persecution of its enemies, will be embraced with equal ardour, as the Irish received the Scottish alliance of Edward Bruce.

Mr. Hume, who does not often sympathise with the sufferings of this country, whose sensibility would be more affected by the misfortunes of a royal individual, than the miserable scene of distress which covered the whole people of Ireland for centuries, breaks out into the following indignant observation on the oppression practised by his countrymen on its devoted inhabitants: "The horrible and absurd oppressions which the Irish suffered under the English government, made them at first fly to the standard of the Scots, whom they regarded as their deliverers." ·Should not such an example have operated as a source of instruction to succeeding governments, not to be making so important a member of the British empire as Ireland, the common subject on which every experiment suggested by tyranny or by ambition was hereafter to be tried; the retreat of an odious favourite, or a bankrupt lord; the resting place of every political adventurer who would submit to be the instrument of the sovereign, administering to his views of folly, passion, or tyranny. In the time of Edward II. we see the royal favourite, Pierce Gaveston, odious to Englishmen, appointed the representative of majesty in Ireland. In succeeding times we shall find Ireland the grand refugium peccatorum of Englishmen; the place of refuge for every bad or vicious passion, and the great scene of remuneration for every public delinquent, who has incurred the resentment, or merited the displeasure of the English nation. The vicegerent of Edward II. Pierce Gaveston, had so much offended the pride, and independent spirit of the English barons, by the insolence of his demeanour, and the abuse of his royal master's partiality, that Edward was obliged to yield to the general sentiment against his favourite; and, to blunt the edge of public vengeance, sent him to Ireland, where the services

of Gaveston might, in some degree, obliterate the remembrance of those injuries of which the barons of England so loudly complained. The personal qualities of Gaveston were highly calculated to raise great public expectations of the effects of his administration; and in this hope the English colonists were not disappointed. He displayed great vigour and ability as viceroy; he extinguished rebellion the moment it raised its head, and established peace and tranquillity throughout his government, as much by the independent firmness of his administration, as by the promptitude and triumph of his arms. The splendor of the governor threw the English barons into the shade. Accustomed to dictate to the viceroy, those petty lords could not brook the high and supercilious demeanor of Gaveston; and a rivalship of parade and ostentation between those lords and the viceroy, had frequently the effect of protecting the people against the insolence and torture of petty tyranny.

Those symptoms of discontent had just appeared, when the favourite Gaveston was recalled; and the government was again intrusted, but with limited powers, to sir John Wogan, who was compelled to consume his time, and that of parliament, with an idle contest for precedence between the prelates of Armagh and Dublin.

New wars were carried on between the lords of the pale, and the native Irish; and the earl of Ulster, whose ambition had no bounds, wantonly invaded the territories of Thomond, where he suffered a signal defeat from the Geraldines. The result of those sanguinary contests was the union of the two families, of the Geraldines, and the family of the earl of Ulster, an union which promised an interval of repose to the people of Ireland. A new scene now opened, which brought back all the miseries and distress from which Ireland flattered herself in some degree released. The triumph of liberty in Scotland roused the patriotic ardour of the native Irish, and the

degrading contrast which their own situation exhibited, when compared with the glorious independence enjoyed by the Scottish nation, prompted the bold and intrepid spirits of Ireland, to emulate the conduct of the illustrious Bruce, who successfully asserted the freedom of his countrymen. They entered into correspondence with the monarch of Scotland: they solicited his protection in strong and pathetic language, and promised the universal co-operation of Ireland with his invading arms. The preparations making throughout Ireland for the reception of the Scottish invader, alarmed the government of the pale so much, that a deputation, composed of the lords of Ulster, Edmond Butler, and Theobald de Verdun, was sent forward to consult with the king, his prelates, and nobles, on the critical and alarming situation of the English interests. We find these commissioners, who had communicated with the British monarch and his parliament, sent back to Ireland, to lay a statement of the royal determination in favour of the Irish, before the principal chieftains of the latter; promising redress of grievances, cessation of persecution, and stooping to the humility and meanness of soliciting the alliance of those people whom the violence of English persecution had driven into the arms of rebellion.

