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to the officers commanding in chief in the North, he commanded them by no means to obey it; and accordingly, that order was not executed in moft parts of that province. This, adds 2 Mr. Lefley, I had from the officers, to whom thefe orders were fent, and from feveral proteftants who have feen them, and can produce them." Mr. Lesley also appeals to the Earl of Granard, then living, "whether the fame day, that the news of this order of De Rofen's came to Dublin, VOL. II.

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2 Lefley, ubi fupra.

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3 Ib. p. 100.

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and pleasure, we bid you heartily farewell. Given at our court at Dublin-caftle, this 3d day of June, 1689, and in the fifth year of our reign. By his majesty's command, Macphers. Orig. Pap. vol. i. p. 280. MELFORT." The Irish officers likewife, who were employed in De Rofen's driving," executed thefe orders against their countrymen, (fays Sir John Dalrymple) weeping, and obeying; and many of them owned, that the cries they then heard rang for ever in their ears." Memoirs, part ii. p. 40.

Those very proteftants whom De Rofen cruelly ordered to be thus driven before the walls of Derry, and whom King James immediately ordered to be discharged upon the first notice, "confefs (fays Mr. Lefley) that Lieutenant General Hamilton (who was much against that driving, but De Rofen, commanded) ordered meal and other provifions to be diftributed among the poor people." Anfw. to King, p. 186.

"It would be inhuman to the memory of the unhappy, to impute the difgrace of this action to King James. He revoked the order as foon as he heard of it, becaufe his own fufferings had probably taught him to feel for those of others." Dalrymple's Mem. part ii. p. 41.

"The French fleet which carried King James into Ireland, took fome English merchantmen while his majefty was aboard, and fome of the masters were brought before King James, who expecting nothing but death, fell down upon their knees begging their lives, which brought tears into the king's eyes, and he not only restored them their fhips with all their effects, but ordered two frigates to attend them and see them safe through all the French fleet." Lefley's Anfw. p. 150.

This earl was accounted very zealous for the proteftant intereft; his lady was a prefbyterian, and he had conftantly received five hundred pounds a year from King Charles the fecond, to be diftributed among the presbyterian clergy in the North of Ireland, even when he permitted a cruel perfecution of their brethren in England." Harris's K. William, f. 195. Note,

his lordship did not tell King James of it, and whether his majesty did not anfwer, that he was grieved for it, that he had fent immediate orders to difcharge it, and that none but a barbarous Mufcovite (for fuch, it feems, De Rofen was,) could have thought of fo cruel a contrivance."

As this charge against De Rofen has been frequently introduced in anniversary fermons on rebellion, plots and maffacres, 'tis but just to give the following extracts from the authentic papers of Mr. Macpherson, and leave the reader to judge of that general's conduct. 4 DE ROSEN'S ORDER.

Camp before Londonderry, July 1ft, 1689.

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"The rebels of Londonderry augmenting every day in their obstinacy, which can no longer be endured, I have refolved to gather together all the rebels of this country, and to conduct them to camp, and afterwards to drive them under the walls of the town that they may starve. You are to give them no more fubfiftence than will be barely neceffary to fupport them this length from the places they shall be taken. And as I have certain information that a confiderable number of the rebels of Londonderry and of this diftrict, efpecially their wives and children, have retired to Belfaft and the neighbouring places; and as the hardinefs of their hufbands deferves the feverest chastisements, I write this letter to acquaint you, that you are inftantly to make an exact research in Belfast and its neighbourhood, after fuch fubjects as are rebellious to the will of the king, whether men, women, boys or girls, without exception,

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+ Macphers. Orig. Pap. p. 203-4-5.

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"At Derry the refiftance of the rebels continuing, they made several fallies, killing many general officers and other officers, at length preffed with want of provifions, the garrifon propofed a furrender on conditions (which they had fo often infidiously done before during the fiege, at one time to the king in perfon). This was conftrued by De Rofen into a mere feint to gain time (which is evident). The befieged continued to fire and drove the Irish from two entrenchments, which they had taken the day before. The marefchal incensed at this unexpected refiftance, adopted the expedient above-mentioned." Macpherf. Hift. Gr. Brit. vol.. i. f. 566, and Orig. Pap. paffim.

and whether they are protected or unprotected, and to arreft them and collect them together, that they may be conducted by a detachment to this camp, and driven under the walls of Londonderry, where they shall be allowed to ftarve in fight of the rebels within the town, unless they chufe to open their ports to them, which they fhall be at liberty to do, if they are difpofed to pity them. Do not fail to exert yourself to the utmost in executing these orders punctually, and without delay, and at the risk of being perfonally answerable to me for your diligence; and you are to be particularly careful, that none of the rebels, whether men or boys, women or girls, or infants, of whatever age, fhall pass the river and escape the way of Charlemont, to fave themselves from the wretchedness to which they are to be reduced.

"You are to intimate to the inhabitants of Port Patrick the orders you have received, and to declare to them, that they fhall affuredly be treated with the fame rigour, unless they remain quiet. I recommend to you to give the greatest attention to the execution of thefe orders. I am, &c. DE ROSEN."

De Rofen "had however, before his master's (the king's) orders could reach him, affembled above four thousand men, women and children, which he caused. to be driven to the walls; but fo little effect had this proceeding towards perfuading the town to furrender, that they fired upon them from the walls ("happily none were killed"), which Monfieur De Rofen perceiving, drew them off and fent them to their homes again."

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e". It appears from another letter of the fame date (camp before Londonderry, 5th July, 1689) that he (De Rofen) had by that time received from the king an answer to his letter of June 30th, and his majefty's order, forbidding him to put his project in execution. He prefumes to blame James for his clemency, and attempts to justify his own conduct.

"SIRE,

"I have received the letter which your majefty did me the honour to write to me the 3d inftant, by which I fee that your majefty is always full of benevolence towards the rebels of this kingdom: their own conviction of this encourages them in infolence, to which they are carried every day, and in the hopes that

your

After all, the garrison 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, seems not be very improbable.

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• Har. K. William, f. 105. Note.

your majefty will have compaffion upon them in the diftreffes to which they may be reduced; yet the troops are ruined, and the rebels will receive relief, which will oblige your majefty 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 small 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 refufe them every kind of affistance, for which reafon I sent 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 majesty to judge, if an honest 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 against us foon, with protections in their pockets and arms in their hands, which happened frequently already, and happens every day." DE ROSEN.

"The Marshal 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." pherfon's Orig. Pap. vol. i. p. 210.

f Among these were "Lord Viscount Netterville, Sir Garret Aylmer, Major Rowçommen, and a great many others of leffer note, taken at the first engagement; and in the last, Captain But ler, fon to the Lord Mountgarret, one of the great M'Donalds, a captain, and Captain M'Donogh, and many others too long to name." Walker's Lett. Macpherf. vol. iii. p. 202. Note.

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

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KING 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 discovered 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

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• Clarend. State Lett. vol. i. p. 50.

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The true cause and motive of King James's endeavours to reeftablish the Roman catholic religion in England, seems 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 such 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 caused 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 fome establishment to his Roman catholic subjects. 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 upon as an artifice by fome, but highly commended by more impartial perfons." Continuation of Baker's Chronicle, f. 741.

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