Barker's friends to stop his complaints by granting him the lands which by the judgment were vested in his majesty and in his disposal. The duke of Ormond thought it very hard that persons intrusted by the king with the government of one of his realms should be calumniated 359 and libelled by such a man as Barker, without such a vindication and reparation as his majesty owed to his own authority intrusted with his servants. He conceived that the king was under greater obligations of honour and conscience to dispose of those lands towards the enlargement of the common stock for some of the ends of the act of settlement, than he was to bestow them upon Barker. There were three thousand acres to be assigned to Ruthorne, who had made the discovery of the fraud, and had been at the charge of the prosecution; and as soon as the lands were adjudged to the king, his grace had earnestly recommended the disposal of the remaining twelve thousand five hundred and fifty acres among the nominees, who, notwithstanding his majesty's gracious intentions of restoring each of them two thousand acres of their old estates, remained yet unsatisfied. He had been charged by Barker not only with error of understanding, but with partiality or some other mean end in the judgment upon his case; faults of which he was not conscious at all to himself, and for which he thought he had given not the least ground of suspicion to others. He knew nothing he had to fear or be ashamed of in that business; and when he found the king not only advised, but disposed to give back the lands to Barker, he remonstrated against it in the strongest manner. He thought it would throw a slur upon the judgment of the council of Ireland in that case; and as his majesty ought in justice to consult the honour and reputation of his ministers there, so he could not in prudence bring upon himself so much trouble, as he would soon have, if it were once found that unjust

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and unreasonable clamours could procure success to the most groundless claims. A little encouragement would give rise to a thousand of the like clamours, and he should for ever despair of a settlement, unless his majesty would adhere to the just sentence pronounced against Barker, and let his petition to the house of commons take its fate.

There was another petition presented to that house signed by eight adventurers in the name of the rest, praying that they might have the entire benefit intended them by the acts in the 17th and 18th of the late king. If the rules and limitations laid down in those acts had been strictly observed, they had no title to any of the lands allotted them; and yet they petitioned that the whole thereof might be assigned them, notwithstanding they had agreed, when the act of explanation was settling, to accept of two thirds. If their desires had been gratified, all that had been done for seven years past towards the settlement of Ireland would have been unravelled at once, and that country thrown into horrible confusions. The request of persons to be relieved against their own act appeared so unreasonable, and the consequences of it so very mischievous, and both these were so clearly represented by sir H. Finch to the house of commons, that, notwithstanding all the endeavours of the duke of Buckingham, they thought fit on Dec. 10 to dismiss the petition. The adventurers had once thought of applying to the king in council, but despairing of getting their point there, altered their mind, and applied, though with no better success, to the house of commons. The king indeed did not care to meddle in the Irish disputes, and was afraid of giving his own judgment in the case, and of declaring his intentions in the behalf of those whom he thought had the best title to his favour.

There was a stock of five hundred thousand acres for reprisals, which the commissioners finding not to be suf

ficient to answer the demands of all persons, and that their adjudging to some their whole had given occasion of complaint, and would in the end leave others utterly unsatisfied as to any part of their claims, had applied to the lord lieutenant and council for directions. The doubts were, whether the nominees should be first put in possession of the two thousand acres specially assigned them 360 by the acts of settlement, before satisfaction was given to some other interests; whether the proviso-men or any other interest should be preferred, or whether, upon considering all the persons entitled to those acres, they should not be distributed as far as they would go, making a proportionable defalcation out of each interest and person's claims. The duke of Ormond thought that the act was so express in favour of the nominees for their proportion, that they ought to have their two thousand acres assigned them in the first place, especially since it was but a small part of their former estates; but a great many of the council were of a different opinion. The king was deemed the most proper person to determine what his own intentions were in that case, and to him the matter was referred. The nominees accordingly presented a petition to the council of England, but, instead of proceeding to a sentence, lord Anglesea found means to keep off a determination, and sir W. Coventry insisting that any decision there would be plucking a thorn out of the duke of Ormond's foot to put it in the king's, the matter was referred back to the council of Ireland. This case of the nominees and proviso-men was accordingly on Dec. 13 argued by council of both sides. When they had urged all that could be said on the subject, and the members of the board were ready to give their judgment, the lord chief baron desired to be excused from giving his, alleging, that, being a party, he could not be made a judge, even by an act of parliament. Being asked how he was a party, he affirmed, that he was not only in pos

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session of the estate of a nominee, whereof the nominee had made election as part of his two thousand acres, but had likewise a deficiency to be satisfied. This the lord chief justice Santry allowed to be law, and a sufficient ground to dispense with the chief baron. Upon this many others of the council affirmed themselves to be likewise parties; so that of twenty-four members of the board then present, there were not above seven or eight who found themselves in a capacity to be judges. Hereupon the sentence was put off, the duke of Ormond himself not knowing how far he might possibly be a party, till he had first consulted his commissioners for the management of his estate, to whom he had formerly given directions to purchase some deficiencies in the county of Kilkenny that lay intermixed with his own lands, but did not know whether they had been executed.

The parliament of England adjourned on Dec. 14 to Feb. 6. Their proceedings, and the threats of the faction against the duke of Ormond, had an ill effect in Ireland, and furnished him an occasion of exercising that firmness which never failed him in any distressed situation of affairs. The interests of all men in that kingdom were affected in the consequences of Barker's and the adventurers' petitions; and the disaffected part of it were much elated by the hopes of an impeachment of the duke of Ormond. The discourses of all sorts of people were very free and bold, and their expectations suited their wishes. A wonderful wariness ensued in most of those who should have bore their parts in the management of affairs; whilst others assumed great confidence in disturbing them under the countenance or pretence of law. Those who insisted most on the benefit and privilege of laws, were chiefly such as in times past had allowed others no share in them. This appeared particularly in the opposition now begun to be given in most towns to the quartering of the army; which if they could shake off, they might hope soon after to

bring it to mutiny, or to be no army at all; either of which consequences would probably enable them to effect their purposes. "I have so much reason," says the duke of Ormond in his letter of Jan. 4 to lord Arlington, “to fear this may be the aim of some, that for all I am threatened to be accused of treason on account of giving 361 warrants for the quartering of soldiers; yet I am so hopeful that I shall incur no such danger, and so apprehensive that, if the army shall be much discouraged or lessened, treason and rebellion would soon shew themselves, that I continue to give the usual warrants, and to compel obedience to be given to them; and so I shall do, if his majesty vouchsafe to give it his approbation." Lord Arlington, in his answer to this letter, promised to send the king's directions in his next; but I do not find in any of his following despatches the least syllable upon this subject. The duke of Ormond seems in these ticklish and dangerous times to be left to his own judgment, without any rule or directions to guide him in his conduct; and as I think it a matter worthy of curiosity to see the situation of the mind of a great man under difficulties, I have therefore published some of his grace's letters expressing his undisguised sentiments with regard to the impeachment, by which his friend the earl of Clarendon bad been ruined, and himself was threatened, and have inserted them in the Appendix, Nos. XLVII-LXXVI. 267 The duke of Buckingham seemed to be at this time sovereign director of the king's counsels, and of the measures of the parliament, and to be thereby in a condition of executing his own schemes, and of deciding the fate of those against whom he declared himself an enemy. He had undertaken that the house of commons should give the king a supply for his necessities, which were very great and urgent, but it was not yet granted, and it was uncertain in what temper they would meet. Nor were his schemes adapted to his majesty's service, or intended