Among other measures, offensive and defensive, adopted on this occasion by the Irish people, and the English monarch, we find an appeal to the pope, the grand arbiter of Europe, the thunders of whose bulls were heard with veneration in the remotest corners of the civilized world.

The pathetic and able remonstrance presented by the Irish people, on this occasion, to the most holy father, is the best picture which can be presented to posterity of the sufferings which Ireland experienced from the invasion of England. It is a compendium of human sorrow, and of goading exasperation, which no future pen could more strongly delineate; which brings tears into the eyes of the

́Irish reader, and justifies, in a loud and emphatic tone, the efforts of our ancestors, who struggled for their deli

verance.

The Irish chieftains, being only catholics, and not having the claims on papal partiality which the English monarch had, relied on the justice of their cause; and, fearless of contradiction, related the story of their sufferings in such strong and glowing terms, as called for the sympathy of the royal father, and moved him to interpose between the persecuted people of Ireland and the British monarch. Even in this abridgment of Irish history, we cannot refrain from giving, at length, and without curtailment, this interesting document of Irish grievances. To the English reader, it should be a fertile source of instruction; and to the rulers of Ireland it should be strong and satisfactory evidence of the necessity of securing the allegiance of Irishmen by services, rather than weakly endeavouring to humble and reduce their spirit by persecution. This Irish remonstrance is an able recapitulation of English administration, from the invasion of Henry II.; and is a triumphant vindication of their present resistance to England.

"To the most holy father in Christ, lord Jolin, by the grace of God; his devoted children, Donald O'Neil, king of Ulster, and by hereditary right true heir of Ireland, as also the chieftains, and nobles, and the people of Ireland, recommend themselves most humbly, &c. &c.

"It is extremely painful to us, that the vicious detrac tions of slanderous Englishmen, and their iniquitous suggestions against the defenders of our rights, should exasperate your holiness against the Irish nation; but alas! you know us only by the misrepresentation of our enemies; and you are exposed to the danger of adopting the infamous falsehoods which they propagate, without hearing any thing of the detestable cruelties they have committed against our ancestors, and continue to commit even to this day against ourselves.

N

Heaven forbid that your holiness should be thus misguided; and it is to protect our unfortunate people from such a calamity, that we have resolved here to give you a faithful account of the present state of a kingdom we can call the melancholy remains of a nation that so long groans under the tyranny of their kings of England, and of the barons: some of whom, though born among us, continue to practise the same rapine and cruelties against us, which their ancestors did against ours heretofore. We shall speak nothing but the truth, and we hope that your holiness will not delay to inflict condign punishment on the authors and abettors of such inhuman calamities.

"Know, then, that our forefathers came from Spain; and our chief apostle, St. Patrick, sent by your predecessor pope Celestine, in the year 435, did by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, most effectually teach us the truth of the holy Roman catholic faith, and that, ever since that period, our kings, well instructed in the faith that was preached to them, have, in number sixty-one, without mixture of foreign blood, reigned in Ireland, to the year 1170; and those kings were not Englishmen, nor of any other nation but our own; who with pious liberality bestowed ample endowments in lands, and many immunities on, the Irish church; though in modern times our churches were most barbarously plundered by the English, by whom they are almost despoiled; and though those our kings so long and so strenuously defended against the tyrants and kings of different regions, the inheritance given them by God, preserving their innate liberty at all times inviolate, yet Adrian IV. your predecessor, an Englishman more even by affection and prejudice than by birth, blinded by that affection, and the false suggestions of Henry II. king of England, under whom, and perhaps by whom, St. Thomas of Canterbury was murdered, gave the dominions of this our kingdom, by a certain form of words, to that same Henry II. whom he ought rather to have stripped of