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vessel mentioned to bring the arms came into the port of Waterford, but upon strict search was found to be laden only with salt.

One Hubert Bourke of Crehanagh in the county of Waterford, a loose, idle fellow, had been committed by a mittimus from Richard Poer, earl of Tyrone, to Waterford gaol, for a dangerous assault committed on one John M'Daniel, a blacksmith, after being allowed him four days' time to find bail, and none being offered; so ill was the man's character. Whilst he lay in prison, he gave to one of the judges who went the Munster circuit an information against the earl, containing matters of dangerous consequence to the government. This being communicated to the lord lieutenant, orders were sent to bring Bourke to Dublin, and for lord Tyrone to make also his personal appearance there. The informer swore that the earl had told him there was an invasion soon to be made from France, and would have persuaded him to sign a roll, in which there were about an hundred names, three of which he mentioned, but he did not read nor know the contents of the paper. After Bourke's examination was taken, and whilst the matters of it were 497 under debate in council, there came one from the earl of Tyrone, to acquaint the board of his being come to town, and ready to attend their commands. The secretary was sent to let him know that, considering the accusation against him, he should remain in his lodgings till further order: and the debate being reassumed, it was resolved that Bourke's examination should be sent to the King's Bench, where the matters thereof were more properly cognizable. An order was thereupon signed for delivering it to Mr. justice Jones, then the chief judge of that court, who was to proceed therein and with the said earl according to law. The earl upon his examination denied every thing that was laid to his charge, and Jones having taken sufficient bail for his appearance in the King's

Bench the first of the next term, the council thereupon released him from the confinement they had at first laid upon him, the business being no longer before the board. They thought it however reasonable to let him know, that, whilst he was under those circumstances, it was expected he should forbear coming either to council or to the castle. Judge Jones was likewise directed to examine some persons dwelling in Munster, mentioned in Bourke's information, and proper to be examined on this occasion. The proceedings in this matter were transmitted to Mr. secretary Coventry: but it appeared at last to be a false and malicious accusation.

66 The most considerable witness for sense and quality that offered himself was David Fitzgerald, a gentleman of the county of Limerick, and by profession a protestant. He had been some time in gaol, being committed for treasonable words, and was soon to be brought to his trial.

In this circumstance he pretended to the sheriff of the county, that he could give an account of a design to raise an insurrection in those parts; which had been imparted to him some years ago, and continued to the present time. The sheriff gave the lord lieutenant notice of Fitzgerald's desire to give information of all he knew: whereupon he was sent for, and by permission of the judges before whom he was going to be tried, the sheriff' brought him to the duke of Ormond at Clonmel. There he gave in writing under his hand whatever he could then think of relating to the design: but told his grace, that being wearied by his journey, and his mind disturbed by the malicious prosecution against him, he might afterwards recollect more; of which he would not fail to come and inform the lord lieutenant, as soon as he should be set at liberty. That there might be no delay in the matter, his grace wrote to the judges, that he might have a fair and speedy trial. Fitzgerald had it, was acquitted, and set at liberty: but three weeks passing after his ac

quittal before the lord lieutenant heard any thing of him, he caused a letter to be prepared, directing the sheriff to find him out and bring him before his grace. But the night the letter was to go, Fitzgerald came to Kilkenny on Sept. 27, four days before the duke of Ormond left that place. The duke immediately spoke to him, and desired of him the further account he had promised: but it being Saturday night, he took time till Monday morning to bring it, as he had done his former informations, in writing. Accordingly he then brought it, and told his grace, that some affairs of his own required his going into the county of Longford; but that by Oct. 10 he would come to Dublin, and there give him yet further information. Betwixt the time of his acquittal at Limerick and his coming to Kilkenny, he gave some notice of the discoveries he was to make to lord Broghill, who sent it to his father, by whom it was transmitted into England.

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The duke of Ormond waited for further information till the beginning of November, when Fitzgerald came to Dublin to proceed in his account; but in so sick a condition, that the council was forced to send a committee of the board to examine him at his lodgings, lest he should grow worse or die, and all he could say with him. The 498 bishop of Meath, being versed of old in taking such examinations, and now distinguished by his zeal for the cause in hand, was named of this committee, that the advocates for the plot in England might have no pretence to cavil at the proceedings of the council of Ireland on this occasion. Fitzgerald had, since the duke saw him, recollected himself, and called to mind many particulars proper to add weight to his discoveries. When his narrative was completed, the lord lieutenant sent it into England, to see if any use could be made of it to fortify evidence there; though for his own part he could not find [in] it any signs of a communication between the papists in England and those of Ireland, in relation to the plot. Fitz

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gerald's information consisted of the discourses of some Irish officers in the French service, who had come in 1674 and 1676 into Ireland to raise recruits, but had returned and were now abroad; from which he inferred a design then laid for an insurrection, wherein some gentlemen of the county of Limerick were concerned. Of these he named the lord Bourke of Brittas, the lord Castleconnel's son, sir John Fitzgerald of Coulis, colonel Piers Lacy, and others, to the number of ten or twelve, some of them protestants. Warrants were sent to take up the gentlemen accused; who being brought to Dublin, were examined and confronted with David Fitzgerald. But notwithstanding all the pains the bishop of Meath and the committee at which he presided could take in the affair, it was the end of the year before they could bring Fitzgerald's discovery and informations to such a condition and method, as to be fit for a transmission to the council: nor could they after all make them materially concur with discoveries made in England, or to be of one piece with them. The two lord chief justices also, finding no reason to keep lord Brittas and the other gentlemen accused in prison, admitted them to bail.

It was proposed to bring the accused gentlemen to a trial at Limerick, in a place where their manner of conversation was known, and in the county where the conspiracy wherewith they were charged was pretended to be carried on, and designed to be put in execution. But this was disapproved in England, where it was urged that more evidence might be gotten, and lord Shaftesbury bragged openly, that he had great discoveries of an Irish plot in readiness to produce. David Fitzgerald was sent for over but whether he could not comply with what was proposed to him, or was afraid of being prosecuted in his turn for accusations he could not prove, he stole away from London in order to make his way for Ireland; but was retaken at Bristol. Great pains were taken in this

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last mentioned kingdom to find out more witnesses, who, as fast as they were got, were sent for to London, there to be made use of and examined by a secret committee of the house of commons: some of these were priests, and were brought in May this year before the parliament, where some affront was designed to the duke of Ormond, and it was expected that some censure would be passed upon his conduct: but he had proceeded with so much. prudence and caution in all these affairs, that the examination thereof turned out to his advantage, and the reputation of the council of Ireland, who (as was owned in the house of commons) appeared to be very watchful and full of integrity, as well as knowledge. Nobody was more active in procuring these witnesses than the bishop of Meath, who had been scoutmaster general to Oliver Cromwell's army, and all his life concerned in secret intelligence with Irish priests, and now exerted himself to the utmost to serve that great and worthy patriot, his very good friend (as he styles him) the earl of Shaftesbury. The private intercepted letters of his correspondence with the earl, which was carried on by the means of colonel Mansell and William Hetherington, (that nobleman's chief agent, manager and instructor of the Irish witnesses brought to give evidence of the plot) shew something 499 more zealous than honourable in his proceedings in that affair.

Those letters, having been copied by a person who took care to open them from time to time, were transmitted to the lord lieutenant by the earl of Ossory a few days before he was seized with the illness of which he died. He was taken ill at Arlington-house of an high malignant fever, and the disease was so strong in his head, that he had but few intervals free from the delirium that troubled him more or less all his sickness. Dr. Lloyd, then vicar of St. Martin's, attended him during his illness, and made use of those intervals for performing those duties and acts of