After all, the garrifon of Londonderry was, it seems, refolved not to be behindhand in cruelty with De Rofen himself. "For they erected gibbets, and had determined to hang fome Irish gentlemen, who were prisoners in the town,f had not de Rofen's order been fo foon countermanded. And fome add, that they even threatened to eat them after they were hanged;" which, from the extreme want of food, which they then laboured under, feems not be very improbable.

CHA P.

s Har. K. William, f. 105. Note.

your majefty will have compaffion upon them in the distresses to which they may be reduced; yet the troops are ruined, and the rebels will receive relief, which will oblige your majesty to abandon every thing. I imagined that I might have induced them to furrender, by threatening them as I have done, but that has produced no effect. It is true, I have not put my project in execution, and that perhaps is the reafon why we are not yet further advanced; for I have presented before their gates but a fmall number of their accomplices, to try if that would make any impreffions on them; but they had the cruelty to fire upon them and to refuse them every kind of affiftance, for which reafon I fent them back to their habitations, after having made them comprehend the difference between your majesty's clemency and the cruel treatment of their own party.

"You fee, Sire, the condition your troops are in. I leave your majefty to judge, if an honeft man, who has a high sense of honour, can continue to command them without great anxiety, when your enemies are particularly attentive to furnish your rebellious fubjects with excellent arms. I doubt not but we shall fee them march againft us foon, with protections in their pockets and arms in their hands, which happened frequently already, and happens every day." DE ROSEN.

"The Marthal De Rofen appears to have been a diligent and active officer: but those who served under him were unacquainted with difcipline, and either James himself was inattentive to the fervice, or his orders were never properly executed." Macpherfon's Orig. Pap. vol. i. p. 210.

Among thefe were "Lord Viscount Netterville, Sir Garret Aylmer, Major Rowcommen, and a great many others of leffer note, taken at the first engagement; and in the laft, Captain Butler, fon to the Lord Mountgarret, one of the great McDonalds, a captain, and Captain M'Donogh, and many others too long to Walker's Lett. Macphers. vol. iii. p. 202. Note.

name."

CHA P. XIII.

The proteftants of Ireland were not deprived of their churches by King James, as Dr. King fets forth.

KING

ING James, when in Ireland, was not actuated by that intemperate zeal for the re-establishment of the catholic religion, which he had before, on some occafions difcovered in England; probably because he had experienced the unhappy effects of it in the latter kingdom. Even when he fent the Earl of Clarendon lord lieutenant of Ireland, one of his inftructions to him was, "to confult the Archbishop of Canterbury in

1

• Clarend. State Lett. vol. i. p. 50.

all

a The true caufe and motive of King James's endeavours to reestablish the Roman catholic religion in England, feems not fo much to have any bigotted attachment to that religion (as is commonly thought) as, "his fufficiently knowing, that he could never be in entire fafety, till the catholic religion was established in England, in fuch a manner as not to be ruined or destroyed." These were his own words in a private conference with Barillon, the French embaffador. And whoever confiders his recent and alarming remembrance of his father's murder, and of his brother's inceffant troubles during his whole reign, which were both caufed principally by thofe very men who were the greatest enemies of that religion, and who imprudently called themselves the only true proteftants; will abate fomewhat of their wonder at these his endeavours to give some establishment to his Roman catholic fubjects. See Sir John Dalrymp. Mem. vol. iii. p. 37.

That King James entertained no malicious defigns against proteftants, merely as fuch, appears from the following paffage. "About the year 1687, the French proteftants came in great numbers into England, to fhelter themselves from the perfecution that raged in their own country. They were received with great tenderness by the people, and with great kindness by the king, who granted them briefs for their relief, and gave them confiderable fums out of his privy purse, which was looked up on as an artifice by fome, but highly commended by more impartial perfons." Continuation of Baker's Chronicle, f. 741.

all the religious affairs of that kingdom." And Dr. King' confeffes, "that when he was there in person, he turned out the popish mayor of Wexford, for not restoring a church of which the proteftants of that city had been difpoffeffed; and that he expreffed himself with more paffion on that occafion than was ufual to him." This was a fact fo notoriously true, that the doctor was afhamed to deny or conceal it; but he was not afhamed to affirm and publifh what was as notoriously untrue, viz.'" that in the diocefe of Dublin alone, twenty-fix churches and chapels were by him taken from the protestants; and that his majefty could not, or rather would not, prevent the demolishing, defacing, or feizing of

nine churches out of ten."

