feelings which should distinguish the Irish historian. "Such," he writes, "were the institutions of an assembly quoted in Ireland with reverence, confirmed and renewed in after times as of most salutary influence." What Irishman, with the feelings of an honest man, can quote with reverence the provisions of such an act as the statute of Kilkenny, unless proscription, barbarity, selfishness, and a complete abandonment of principle, be such qualities as human nature will praise and admire. The effect of this cruel statute was the suppression of those factions, in some degree, which distracted the pale; but it had also the effect of making the hostility of the Irish take a deeper root; and we soon find that O'Brien and O'Connor visit the colonists with implacable vengeance. So miserable'

was the state of Ireland, so barbarised were the natives by the enlightened legislation of English adventurers, that we have to record the refusal of sir Richard Pembridge to administer the affairs of Ireland, or to fill the hazardous and dangerous station of viceroy of Ireland. It was therefore assigned to sir William Windsor. from the king an annual appointment of eleven thousand pounds, to defray the charges of his g

He obtained

and we are informed by sir John Davis, that the whole revenue of the pale, certain and casual, did not amount to ten thousand pounds annually.

The barren and unproductive effects of that system which Edward acted upon in Ireland, are well illustrated by a remarkable occurrence which now (1376) took place. It should teach government how unprofitable are the eviscerations of tyranny, and the extortions of avarice. The distractions and poverty of Ireland were now so great, that Edward sent forward an agent, Nicholas Dagworth, to ascertain the real cause of deficiency of revenue experienced in his Irish dominions. Edward summoned the parliament of the pale to Westminster. The Irish representatives sat at Westminster; and what success

Edward had from this interview with his Irish parliament is not on record; but the impotency of the statute of Kilkenny is acknowledged by the rapid declension of the English interest, the multiplication of English and Irish connections, and the necessary relaxation of the severe and cruel provisions that statute contained. The reign of one of the most renowned of the English monarchs closed without imparting a single benefit to this ill-fated country. Too much occupied with the brilliant and unproductive glories of foreign conquest, he consigned his kingdom of Ireland to the passions and follies, and experiments of deputies, who had neither the talents nor the power to promote any lasting scheme of sound or profound policy. Mr. Leland truly observes, "It was the perverse fate of Ireland to suffer more from the most renowned, than the weakest of the English monarchs."

THE

HISTORY OF IRELAND.

Richard II.

A.D.

1377.

THE events of this reign are well calculated to exhibit the follies of the last; and the devastation which the colony suffered from the vengeance of the Irish, is no bad commentary on the wretched effects of that policy which seeks its safety rather in the strength of the chain, than the affections of the heart. The English were either driven from their lands, or those who were suffered to preserve them were obliged to pay tribute to the native Irish chieftains.

The parliament of England murmured at the constant waste of blood and treasure incurred by the maintenance of the Irish dominions. The national treasury, exhausted by the foreign wars in which England was so long involved by the ambition of Edward, had recourse to every expedient which ingenuity or wisdom could suggest. Absentees were heavily taxed. The Irish were permitted to work their mines, on condition of paying a ninth of the produce; they were allowed to coin money, and to hold free trade with Portugal; thus granting to Ireland, from necessity, what should have been long before suggested Q

a

by sound national policy. The foreign enemies of Eng land took advantage of the unfortunate counsels of the colony, and the Scotch and French invaded the Irish shores. Those strong illustrations of the folly of governing Ireland by harsh and violent measures, were not sufficient to open the eyes of England. Richard, always the victim of his passions and partialities, intrusted the Irish government to Philip de Courtney, a man of the most violent and oppressive disposition. So excessive were the extortions of this baron, that even Richard was obliged to surrender him to the vengeance of his accusers.

A new scene now opens, in which the weakness, the vanity, and the tyranny of Richard, eminently contribute to increase the calamities of Ireland. To a monarch, possessed of a good understanding, and armed with the power which Richard was able to command, the opportunity enjoyed by the latter to put an end to the distractions of Ireland, might have been the beginning of a new and prosperous era, and the establishment of such a system as would give permanent tranquillity to the empire; but the most unmeaning partialities for the most worthless of his subjects, and a complete abandonment of the solid and substantial interests of his empire to the gratification of his favourites, kept Ireland exposed to a perpetuity of that bad government which generated so much calamity to the colony, as well as the native Irish.

Richard, in obedience to his ruling passion, invested the corrupt and profligate earl of Oxford with the marquisate of Dublin. He also granted to him the entire dominion of Ireland, and empowered this young and giddy lord to appoint all officers of state and justice. The latter was bound in return to pay into the English exchequer five thousand marks annually. The inordinate partiality of the king would not suffer his favourite to leave the royal presence; but he continued to heap new honors on his head,

and sent forward deputies to perform the duties of the earl of Oxford as duke of Ireland.

The indignation of the English barons at the impudent arrogance of Oxford, who trampled on their dignity and their feelings, broke out in every corner of England, and Richard and his favourite were obliged to yield to the storm of public vengeance. The earl of Oxford was stripped of all his honors, and the Irish administration ceased to be carried on in the name or under the seal of the deposed earl.

We find nothing very novel in the transactions of the colony until the determination of Richard to visit his Irish dominions. This monarch landed at Waterford in the year 1394, with a royal army, consisting of 4000 cavalry, and 30,000 archers, attended by the duke of Gloucester, earls of Nottingham and Rutland, Thomas, lord Percy, and other distinguished personages. The reflection of Mr. Leland on this royal visit to Ireland, is both just and philosophic.—“ An army," he says, "commanded by some of the prime nobility of England, with the monarch at their head; the presence of the king to inspect the con duct of his ministers, to hear and examine the complaints of his subjects, were circumstances of considerable moment, if duly improved ; and, if united with a liberal and equitable spirit of policy, must have established the authority of the English government, and the general pacification and ci vility of the kingdom, on the firmest basis; but," he con tinues, "the pride of the English forbade them to propose the generous scheme of receiving all the inhabitants into the body of English subjects, or of communicating the benefits of a free and equitable constitution to those whom they most absurdly called their inferiors. However lively their own regard to liberty, they accounted it a blessing too precious not to be confined to themselves; for," says Mr. Leland, "they had not acquired that extended and comprehensive benevolence which is the effect of refinement and deep moral reflection." This is a great admission,