ed him, on condition that he should use his spiritual authority with the garrison of a fort adjacent to the field of battle, and prevail on them to surrender. For this purpose the bishop of Ross was conducted to the fort; but the gallant captive, unshaken by the fear of death, and unmoved by the denunciations of vengeance, exhorted the garrison to maintain their post resolutely against the ene、 mies of their religion and their country, and instantly resigned himself to execution. Mr Leland observes, with honest indignation, that "the bishop's enemies could discover nothing in his conduct but insolence and obstinacy;" yet such was the inso. lence of Regulus, whose name has been preserved by the Roman historian as an example of the most exalted courage and inflexible integrity. The page of Irish suffering affords a thousand subjects of equal admiration to the reader; but the injustice which doomed the heroes of our country to deaths of dishonour, has also buried in oblivion their names; and here and there only do we discern an attestation to the greatness of their spirit and their valour, extorted from the reluctant pen of a venal historian. Clonmel was at length obliged, after an obstinate and sanguinary siege, to yield to the terms of Cromwell. This last conquest closed the Irish campaign of Cromwell; he resigned his triumphant army to the care of Ireton, and immediately embarked for England. It appears tolerably clear to the reader of these pages, that the great cause of Irish disaster was the want of confidence in the general who commanded them; that when

ever the Irish fought under the standard of such an officer as O'Neal, who possessed the hearts and affections of the people, victory crowned their valour; and that whenever they were obliged to surrender to superior numbers, or superior military resources, the enemy dearly purchased his triumph and his spoils.

The historians of the pale attribute the rapidity of Cromwell's progress to the factions of the Irish; to the intrigues of the priesthood; to their intolerant arrogance, and their ungovernable ignorance. The writer of this compendium must rather attribute the inglorious struggles of the Irish against the desperate and sanguinary sword of puritanical fanaticism, to the half expedients of Ormond, who endeavourod to balance himself between the king, the English parliament, and the Irish people; who had already, as we have seen, incurred the suspicions of the latter, and now laboured in vain to bring into action the various conflicting parties which struggled for ascendancy. The councils of such a man accelerated the progress of the common enemy, and palsied the Irish arm. Were it not for this cause, the Irish could, on the departure of Cromwell, have made a successful stand against England; they were still in possession of the entire province of Connaught; Waterford, Limerick and Galway, were in their hands; they possessed the forts of Duncannon and Sligo: the castles of Athlone, Charlemont, Carlow, and Nenagh; their numbers were considerable, and the spirit by which each Irish bosom was animated was

equal to any enterprize, however arduous or desperate. The brave Owen Roe O'Neal no longer existed to point out their road to victory. The loyal Marquis of Ormond, struggling more zealously for ascendancy over the Irish priesthood than for victory over the arms of Cromwell, was the ill-fated director of those energies which, judiciously and honestly guided, would never have been conquered. Even the wretched bigotry of Cromwell suspended its intolerance in the face of good and sagacious policy. The parliamentarian generals offered that indulgence to conscience which was contumeliously refused by the loyal Ormond; and a man, whose sovereign depended on the allegiance and fidelity of the Irish, often refused that toleration which was granted by the hand that struggled for their destruction. An event now took place which peculiarly marks the sense of the Irish nation with regard to the claims of Ormond on their confidence. The Irish determined no longer to trust to the hollow and hypocritical professions of a man who had so often demonstrated his antipathy to their civil and religious liberty; they appealed in their present extremities to foreign powers, and resolved to trust to their own resources and their own councils. Ormond despaired of ever being able to establish his authority, when opposed by a power so audacious and so arrogant as he was pleased to represent the Irish clergy. It must often excite the astonishment of Mr Leland's readers to observe his perpetual and unceasing invectives against the Irish priesthood, in this great struggle for their religion

and their liberties. To an impartial and temperate observer it would occur, that the whole Catholic clergy of Ireland, not very remarkable for their ignorance or their want of spirit, would be anxious to submit to such councils as were best calculated to preserve the independence of their country, and the venerated creed of their forefathers.

It would be reasonable to presume, that the collected wisdom, and learning, and spirit of the Irish clergy and laity, who so often differed in opinion with Ormond, were at least equal to the understanding of an individual, whose opportunities of information were no greater than those with whom he is compared ; and whose motives to promote the liberties of Ireland were undoubtedly not stronger than those of the unmixed and unadulterated native Irish. Such presumptions, however reasonable, vanish before the infallible understanding and fidelity of Ormond. Mr Leland is perpetually complaining of the insidiousness by which his hero is assailed; of the ignorant obstinacy of the bigoted clergy of Ireland; of their presumption and the extravagance of their pride. The impartial observer of human nature wants no facts to contradict such silly invectives. They are too absurd even for the credulity of an enemy to swallow, and every man closes the chapter which thus degrades the character and the intellect of the Irish clergy, who at this calamitous period appear so forward in defence of their country, with a smile of contempt, or a sneer of suspicion. Those much reviled clergy determined to assemble and deliberate on the present alarming attitude of Irish

affairs. Those "insolent ecclesiastics," as Mr Leland calls them, " did meet, in the year 1650, at a place called James-town, and felt it a duty which they owed to their religion as well as to their country, to consider whether that king, who had now proclaimed war against both, in order to gratify and conciliate the furious persecuting fanaticism of the Scotch, was deserving of their allegiance or their support, whether that king, or his favourite representative in Ireland, who had now determined to violate the peace which they solemnly concluded with the Irish, any longer merited their confidence or their fidelity. When Mr Leland arraigns the clergy of Ireland with the odious charges of "presumption, faction, turbulence, fanaticism," does he make full allowance for the causes which provoked that presumption and faction? Does he, with true historical candour, admit that a whole people, who were denounced by their king, would be undeserving the liberty for which they contended, if they did not give full expression to their indignation,* when Charles was degraded into the

* Mr Leland loses no opportunity of expressing his unlimited homage to the superior understanding and integrity of Ormond, as compared with the whole Irish nation. The disgraceful declaration against the Irish, signed by the king for the gratification of his Scotch subjects (Mr Leland writes), Ormond wished to regard as a forgery, and affected to treat it as such. Dr Curry, who is somewhat more industrious for the honour of Ireland, has unmasked Mr Leland's favourite, and has shown that Ormond was not only perfectly aware of the king's intention to sacrifice his Irish people, but actually advised such a policy; for Charles, in a letter to Ormond, dated January 16th, 1649, says, “you