tested acts of cruelty and perfidy, which are perpetrated on those unhappy people, by the order and connivance of her majesty's ministers of Ireland." So writes this humane and laborious inquirer after truth. He then gives that miserable instance which it is our duty to detail, and which alone would be sufficient to palliate the thousand acts of sanguinary vengeance, that the reader of the following pages is doomed to peruse.

Soon after the earl of Desmond was proclaimed a traitor by the deputy, his territories were desolated by a rapacious soldiery, and every act of barbarous and insatiable outrage practised upon the innocent and unoffending inhabitants. Nature, at length roused by the excess of suffering, made a desperate effort: the Irish attacked the town of Youghal, which they plundered without mercy, and cut off a large detachment which the deputy had commissioned to defend it. This partial success animated the courage and determination of Desmond, and we find him making those artful appeals to the religious and patriotic feelings of his countrymen, that were best calculated to rouse them to a great and universal effort. The sufferings of the earl of Desmond and his family, in their various struggles for their great possessions, excite the sympathy of every mind that contemplates the ancient power of this persecuted nobleman;* when we find them taking shelter in the woods of the estates of which Desmond was the lawful and honoured master, we cannot refrain from deprecating that infamous principle, which, under the pretext of civilization, desolated the fairest portion of Ireland, and drove to ruin the oldest and most respected of the Irish chieftains. The various castles of earl Desmond were reduced; and the murder of the Irish in the castle of Carrick-on-Foyle,

* Desmond (according to Baker's chronicles) possessed whole counties, besides the county palatine of Kerry; and had of his own вame and race, at least five hundred gentlemen at his command; all of whom, and his own life also, he lost within the space of three years; very few of the house being left alive.

under the command of the Italian called Julio, after they had surrendered to the British arms, may be taken by the reader as an epitome of the savage warfare waged by England against the country. Soon after, the ignorance of a new deputy contributed to raise the almost exhausted spirits of the followers of Desmond. Lord Grey, whose administration was an uninterrupted course of the most insatiable barbarity and plunder, was appointed lord deputy; and so ardent was his zeal to distinguish himself as the destroyer of the Irish people, that it plunged him into difficulties discreditable and injurious to his military character. Ignorant of the country, he presumed to lead his troops against the Irish, into the valley of Glendalough, in the county of Wicklow; which, fortified by nature, and defended by enthusiasm, could bid defiance to the most experienced and skilful of the British generals: Lord Grey was surrounded with enemies whom he could not reach, and assailed on all sides by attacks which he could not return; he lost his principal officers, and returned to the seat of government, covered with confusion and dishonour. So decided a victory raised the spirits of the Irish, and the arrival of an army of Italians and Spaniards in the south, inspired the followers of Desmond with increased confidence and energy; they landed at a place called Smerwick; they brought arms and ammunition for five thousand men, and a large sum of money which was to be delivered to the earl of Desmond. The earl of Ormond was ordered to march against the invaders, and sir William Winter proceeded to invest the enemy by sea, while Ormond was collecting his forces by land; thus surrounded, the fort of Smerwick was summoned to surrender; the refusal of the Spaniards and their Irish auxiliaries was bold and peremptory: they went on with vigour, and the Spaniards finding it impossible to hold out much longer, agreed to capitulate on certain conditions, honourable to the besieged; lord Grey, in the confidence of victory disdained to grant

any terms to an enemy whom he insultingly denominated traitors; from them no money could be expected; from them no money was received: the garrison was forced to surrender, and after being disarmed, were cruelly butchered under the direction, and immediate authority of sir Walter Raleigh.* Elizabeth, it is said, expressed the utmost concern and displeasure at the atrocious and barbarous scene: the continent of Europe heard the account of the massacre with horror, and every heart and every hand volunteered in offering their services to avenge such an outrage on humanity. In Ireland the effects of such sanguinary proceedings were to multiply new enemies, and create new insurrections; the spirit of vengeance ran through the country proclaiming the wantonness of English cruelty, and appealing to all the honourable sympathies of the heart for satisfaction, and the punishment of such barbarous delinquency. The seat of government was threatened with a conspiracy, and the principal Irish families which surrounded the metropolis were suspected of being concerned in the plot against the English government. Such are the invariable consequences of persecution; it multiplies the evil supposed to be exterminated, and the blood of the victim seems to produce new enemies to the oppressor, and new proselytes to the principle he vainly imagines he is extinguishing. Lord Grey, in the brutality of his fury, was determined to make a great and signal example; he seized several of the most distinguished persons, some of whom he executed. Among these was. Nugent, baron of the exchequer, a man (Mr. Leland writes) of a singular good life and reputation; he was sacrificed to the blind and in

