the supporters of a treaty which effected nothing for the Irish; which left them at the mercy of their ene

Party writers (we mean those writers who have been paid to traduce every effort in favour of Irish freedom), have so misrepresented the conduct of the native Irish who co-operated with Rinuccini in unveiling the hypocrisy of Ormond, and exposing the fallacy of the treaty of peace which this wily lieutenant induced the confederated council, assembled at Kilkenny, to conclude with him, that we feel it a duty we owe to the cause of truth, and of our country, to detain our readers for a few moments, while we state two or three propositions, conclusive, in our minds, of the wisdom and the spirit which distinguished those men who opposed the Ormondists of Ireland in the year 1646— in Carte's life of Ormond, will be found the following remarks: "The nuncio, Rinuccini, and Owen O'Neal, absolutely refused to submit to the treaty; the former, because there was no provision made for the free exercise of the catholic religion, without which, the confederates were engaged by their oath of association, never to conclude a peace; and the latter, on the same account, as well as that no stipulation was made for restoring him and his numerous followers to their forfeited estates in Ulster. The nuncio alleged, besides, that the commissioners who had concluded the peace, did not, according to their instructions, insist upon the repeal of the penal statutes against the Roman catholic religion.-The Marquis of Ormond could not deny the fact, but he maintained (and here we request the reader's attention to the acute sophistry of the Anglo-Irishman), that the peace which the confederate commissioners had concluded, by virtue of an authority derived from their general assembly, whether advantageous or prejudicial to those that hurted them, ought to have been inviolably stuck to, how blameworthy soever they might be pretended for transgressing instructions.' This manner of reasoning, however, seems to have been taken up by his excellency only for present convenience, for he argued very differently on the same topic of instructions, when, in a former treaty with the confederates, the case was to be his own, and when, in order to justify his rejecting some of their propositions, he told them, that if he had exceeded

mies, and exposed them to the ridicule and contempt of Europe. Rinuccini convened the clergy at Water

his instructions, he would have deluded those he treated with, with the shadow of concessions, for that the substance would be lost by his transgressing the rules given him, in any one particular.' But, however that might have been," continues Mr Carte, "the nuncio's casuistry differed materially from that of his excellency on this occasion, and therefore, that prelate resolved to enforce his opinion by such means as it appears he had neither commission nor instructions to pursue. Having called together, at Waterford, such of the Irish bishops and clergy as were mostly under his influence, on pretence of forming a synod to settle ecclesiastical matters, he entered all at once on a debate concerning the lawfulness of the late peace, and having soon determined, that all those who were instrumental in making it, were, for the reasons before mentioned, guilty of a formal breach of their association, he issued an excommunication against them, as also against those of their communion who should afterwards adhere to it, forbidding, under the same penalty, any further dues to be collected by, or paid to such persons as were formerly appointed to receive them, and giving encouragement at the same time to the people, to resist any force that might be used for that purpose."

Upon the above statement, Mr Taaffe has the following observations. When we were making this quotation from the valuable, because honest, history of Taaffe, we heard of the author's death, and the honours which his countrymen have it in contemplation to pay to the remains of their able but unfortunate historian. Perhaps there never was such a conflict of good and bad qualities to be found in any man, as was observable in Mr Taaffe. Animated with the most ardent enthusiasm for the independence and fame of his country, there was no toil so great, no danger so formidable, no enemy so powerful, as to intimidate his spirit, or to damp his ardour. A profound political thinker, he ably exposed the cause of his country's weakness, in many productions which attracted the attention of the first characters in the Irish senate. The writer of this history has heard his immortal countryman, John Philpot Curran, quote the lines of Mr Taaffe, from his

ford, who there proclaimed all those persons that adhered to the peace between the Irish confedera

Mirror of Ireland, in 1796; and he has seen the Irish parliament caught with the strength and the truth of the quotation.