King James had publifhed a proclamation, December 13th, 1689, against meddling with any of the proteftant churches in Ireland, as a violation of the act of liberty of confcience. But " his promifes to protect the protestants of that kingdom," fays Dr. King, "were meer pretences; the popish priests having taken poffeffion of most of the churches there, by his private permiffion."

C

2 Ubi fupra.

3 State of the Proteft. &c. p. 177.

+ Ib. p. 174.

་

Mr.

King James was hardly ever noted for duplicity of conduct; this cannot be faid of his competitor for the crown. The Prince of Orange in a letter to the emperor, acquainting him with his intended expedition into England, fays, "I affure your imperial majefty, by this letter, that whatever reports may have been fpread, and notwithstanding those which may be spread for the future, I have not the leaft intention to do any hurt to his Britannic majefty, or to those who have a right to pretend to the fucceffion of his kingdoms, and ftill lefs to make an attempt upon the crown." And a little after; "I ought to intreat your imperial majefty to be affured, that, I will employ all my credit to provide, that the Roman catholics of that country may enjoy liberty of confcience, and be put out of fear of being perfecuted on account of their religion." Sir John Dalrymp. Mem. vol. iii. p. 170. See Append. Not only the emperor, but the pope himfelf, was cajoled by thefe deceitful affurances.

And yet Dr. King, at the fame time, confeffes," that the proteftants, in their application to government for the recovery

of

5

Mr. Lefley treats this whole accufation, as a notorious untruth and calumny; he calls upon Dr. King to fhew even one proteftant church in Ireland, that was taken away, either by King James's order or connivance. He affirms that his majefty was fo very careful of the proteftants, in that point, that even at Dublin, where he kept his court, neither the cathedral, nor any parish church in the whole city was taken from the protestants; he owns that he took Chrift-church for his own ufe, because it was always reputed the king's chapel.d But Dr. King himself," adds he, " and others then preached paffive obedience in their own pulpits in Dublin; and that to fuch a degree, as to give offence to fome of their proteftant hearers, who thought they stretched even to flattery.'

Thefe pofitive affertions, publicly and grievously impeaching Dr. King's veracity, having never fince been contradicted, or even queftioned by him or his friends, afford the strongest prefumption, that they were, at that time, generally known and acknowledged to be undeniably true.

5 Anfw. to King.

CHAP.

of fome churches, had the luck to gain feveral of the popish nobility to favour their fuits." Ubi supra, p. 176.

"King James, fays Macpherson, was peculiarly unfortunate; he was charged by the proteftants of violence in favour of the papifts; he was accused by the papists of too much lenity to the proteftants." Hift. of Great Britain, vol. i. p. 564.

d Yet fome adverse writers have taken the liberty to charge K. James with violating his coronation oath. Was it for protecting the proteftants, or allowing the catholics the free exercise of their religion, they forged this calumny? For King James's Coronation Oath, fee the Append. ad finem.

"Dr. King then used to fay, that perfecution never hurted religion, but that rebellion destroyed it; and that it would be a glorious fight to fee a cartful of clergymen going to the ftake for afferting the principles of religion, with regard to paffive obedience." Lesley, Answ. Pref.

King William's treatment of the epifcopal clergy in Scotland, compared with King James's behaviour towards the proteftant clergy in Ireland.

MR.

R. Lesley has drawn a parallel between King William's behaviour to the epifcopal clergy of Scotland, and King James's to thofe of the eftablifhed church of Ireland, at the fame time, viz. in the year 1689; by which it appears, that the former did actually effect in Scotland, what the latter was only fufpected to have defigned in Ireland.

"When," fays he," the ftates of Scotland were convened by King William's circular letter of March 1689, the oaths required by the law to be taken by all members of parliament, or any judicature, before they can fit and vote there, being laid afide, the antimonarchical and fanatical party were admitted into the house; and thereby, becoming the greater number (when the major part of Scotland, and much the greater part of the nobility and gentry, were epifcopal) did afterwards frame an act of grace, pardoning and acquitting all thofe that had been concerned in the open and public - rebellions of Pentland-hills and Bothwell-bridge; and thus these furies incarnate, the affaffinates of the Lord Archbishop of St. Andrew's, as many of them as were then

of

"On the 3d of May, 1670, Dr. Sharp, Archbishop of St. Andrew's, on his way to that city, was attacked by a party thefe furious zealots. The moft of his fervants were abfent; his daughter only accompanied him in his coach. Having fired on him in vain with their carabines, they difpatched him with their fwords. His murder was accompanied with circumftances of the utmost barbarity: when he ftretched forth his hand for mercy to one of the affaffins whom he feemed to know, the inhuman villain almoft cut it off with a stroke of his fword. His daughter was wounded in feveral places, endeavouring to cover

her