"It was a terrible slur upon the credit of the plot in Eng. land, that after it had made such an horrible noise in a nation, where there was scarce one papist to an hundred protestants, there should not, for a year, be found one witness from Ireland, to give information of any conspiracy of the like nature in that kingdom, where there were fifteen papists to one protestant. But the proclamation above-mentioned, which was published according to the order sent from England, supplied that defect. For upon the encouragement given it, tories and other criminals, confined in jails, pretended to have great discoveries to make on that head, and obtained their liberty, and had money given them by the government of Ireland, to transport them to England for that purpose; though these wretches knew nothing of the matter, till they were instructed by Mr. Hethrington, Lord Shaftsbury's agent in managing and providing for them."

It may not be unentertaining to the reader, to find here an exact description of these witnesses, left us by the lord lieutenant himself, after his return to Ireland. "At council," says he, there is little more to do than to hear witnesses; some come out of England, and some producing themselves here,

clearest refutation of these arguments. This bishop of Lincoln was not unconscious of the injurious falshoods he published at that juncture, against those inoffensive people, as appeared by his own subsequent trimming behaviour on different occasions. "His conduct," says the Rev. Mr. Grainger, for some time, like that of other calvinists, appeared to ba in direct opposition to the church of Rome; but after James ascended the throne, he seemed to approach nearer to popery than he ever did before. He sent the king an address of thanks for his declaration for liberty of conscience; and is said to have written reasons for the reading of that declaration (by the clergy in their churches); his compliances were much the same after the revolution."-Biograph. Hist. of Engl. vol. iv. p. 287.

Anthony Wood informs us, "that when Oates's plot broke out, September 1678, though he (Barlow) had been a seeming friend to papists, he became then a bitter enemy to them, and the duke of York; but that when the duke was proclaimed king, he took all opportunities to express his affection to him; and, among others, writ, as was said, reasons for reading his majesty's declaration for liberty of conscience. But when the king withdrew himself into France, to avoid imminent danger, in 1688, he was one of those bishops that very readily voted, that he had abdicated his kingdom. He was esteemed by those that knew him well, to have been a thorough paced calvinist."—Athen. Oxon. vol. ii. p. 877.

and all, I doubt, forswearing themselves. Those that went out of Ireland with bad English, and worse clothes, are returned well-bred gentlemen, well-caronated, periwigged, and cloathed. Brogues and leather straps are converted into fashionable shoes and glittering buckles; which next to the zeal, tories, thieves, and friars, have for the protestant religion, is a main inducement to bring in shoals of informers.* They find it more honorable and safe, to be the king's evidence, than a cow-stealer, though that be their actual profession; but as they have not the honesty to swear truly, they want the wit to sweat probably."+

Jones' bishop of Meath, who was both the procurer and examiner of these witnesses in Ireland, had been scout-master-ge. neral in Oliver Cromwell's army.

s Cart Orm. vol. ii. fol. 498.

"I dare not," says his grace in another letter," say, though it be ma nifest, that most of our discoveries give more discredit, than confirmation, to the plot. It is well that I am not like to be charged for a plotter or a papist."-Carte's Orm. vol. ii. Append.

"There were too many protestants then in Ireland," says Mr. Carte, "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 Anglesey gave the duke of Ormond, a friendly advertisement of those misrepresentations and suggestions against his proceedings, made by one of the greatest persons in the kingdom, transmited to several persons in London, and particularly to some members of parliament and of the privy council."-Orm. vol. ii. fol. 482.

On the other hand," some persons to whom the duke of Ormond's mode ration was not agreeable, imagining that he might be driven out of it by the danger of an assassination, dropped letters in the streets of Dublin insinuating 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; as it seemed to agree with what was 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 on so much reason, as what he had hitherto observed." -Id. ib. vol. ii. f. 481.

† Alluding to two friars that informed against the titular primate Plunkett.

Yet, upon the bare testimony of the above mentioned noto rious miscreants, several of the Irish nobility, clergy and gen try, were at that juncture, either thrown into jails or forced to quit the kingdom. Primate Plunkett (as bishop Burnet in forms us, on the report of the earl of Essex, who had been lord lieutenant of Ireland, and knew him personally), “was a wise and sober man, fond of living quietly and in due subjection to the government, without engaging in intrigues of state;" yet he was brought over to England, and condemned, and executed at Tyburn, on the accusation of these suborned witnesses. But the duke of Ormond,† by his great resolution and activity, put a stop to this spreading mischief, not without exposing himself to the danger of being represented by the faction in England, as a plotter or a papist, on that account.

