d

The Earl of Clarendon, who was thoroughly acquainted with the conduct and intrigues of this fettlement, informs us," that his majesty was led into this mistake by a very pofitive affurance from Lord Orrery, who was believed to understand the state of that kingdom very exactly, that there was land enough to fatisfy all the foldiers and adventurers; and that there would be a very great proportion left for accommodating the Irifh very liberally." But his lordship, at the fame time, made use of every finifter means, for his own private advantage, to reduce that proportion to nothing.

For," believing he could never be well enough at court, except he had courtiers of all forts obliged to him, who would therefore fpeak well of him in all places and companies, he recommended to many of them divers fuits for fuch lands, as by forfeiture, or otherwife, fhould come to his majesty; although he knew that his majesty had refolved (and that by his lordship's own advice) to retain those lands in his own power, to the end that, when the fettlement fhould be made, he might be able to gratify thofe of the Irish nation, who had any thing of merit towards him, or had been leaft faulty. His lordship often, even fent certificates to thefe courtiers under his own hand, of the value those fuits might be to them, if obtained; and of the little importance the granting them would be to his majef ty; which having been fhewed to the king, difpofed him to those conceffions, which otherwise he would not fo eafily have made."

CHAP.

1

2 Clarend. Life.

3 Id. ib.

♦ Id. ib.

"This earl (fays K. James in his Memoirs) was famous for changing parties fo often, and for making a speech to Cromwell to take the title of king; his tongue was well hung, he had fome good parts, and he was reckoned fo cunning a man that no body would truft him, or believe what he faid." Macphers, Orig. Pap. vol. i. p. 43.

CHA P. XVIII.

The affairs of Ireland brought before the English

Council.

ABOUT this time, a warm difpute. was carrying on at London, between the agents for the late confederate catholics, and the commiffioners from the council and the two houses of the Irish parliament, in several memorials presented by them to the king, in justification of their respective claims, and pretenfions." But the Irish agents pleaded their caufe under great difadvantages. The commiffioners from the council and parliament differed a little among themselves, about their private and personal interefts; but they were all united in one unhappy extreme, that is, (fays Lord Clarendon, who was prefent in council during these disputes) in their implacable malice to the Irish; infomuch, that they concurred in their defire, that they might gain nothing by the king's return; but be kept with the fame rigour, and under the fame incapacity to do hurt, which they were then under. And though eradication was too foul a word to be uttered in the hearing of a christian prince, yet it was little less, or better, that they propofed, in other words, and hoped to obtain. Whereas the king thought that miferable people to be as worthy of his favour, as most of the other party, and that his honour, juftice, and policy, as far as they were unreftrained by laws and contracts, obliged him more to preferve them, at least as much as he could. And yet it can hardly be believed, how few men, in all other points very reasonable, and who were far from cruelty in their nature, cherished that inclination in the king; but thought it in him, and more in his brother, to proceed from other reasons than they published. Whilst others, who pretended to be only moved by christian charity and compaffion, were more cruel towards them, and made them more miferable by extorting great engagements from them for their protection

⚫ Cart. Orm. vol. ii.

2 Clarend. Life, vol. ii. f. 129.

protection and interceffion; which being performed, would leave them in as forlorn a condition as they were found.

Besides these impediments to their fuccefs, from the malice of their enemies, the ignorance and prejudice of fome about the king, and the fraud and cruelty of others, these agents from the confederate catholics had another obstacle in their way, which was ftill more infurmountable; and that was the great poverty of those who sent them. "The new earls of Orrery and Montrath had taken care to raise ' privately among the adventurers and foldiers twenty or thirty thousand pounds, to be difpofed of properly, without any ac

3

3

count,

3 Cart. Orm. vol. ii.

p. 200.

a And as much more publicly. For "the Irish commons, on the 4th of March, 1661, ordered, nem. con. thirty thousand pounds English to be raised throughout the kingdom, and prefented to his grace the Duke of Örmond, with a clause, that they intended not that present of theirs fhould be interpreted as an exclufion of his grace from any other just favour his majesty might think fit to confer on him or his." Com. Jour. vol. i.