Mr Taaffe was a catholic clergyman, but his passions triumphed over the solemn obligation of his sacred profession, and his immoral example made it necessary to denounce against him the terrors of the religion which he disgraced. From his inflexible determination, however, never to embrace the creed of any other persuasion, at a time too, when his great talents commanded the attention of the highest and most exalted politicians in the land, we must, in charity, conclude that he was betrayed by the constitution of his nature, into a temporary abandonment of principle; that reflection brought on repentance, and that, though dismissed from the society of those whom he most respected, he resolved to convince his countrymen, that the enemies of the religion and liberty of his country should gain but little by his fall. Those who doubted his sincerity as a catholic, will not presume to deny him the meed of an honest, brave, and uncorrupted Irishman; a man whose talents have exposed the frauds, and the conspiracy of party writers, and whose political opinions, when his example as a priest shall be forgotten, will be engraven on every Irish heart, and perhaps hereafter be the rule and the guide of his countrymen. The faults of Mr Taaffe were rather the aberrations of a constitution heated to excess by the fire of its own creation, than a cold, calculating, selfish following of vice. Mr Taaffe has been often seen to shed tears over the errors of his life. The superstitiousness of virtue frequently drove from her door the penitent sinner, and Mr Taaffe has frequently been lashed by despair into a repetition of these foibles to which he originally fell a victim. In 1798, that calamitous season of Irish suffering, and English torture, when the informer and the executioner were panting for their prey, Mr Taaffe is well known to have enjoyed the confidence of his countrymen. The constant reader of Polybius, Xenophon, Marshal Saxe, and the King of Prussia, could not but be furnished with some information on military subjects. He made the experiment of his military genius in the rebellion of 1798; and hundreds will attest, that to his di

cy and Ormond, as guilty of violating their oath of association. They excommunicated the commis

rection and council alone, is to be attributed the much lamented fate of the ancient Britons, at Carnew, in the county of Wexford. Those who were in command among the Irish, bowed to his superior powers; and Mr Taaffe was seen marshalling his pike-men, on a weather-beaten mule, with as much indifference as Bonaparte rode his charger at the battle of Austerlitz. It is impossible any Irishman can read Mr Taaffe's history of this country, without lamenting for a man, who, when pressed down with distress, the victim of every slander, the detestation of every bigot, the fool of every blockhead, had the spirit and the integrity to resist the bribes of the Castle, and vindicate the honour of his country. It is impossible, we repeat, to refuse our tears over the grave of so singular a character. The bigot may dispose of him as he pleases; the enemy of Irish freedom may triumph over his ashes; but the true friend of Ireland will cherish his memory, and read his works. They will learn wisdom from his errors, as well as from his doctrines; and while they avoid his faults, endeavour to imitate his virtues.

The writer of this compendium has often contributed to soothe the mind of Mr Taaffe, when assailed by the heaviest of his afflictions.-He may boast of having endeavoured to blunt the edge of the bigot, and alleviate the sufferings of the patriot. He knew Mr Taaffe when the enemies of Ireland failed in corrupting him to their purpose; and he would now be doing injustice to his fame if he did not bear testimony to the triumph of his integrity. But to return to the quotation which we have made from the history of our departed countryman: "The reason of the nuncio, Rinuccini, against the peace, was not refuted; that the commissioners widely departed from their instructions, on which account the assembly was not obliged to ratify. The reasons urged to the queen, in a letter from the archbishops of Dublin, Cashel, and the bishop of Elphin, in the name of the congregation of the clergy, were quite sufficient to damn the treaty; ⚫ that all was left to the pleasure of the king, surround

sioners who had negociated the treaty with Ormond-denounced the council of Kilkenny-and

ed by their sworn enemies.' What worse could be dictated by a conqueror to a prostrate people? It was hard to surrender their rights, civil or religious, to the pleasure of any man, es pecially a prince of a different religion, not noted for keeping his word, or even his oath, and under the controul of their sworn enemies; and all this headlong slavery rushed into by the very men who, on taking up arms, swore never to lay them down until they obtained a full ratification of their rights. The arguments of the confederates, to reconcile the clergy to the omission of this article in the delusive treaty, were extremely futile. They refer to the private treaty of Glamorgan, which the king publicly disavowed in a message to both houses, and which, together with Glamorgan, his secret ambassador, he would consider a slight sacrifice towards an accommodation with his now victorious enemies. If William was, though the victorious deliverer of the English, obliged to give up to their selfishness and their national hatred of the Irish, the treaty of Li merick, can it be imagined that a subdued monarch, captive in the hands of his irritated and triumphant subjects, could stickle for private engagements made with a people odious to them, whom at any rate they were resolved to crush. Equally or more absurd is it to refer to concessions which the king might make hereafter. The king's restoration could not reasonably be expected but by the sword or accommodation. If by the former, of which there was not the slightest probability, he would become an absolute monarch; and what use he might make of unlimited power they might conjecture from his having plundered the Irish for many years, by his tyrannic inquisition into defective titles; if the latter, the Irish must be given up to their sworn enemies; no parole engagements would be acknowledged, no public treaties held binding. The nuncio and the clergy insisted on an honourable peace, such as might be well received and abetted by the whole nation; a treaty that would be approved by the head of the church and other catholic po