6 Hist. of his own Times, vol. i. f. 230.

• "Plunkett," says Burnet, "was at this time brought to his trial. Some lewd Irish priests, and others of that nation, hearing that England was then disposed to hearken to good swearers, thought themselves well qualified for the employment ; so they came over to swear, that there was a great plot in Ireland. The witnesses were brutal and proffigate men, yet the earl of Shaftsbury cherished them much; they were examined by parliament at Westminster, yet what they said was believed. Some of these priests had been censured by him for their lewdness. Plunkett had nothing to say in his defence, but to deny all; so he was condemned, and suffered very decently, expressing himself in many particulars as became a bishop; he died denying every thing that had been sworn against him.”— Hist. of his own Times, vol.i. f. 230.

↑ His grace in one of his letters to England on this occasion, says, “Here is one Owen Murphy authorised to search for, and carry over witnesses. I suppose to give evidence against Oliver Plunkett (the primate.) He has been as far as the county Tipperary, and brought thence about a dozen people, not like to say any thing material as to Plunkett.-Cart. Orm, vol. ii. Append.

His grace was urged to imprison all the principal Roman catholics of Ireland at this juncture: but he refused to do it, "because," as he said, "it could not be known, how many might be thus driven to desperate courses." "It was well known," adds my author, "how much the imprisonments, and other severities of sir William Parsons, had contributed to hurry numbers into the last rebellion; and neither the duke, nor the privy council, deemed it prudent to make another experiment whether the same measures might not be attended with the same effects."-Lel. Hist. of Irel vol. iii-p. 547.

BOOK X,

CHAP. I.

Archbishop King's state of the protestants of Ireland under king James II. considered.

MANY and foul are the misrepresentations of Irish catholics, exhibited in archbishop king's state of the protestants of Ireland, under king James II. and although Mr. Lesley, a learned contemporary protestant divine, has demonstratively proved most of his charges to be either absolutely false, or greatly exaggerated (without any defence or reply from his grace, or his friends), yet the archbishop's book has passed, with applause, through several editions since Mr. Lesley's decease, and is generally quoted as of unquestionable authority, by all writers, foreign and domestic, who have since treated of that part of the Irish history; while Mr. Lesley's refutation of it is hardly any where to be met with, having been suppressed by authority in the first edition of it; and it was then so far stifled in its birth, that it has never since been reprinted.

Instead of taking pains to extol Mr. Lesley's character for veracity, or to depreciate that of Dr. King for the want of it, I shall make use of no other argument, for either purpose,

* It will, probably, be objected to this writer's testimony, that he was a non-juror. But to this objection I shall only answer in the words of bishop Burnet, on a similar occasion. "I never," says that prelate," think the worse of men for their different sentiments in such matters; I am sure I am bound to think much better of them for adhering strictly to the dic tates of their consciences, when it is so much to their loss, and when so sacred a thing as an oath is in the case. I wish all who had the same per suasions, had acted with the same strictness and tenderness.”—See Defence of the bishop of Worcester's Vindic. of the church of Engl. p. 63.

Dr. Swift's testimony of this writer's merits, in his preface to bishop Burnet's Introduction to his History of the Reformation, is worthy of notice, "Without doubt," says he, "Mr. Lesley is unhappily misled in his politics; but he has given the world such a proof of his fondness in religion, as many a bishop ought to be proud of. I never saw the gentle. man in my life: I know he is the son of a great and excellent prelate, who, upon several accounts, was one of the most extraordinary men of his age. I verily believe, that he acted from a mistaken conscience (in re▾

but such as will naturally arise from the plain and certain evidence of facts, alleged and vouched by the former, but never disproved, nor so much as contradicted, by the latter.

"No man," says Mr. Lesley, "was, or could be, an higher assertor of passive obedience, than Dr. King had been all his life-time. Even at the beginning of the revolution, he told a person of honor, from whose mouth I had it, "that if the prince of Orange came over for the crown, he prayed God might blast his designs." In a letter to a person of undoubted credit, in the year 1686, he said, "the principle of non-resist ance, was a steady principle of loyalty; that it was intolerable for the members of any state, to flee to foreign succors, on pretence that their own governors had made laws against reason, conscience and justice; yet this is one of the principal argu. ments, in the book above-mentioned, for justifying the revo lution." "What I have above-written," adds Lesley, “ I have from the person to whom he wrote it, and if he desires it, his letter shall be produced," But it does not appear that he ever did desire it.

By such feigned assurances of loyalty, which he had often given to king James, after his arrival in Ireland, "that king had once so good an opinion of him, that he had him frequently in private, and trusted him in his affairs; until at last, he found he was holding correspondence with his enemies in England, and in the north of Ireland, and he, thereupon, imprisoned him. But his old friend, chief justice Herbert, was so far mistaken in him, that he vouched fot him at the counciltable, with so much zeal as to say, that he was a loyal man (to king James) as any that sat at the board; which did retrieve the doctor from some inconveniencies, and continued him for some time longer in king James's good opinion."

fusing to swear allegiance to king William), and therefore I distinguish between the principles and the person. However, it is some mortification to me, when I see an avowed non-juror contribute more to the confounding of popery, than could ever be done by an hundred thousand such introductions."-Swift's Works, Dubl.edit. vol. vi. p. 118-19.