This order was procured by his grace's friend, the Earl of Orrery, then one of the lords juftices; for thus that earl wrote to his grace the day after it was paffed. "Yesterday the parliament met in this city; I had engaged the speaker, and much the most, if not all the members, that their motion for their humble prefent for your grace might be the very first business gone upon, It paffed without one negative." Orrery's State Lett. vol. i. p. 99.

The bill for granting thirty thousand pound to the Duke of Ormond, was read thrice in one day and paffed. See Com. Jour. vol. ii. f. 8.

The fame Orrery having acquainted Ormond, that the first act of settlement was fent to England, adds, "all this kingdom looks upon your grace as their great patron, to whom they in a high degree owe thofe hopes, which his majesty's gracious declaration has given them." State Lett. p. 37. This declaration was the bafis and ground-work of the acts of fettlement. Again, he tells him, "your lordship's favour to this poor kingdom in haftening the bill of fettlement, is fo fignal and great, that I know not one man concerned in the good settlement of this kingdom but muft, and does own himself your grace's fervant, for your eminent pains and care in that defired work," Ib. p. 90.

count, by way of recompence to fuch as fhould be ferviceable to what was called the English intereft. The Irish had no fuch fums to command; few friends about the court, and no means of procuring any. Thofe of the English council, before whom they were to plead their cause, were highly prejudiced and incensed against the whole nation, knew little of the conduct of particular perfons, who deferved favour; but were willing to involve every body, in the general guilt of the maffacre, as well as the rebellion."

С НА Р. XIX.

The fufferings of the Irish fet forth by their agents before the king and council.

IN vain did the Irish agents urge,' "the great and long fufferings of their countrymen; the lofs of their eftates, for five or fix and twenty years, the wasting and spending of the whole nation in battles, and tranfportation of men into the parts beyond feas; whereof many had the honour to teftify their fidelity to the king by real services; many of them returned into England with him, and were still in his fervice; the great numbers of men, women, and children, that had been maffacred, or executed in cold blood after the king's government had been driven from them; the multitudes that had been destroyed by famine, and the plague, these two heavy judgments having raged

over

Clarend. Life.

"About the year 1652 and 1653, (fays an eye-witness) · the plague and famine had fo fwept away whole countries, that a man might travel twenty or thirty miles, and not fee a living creature, either man, beaft or bird, they being all dead, or had quitted thefe defolate places. Our foldiers (Cromwell's) would tell ftories of the places where they faw a fmoak, it was fo rare to fee either fmoak by day, or fire or candle by night and when we did meet with two or three poor

cabins,

over the kingdom for two or three years; and at last, as a perfecution unheard of, the tranfplanting of the fmall remainder of the nation into a corner of the province of Connaught, where yet much of the lands were taken from them, which had been affigned with all those formalities of law, which were in use and practice under that government.”

2

"In vain did they claim the benefit of the two treaties of peace, the one in (1646) the late king's time, and confirmed by him; the other (in 1648) confirmed by his majefty, who was prefent; by both which they alleged, they stood indemnified for all acts done previously by them in the rebellion, and infisted upon their innocence fince that time; and that they had paid fo entire an obedience to his majefty's commands while he was beyond the feas, that they betook themselves to, and withdrew themselves from, the service of France or Spain, in fuch manner as his pleasure was they should do."

It was deemed strange indiscretion and folly in them, even by fome of the least prejudiced of their judges, to mention in that conjuncture," the unworthiness

2 Clarend. Life, p. 201.

3 Ib. p. 202.

and

cabins, none but very aged men and women and children (and those with the prophet might have complained, "we are become as a bottle in the smoak, our skin is black like an oven, because of the terrible famine,") were found in them. I have feen those miserable creatures plucking ftinking carrion out of a ditch, black and rotten; and have been credibly informed, that they digged corpfes out of the grave to eat. But the moft tragical story I ever heard, was from an officer commanding a party of horfe, who, hunting for tories (Irish) in a dark night, difcovered a light, which they fuppofed to be a fire which the tories ufually made in these waste countries to dress their provifions and warm themselves; but drawing near, they found it a ruined cabin, and befetting it round, fome did alight and peep in at the window, where they faw a great fire of wood, and a company of miferable old women and children fitting round about it, and betwixt them and the fire a dead corpfe lay broiling, which as the fire roafted they cut off collops and eat." Colonel Laurence's Intereft of Ireland, 2d part, p. 86, 87.