lieved he had compaffed it, if he had not been removed; and if contrary councils and courfes had not been taken and held, by his fucceffors in the government; of whom," fays he, " fome were too indulgent to the whole body of papifts, and others not much acquainted with any of them; not confidering the advantages of the divifion defigned."

Some hopes, it appears, had been given (which his grace's before-mentioned letter to Walsh feemed to confirm), that the fubfcribers to the first remonstrance would be restored to their eftates. But Archbishop Talbot calls upon Walsh, " to name but one, who had been the better for his fubfcription. A man," fays he, "would think that my Lord of Iveagh's extraction, innocency, and merit, his breaking General Owen O'Nial's army, his raifing and lofing two or three regiments in the king's fervice, his venturing himself and his nearest relations in the towns befieged by Cromwell, his conftantly following his majesty's perfon and fortune in exile, needed no further remontrance of his loyalty; but, however, that nothing might be objected against him, he figned yours; and yet is nothing the nearer his eftate. I know you preffed my Lord Duke of Ormond very much in Sir Robert Talbot's behalf, faying it would be a great scandal if the only gentleman in Ireland, who never would reject the peace of 1646, and fuffered fo much on that account, were not restored to his eftate; and yet you fee he was, and his fon is, in the fame condition with the rest of your fubfcribers."

СНА Р.

Friar Discipl. p. 87.

* In the year 1674, when Friar Disciplined was published.

CHA P. XV.

The king confeffes his obligation to make good the peace of the year 1648.

HIS

IS majesty had, at feveral times, acknowledged himself bound to fulfil his engagements to the Irish by the peace of 1648. We have already obferved, that in a letter from Breda, in 1650, he defired the Marquis of Ormond,'" to affure them, that he would perform all grants and conceffions which he had either made or promised them by that peace; and which, as he had new inftances of their loyalty and affection to him, he should study rather to enlarge, than diminish or infringe in the leaft degree."

In his fpeech to both houfes of parliament, July 1660, when a general act of oblivion was intended to be paffed, his majefty knowing that means had been used to exclude the Irish from the benefit of that act, told them, "that he hoped the Irish alone would not be left without the benefit of his mercy; that they had fhewn much affection to him abroad; and that he expected the parliament would have a care of his honour, and of what he had promised them." And in his declaration of the 30th of November following (which was intended to be the ground-work of the acts of fettlement), he again acknowledged this obligation, and faid," he must always remember the great affection a confiderable part of the Irish nation expreffed to him, during the time of his being beyond feas; when, with all chearfulness and obedience, they received and fubmitted to his orders, though attended with inconvenience enough to themselves; which demeanour of theirs," adds he, "cannot but be thought very worthy of our protection, juftice, and favour."

But

Cart. Coll. of Orm. Orig. Pap. Carte's Orm. vol. ii. f. 129. 2 Irish Statutes.

But the commiffioners from Ireland, fearing that if the Irish were included in the general pardon, they would be of course restored to their eftates (of which, by the bounty of the late ufurpers, these commiffioners and their adherents, were then actually in poffeffion),3 petitioned both houses, that they might be excluded by an exprefs claufe, to be inferted in the act. And upon a motion being made in the house of peers, that this petition fhould be rejected, and the Irish included in the general indemnity, the Duke of Ormond oppofed it, alleging that, "his majesty had reserved the cognizance of that matter to himself;" though it was notorious, that his majesty in his speech to parliament, but a few days before, had acquainted them, "that he expected (in relation to his engagement with that people) they would have a care of his honour, and of the promise he had made them." Excluded howeVOL. II.

3 Carte, ubi fupra.

4

·H

+ Sale and Settlement of Ireland.

ver

* What duplicity, when we reflect, that Ormond in his declaration, published on the conclufion of the peace of 1648, after having charged the English rebels with putting him under the neceflity of concluding it, has thefe words: " this we mention not as thereby in the leaft degree to invalidate any of the conceffions made unto this people; but on the contrary, to render them in every point the more facred and inviolable, by how much the neceffity on his majesty's part for the granting thereof is greater, and the fubmiffion on their parts, to his majesty's authority, in fuch his great neceffity, more opportune and seasonable." Cart. Orm. vol. ii. f. 52.

