Swan and Sirr, and Captain Ryan, in his hiding place in Thomas street ; the brothers Sheares were arrested in their own house on the morning of the 21st, while Surgeon Lawless, escaped from the city, and finally, from the country, to France. Thus for the second time was the insurrection left without a head ; but the organization had proceeded too far to be any longer restrained, and the Castle, moreover, to use the expression of Lord Castle- reagh, " took means to make it explode." The first intelligence of the rebellion was received in Dublin on the morning of the 24th of May. At Rathfarnham, within three miles of the city, 600 insurgents attacked Lord Ely's yeomanry corps with some success, till Lord Roden's dragoons, hastily des- patched fiom the city, compelled them to retreat, with the loss of some prisoners and two men killed, whom Mr. Beresford saw the next day, literally " ait to piece* a horrid sight" At Dun- boyne the insurgents piked an escort of the Reay Fcnciblea (Scotch) passing through their village, and carried off their bag- gage. At Niias, a large popular force attacked the garrison, . n- eislin of regulars, Ancient Britons (Welsh), part of a regiment of dragoons, and the Armagh militia; the attack waa renewed three times with great braTery, but fioclly, discipline, as it always A ill. prevailed over mere numbers, and the assailants were re- pulsed with the loss of 140 of their comrades. At Prosperous, where they cut off to a man a strong garrison composed of north Cork militia, under Captain Swayne, the rising was more success- ful. The commander in this exploit was Dr. Esmonde, brother POPl LAR BISTORT 07 IRELAHD. 703 ol the Wexford baronet, who, being betrayed by one of his own subalterns, was the next morning arrested at breakfast in the neighborhood, and suffered death at Dublin on the 14th of the following month. There could hardly be found a more unfavorable field for a peasant war than the generally level and easily accessible county of Kildare, every parish of which is within a day's inarch of Dublin. From having been the residence of Lord Edward, it was, perhaps, one of the most highly organized parts of Lein- ster, but as it had the misfortune to be represented by Thomas Reynolds, as county delegate, it labored under the disadvantage of having its organization better known to the government than any other. We need hardly be surprized, therefore, to find that the military operations in this county were all over in ten days or a fortnight ; when those who had neither surren- dered nor fallen, fell back into Meath or Connaught, or effected a junction with the Wicklow .rebels in their mountain fastnesses. Their struggle, though so brief, had been creditable for personal bravery. Attacked by a numerous cavalry and militia under General "Wilford, by 2,500 men, chiefly regulars, under Genera] Dundas, and by 800 regulars brought up by forced marches from Limerick, under Sir James Duff, they showed qualities, which if well directed, would have established for their possessors a high military reputation. At Monastereven they were repulsed with loss, the defeml*-i'a of the town being in part Catholic loyalists, under Captain Cassidy ; at Rathangan they were more success- ful, taking and holding the town for several days ; at Clane, the captors of Prosperous were repulsed; while at Old Killcullen, their associates drove back General Dundas' advance, with the loaj of 22 regulars and Captain Erskine killed. Sir James Duff's wanton cruelty in sabring and shooting down an unarmed multi- tude on the Curragh, won him the warm approval of the exter- mination party in the capital, while Generals Wilford and Dun- das narrowly escaped being reprimanded for granting a truce to the insurgents under Aylmer, and accepting of the surrender of that leader and his companions. By the beginning of June th* be Kildare encampments of insurgents were totally dispersed, and their most active officers in prison or fugitives west or south, 704 POPULAR BISTORT OF IRELAND. By a preconcerted arrangement, the local chiefs of the insur- rection in Dublin and Meath, gathered with their men on the third day after the outbreak, at the historic lull of Tara. Hera they expected to be joined by the men of Cavan, Longford, Louth and Monaghan ; but before the northerners reached the trysting place, three companies of the Reay Fencibles, under Captain Mo> Clean, the Kells and Navan yeomanry under Captain Preston, (afterwards Lord Tara,) and a troop of cavalry under Lord Fin- gal, surrounded the royal lull. The insurgents, commanded by Gil- shine and other leaders, entrenched themuelves in the graveyard which occupies the summit of Tara, and stoutly defended their position. Twenty-six of the Highlanders and six of the Yeo- inuury fell in the assault, but the bullet reached farther than the pike, and the defenders were driven, after a sharp action, over the brow of UK- eminence, and many of them shot or sabred down as they fled. Southward from the capital the long pent up flame of disaf- fection broke out on the same memorable day, May 28d. At Dunlavin. OH abortive attempt on the barrack revealed the fact that many of the yeomanry were thoroughly with the insurgents. Hardly had the danger from without passed over, when a mili- tary inquiry was improvised. By this tribunal, nineteen Wex- ford, and nine Kildare yeomanry, were ordered to be shot, and the execution of the sentence followed immediately on its finding. At Blessington, the town was seized, but a nocturnal attack on Carlow was repulsed with great loss. In this last affair, the rebels had rendezvoused in the domain of Sir Edward Crosbie, within two miles of the town. Here arms were distributed and orders given by their leader, named Roche. Silently and quickly they reached the town they hoped to surprise. But the regular troops, of which the garrison was chiefly composed, were on the alert though their preparations were made full as silently. When the (.oAHaiitry emerged from Tallow street, into an exposed space, a deadly fire was opened upon them from the houses on all sides. The regulars, in perfect security themselves, and abundantly sup* plied with ammunition, shot them down with deadly, unerring aim. The peplo soon found there was nothing for it but retreat^ and carrying off as best they could their killed and wounded, POPULAR HISTORY OP IRELAND. 705 Wey retired sorely discomfited. For alleged complicity in this attack, Sir Edward Crosbie was shortly afterward arrested, tried and executed. There was not a shadow of proof against him, but he was known to sympathize with the sufferings of his coun- trymen, to have condemned in strong language the policy of pro vocation, and that was sufficient. He paid with the penalty of hia head for the kindness and generosity of his heart. CHAPTER XVL THK INSDKRKCTION OF 1798. THE W1OCFORD INSUBREOTIOfr. THE'most formidable insurrection, indeed the only really for- midable one, broke out in the county of Wexford, a county in which it was stated there were not 200 sworn United Irishmen, and which Lord Edward Fitzgerald had altogether omitted from his official list of counties organized in the month of February. In that brief interval, the government policy of provocation had the desired effect, though the explosion was of a nature to startle those who occasioned it. Wexford, geographically, is a peculiar county, and its people are a peculiar people. The county fills up the south-eastern corner of the island, with the eca south cast, the river Barrow to the west, and the woods and mountains of Carlow and Wicklow to the north. It is about forty miles long by twenty-four broad ; the surface undulating and rising into numerous groups of de- tached hills, two or more of which are generally visible from each conspicuous summit. Almost in the midst flows the river Slaney, springing from a lofty Wicklow peak, which sends