had not for the greatest part of twelve months past inhabited therein; that no papists should come to fairs and markets with swords, pistols, or any other weapons or firearms; and all of that religion to forbear meeting by day or night in any great or unusual numbers. The popish inhabitants were more numerous in Galway, Limerick, Waterford, Kilkenny, Clonmel, and Drogheda, than in any other of the principal towns in the kingdom. Hence the lord lieutenant and council, considering the 481 great importance of those places, thought fit to make a greater provision for their security, and sent letters for removing all papists out of those particular towns, except some few trading merchants, artificers, and others, necessary for the said towns and garrisons.

ვე But after all that was or could be done in the present situation of the kingdom, the great security of its peace and quiet lay in the general opinion entertained by all parties of the duke of Ormond's vigilance and moderation; the protestants resting secure under his protection and care of their safety, and the papists being (under his government) in no apprehensions of extirpation or other violent measures, the dread of which had hurried them into the late rebellion. This moderation of the lord lieutenant was not agreeable to some persons, who possibly imagining that he might be driven out of it by the danger of an assassination, dropped letters in the streets of Dublin, intimating a conspiracy formed for murdering his grace; and several pretended to give an account of what they had heard or suspected of such a design. Divers examinations were taken, and the duke could not well tell at first what to think of the matter, which seemed to agree with what had been mentioned in general by Oates and Dugdale, whose depositions it was calculated to countenance. But he had too much firmness of mind to be moved by such dark and inexplicable informations as were given, to alter a conduct founded upon so much

reason as what he had hitherto observed. All that this conspiracy produced was a proclamation on Dec. 13, offering a reward of two hundred pounds to such person as should make discovery thereof, and protection for his life from all others to whoever had scattered the letters about the streets, giving notice of that design, if he should come in within twenty days, and discover the matter. No harsher measures were taken after this alarm of the danger threatened the duke's person than had been resolved on before, only a new method was made use of to remedy an evil that had been long complained of in the kingdom.

33 The mountainous and boggy parts of Ulster and other quarters of Ireland served for a shelter to a parcel of vagabond robbers, called tories, who continually infested and plundered the country, daily committing several robberies, burglaries, and murders, to the great damage of many of his majesty's good subjects, and the terror of others. All means hitherto used for suppressing them had proved ineffectual, and few of those offenders had been brought to justice; which was chiefly occasioned by divers of the inhabitants of the country complying with them, and declining to resist or pursue them, or by other of their relations and kindred who secretly relieved, succoured, and concealed them, or by some popish priests, who had wholly neglected to make discoveries of them to the next magistrates or officers in the respective garrisons and parishes whither they resorted; which they might very easily have done, if they had minded the quiet of the parishes where they lived, or yielded that obedience to the laws which in duty they ought. The duke of Ormond considering that the pillaging parties of the Irish in 1641 were a great occasion of spreading that rebellion, thought it very necessary to suppress these parties of robbers, left in the unquiet times which seemed to be now approaching, others might be encouraged to flock to them,

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and so form a body destructive to the peace of the kingdom. The necessity of the thing, and the failure of all other means sufficiently justified the use of an extraordinary remedy, to prevent the farther growth of so great a mischief. A proclamation was published, ordering that the kindred and nearest relations (i. e. the wives, fathers, mothers, brothers, and sons) of such persons as were known tories and out upon their keeping in any county of the 482 kingdom, should be forthwith seized upon, and committed to close prison in the county gaol, until such tory or person out upon his keeping, to whom they were so related, should be either killed or taken, so as to be brought to justice; and that where there was any popish pretended parish priest of any place, where any robbery or murder was committed by such tories, he should be seized upon, committed to the common gaol, and thence transported beyond the seas, unless within fourteen days after such robbery or murder the persons guilty thereof were either killed or taken, or such discovery made thereof in that time, as the offenders might thereupon be apprehended and brought to justice.

There were too many protestants in Ireland who wanted another rebellion, that they might increase their estates by new forfeitures, and letters were perpetually sending into England, misrepresenting the lord lieutenant's conduct, and the state of things in Ireland. The earl of Anglesea gave the duke of Ormond a friendly advertisement of those misrepresentations; and of suggestions against his proceedings made by one of the greatest persons in the kingdom, and transmitted to people of different ranks at London, and particularly to some members of parliament and of the privy council. This obliged his grace to enter into the reasons of some of his measures, and shew the notorious falsehood of some facts which had been asserted by persons who did not care to own their informations. It was said, that Dublin was left in a man

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ner unguarded, that the city never more swarmed with Irish, that the powder-house was a full half mile from the town, with a guard of about twenty men each day, and yet the whole store of the kingdom lay there. But this was a very extravagant assertion, when it was notorious that the whole regiment of foot guards, the troop of horse, a company belonging to the artillery and stores, and two thousand of the militia, were thereupon in constant duty; nor was there any greater number of Irish than usual, so that there was no great room to suspect danger there, when it were to be wished that every place in the kingdom was as well secured as Dublin. The powder-house indeed was at the distance mentioned, but purely for want of a fitter place to which it might be reIn the duke's former government the powder was kept in one of the towers of the castle, but his successors thought it no good neighbour, and removed it into the castle garden, to an house built by lord Robarts. The foundation of that house failing, it was sent by lord Berkley first to Meryon, then to Crunclin, and at last brought to the place wherein it was kept at present. His grace would have removed it to the tower where it originally was, but as it rained in, and was likely to fall, he could not remove it till the tower was repaired, and then it was done. But the small quantity of powder reposed in that little house was far from being the whole store of the kingdom; for there was other ammunition at Duncannon, Waterford, Cork, Kinsale, Limerick, and Galway.

moved.

The king had, pursuant to the desires of his parliament, recalled all his subjects out of the French service, and one of those regiments had been sent in the spring into Ireland, and was quartered in the counties of Kildare and Catherlogh. These men were represented to be entirely papists, and lord Blayney and sir Richard Parsons were said to be the only protestants, whereas in fact those two officers had not above ten papists in their companies, and

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of the rest above half of them were protestants. But whatever the case was, these men were only sent thither in order to be kept in a body to go on some other foreign service, to which his grace wished them removed, since some of their officers were papists, though no soldiers could behave themselves more orderly; and they were less complained of than any companies of the standing 483 army. Another complaint was, that all the popish priests had not quitted the kingdom upon the proclamation; but this was not to be expected; it never was, and never will be the consequence of a proclamation: yet more had been shipped off than could have been imagined, and the rest lurked in corners, and durst not come near the great

towns.

The duke of Ormond did not provide for the peace of the nation, by telling the protestants there was no danger; but by encouraging them to exert all their vigilance against any designs or attempts of the Irish, and by convincing them it was an easy matter to suppress them, and that any such attempts must end to the confusion and ruin of the papists. He thought it very imprudent, or something worse, to raise the fears of the protestants, and frighten them with false alarms of danger to discover those fears; which might animate their enemies to make attempts, which otherwise they would not dare to execute. He guarded so well against that evil, that the protestants were generally easy all over the kingdom; only from Munster there were sent him from time to time accounts of the fears of people, magnified to a vast degree, though less reasonable than in any of the other provinces, because the best part of the army was there quartered, the towns were stronger, and the protestants more numerous than they were in the rest. One while the pretence for them was the expectation of a French invasion, founded upon the report of a seaman come in a ship from France, where preparations were making for an expedition, which he