I fhall have frequent occafion to quote this tract (Sale and Set. of Irel.). It was commonly called the Conventry-letter, because it was dated from Coventry. It was written by Mr. Nangle, attorney general in Ireland in 1685. The Earl of Clarendon, when lord lieutenant of Ireland, often mentions it in his letters to England, as a piece much taken notice of. "I have received (fays he, in one of them) a copy of a letter written by Mr. Nangle, to the Earl of Tyrconnel, from Coventry; 'tis a notable letter." State Lett. vol. i. p. 156. Elfewhere, he fays, "I gave my Lord Chief Juftice Keating a copy of Mr. Nangle's letter, and defired his thoughts upon it." Ib. His excellency mentions Mr. Nangle in feveral of his letters, as "a perfon of undoubted abilities, and integrity in his profeffion.

ver they were, to the astonishment of all honeft men ; who now perceived, what powerful inftruments their enemies made ufe of, to accomplish their wicked purposes.

CHA P. XVI.

Ormond's reafons for his oppofition to the Irish confidered.

2

THE Duke of Ormond affigned two reasons, in excufe for his ungenerous conduct in this particular. Firft he faid, if he had not oppofed the motion for including the Irish in the general pardon, others undoubtedly would; who, by exaggerating their former mifconduct, would have excited rather the parliament's indignation againft, than commiferation for their cafe." But this reafon has no manner of force. For although the English had heard nothing of the infurrection in Ireland, but what gave them horror, and poffeffed them with the worst opinion of the whole Irish nation, yet his grace could have easily fet them right, as to that matter: for," befides," as Mr. Carte confeffes, "his being a witness of every man's behaviour during the troubles, he was well acquainted with all the circumstances of their cafe; he knew what early attempts the most confiderable of their nobility and gentry made to return to their duty; the difficulties they had to ftruggle with in that work; the perfeverance with which they purfued their defign, till they had accomplished it; and the zeal with which, in the late king's distress, they had embraced the peace of 1648." All this, I fay, his grace could have eafily made known to their lordships, in cafe of the fuppofed exaggeration of their mifconduct, and would have been bound in honour and juftice to do fo; whereas, by his opposition to the motion for including them in the general

Walsh's Letter to the Bishop of Ferns, p. 24.

2 Carte's Orm. vol. ii.

general pardon, he gave occafion to their lordships to confider them, as the most criminal of all his majesty's fubjects in that respect, and as meriting peculiar and exemplary punishment.

His fecond reafon was ftill weaker than the first, and is refuted by his own experience. He pretended,' "that he did not think, that the proteftant peers, or commons of Ireland, or even the very catholic Irish, would be concluded by, or content with an act of the English parliament," viz. An act granting their pardon, and thereby putting them in a capacity to be reftored to their eftates! His grace could not, feriously, have meant, that either the proteftant peers or commons, or the catholic Irish, would have deemed an act of the English parliament infufficient for the purpose of their reftitution; because it was notorious that he himself was restored to his lands in Ireland, by an act of the English parliament; and particularly, that one Blackwell was difpoffeffed of his grace's large eftate at Killcash, in virtue of it."

H 2

CHAP.

3 Walsh, ubi fupra.

4 Cart. Orm. vol. ii. f. 398. s Id. ib. vol. ii. f. 392.

"The parliament of England had reftored the Marquis of Ormond to his eftate; in confequence of which feveral adventurers readily refigned their poffeffion; but for the due execution of the act in all parts of Ireland, the king's letters were neceffary." Cart. Orm. vol. ii. f. 218.

"There was an act of parliament paffed (in England) with the confent of all parties, that he (Ormond) fhould be presently restored to all his estate (in Ireland), which was done with the more eafe, because the greatest part of it (for his wife's land had been before affigned to her in Cromwell's time, or rather in his fon Harry's) lay within that province (Munfter), which Cromwell out of his husbandry, had reserved for himself, exempt from all title or pretence of adventurer, or foldier. What other part of his eftate either the one or the other was poffeffed of, they very willingly yielded it up to the marquis, in hope of having recompence made them in other lands." Clarend. Life, vol. ii. p. 197.