* Dr. Curry says, that a Roman catholic writer, who lived near that time, thus relates the affair we have detailed above. "Nine hundred Spaniards, except about eleven officers, were stript of their weapons, and all slain or cast over the clifts into the sea, (for the fort of Smerwick stood upon a mighty high rock over the sea,) notwithstanding the lord deputy's word and faith unto them all for their lives, liberties, and goods, and safe conduct into Spain.”—Theatre of Cath. Relig.

discriminate barbarity of the deputy, whom we soon find so detested in his government of Ireland, that even he can no longer bear the eternal indignation with which he is surrounded; he is weary of his station, and petitions for his recal.

In the history of this unfortunate country, the reader will find numerous instances of the most unaccountable passion for the destruction of its unoffending and innocent inhabitants. They will wonder that the miserable unproductiveness of a system, so often experienced, should not have induced the ministers of Elizabeth to try the mild and merciful plan of equal and impartial protection; but we shall find the voracious spirit of confiscation swallowing up all other considerations, and the cold blooded murderers of the Irish rewarded with the possession of estates and of titles. In Carte's life of Ormond, we read (says Dr. Curry) that for the slaughter of the Irish at Limerick, and at other places, sir Walter Raleigh had forty thousand acres of land bestowed on him, in the county of Cork, which he afterwards sold to Richard, first earl of Cork. We may form some idea of the misery experienced by our country, during the persecution of the earl of Desmond, from the following passage, quoted by Dr. Curry from Spencer. He was secretary to lord Grey during his administration of Ireland; and we should conclude, from the pathetic and feeling language of his narrative, was the indignant observer of the wretched scene which he describes. "Notwithstanding that the province of Munster was a most plentiful country, full of corn and cattle, yet ere one year and a half, they were brought to such wretchedness as that any heart would rue the same; out of every corner of the woods and glyns they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them; they looked like anatomies of death; they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves: they did eat the dead carrions, happy where they could find them; yea, and one another soon after, insomuch as the very carcases they spared not

to scrape out of their graves; and if they found a plot of water-cresses or shamrocs, there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able to continue there withal; that in a short space there was none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man and beast." Such is the description of the desolation and misery depicted on one of the fairest portions of Ireland by the secretary of that chief governor who was the author of such unparalleled calamity. Mr. Leland says, that lord Grey tyrannized with such merciless barbarity, that it was represented to the queen, "that little was left in Ireland for her majesty to reign over, but ashes and carcases.” At length lord Grey was recalled, and a pardon offered to those Irish who would accept it.

The war had now nearly terminated; the forces and the spirits of the earl of Desmond were nearly exhausted: pursued on all sides by the indefatigable vigor of Ormond, he entreated to be received into mercy. His applications were rejected; he fled for refuge to the woods and bogs, and depended on the fidelity of his followers for the support of nature. He was at length discovered in a miserable hut, his head cut off, and carried to the earl of Ormond: it was immediately conveyed to the queen, and impaled on London bridge.

Dr. Curry writes, that after Desmond's death, and the entire suppression of his rebellion, unheard of cruelties were committed on the provincials of Munster, by the English commanders. Great companies of those provincials, men, women, and children, were often forced into castles and other houses, which were then set on fire; and if any of them attempted to escape from the flames, they were shot or stabbed by the soldiers who guarded· them. It was a diversion to these monsters of men to take up infants on the point of their spears, and whirl them about in their agony, apologizing for their cruelty by saying, "that if they suffered them to live to grow up, they would become popish rebels." Many of the women