his subjects, when they presumed to dictate to their sovereign, the religion he ought to profess, and the men in whom he ought to repose his confidence. James had not the judgment to discern the point at which he ought to resist, or to submit. He spurned the control of the people, and embraced the principles, and the country which were ready to humour his prejudices, or gratify his ambition.

Soon after James ascended the throne of England, an ill concerted experiment was made by the Duke of Monmouth, (1685), to raise a rebellion in England, and overturn the government. In this struggle he was supported by some of the great popular and parliamentary leaders of England. The people of Ireland particularly distinguished themselves on this occasion by the promptitude of their exertions in support of the crown; and the king soon seized the opportunity to manifest his gratitude by a marked predilection for their religion and their principles. He disarmed the protestant militia, among whom he suspected the rebellious: principles of his English subjects were lurking, and conferred the title of Earl of Tyrconnel on Colonel Richard Talbot, who was a distinguished catholic officer. He appointed his brother-in-law, Lord Clarendon, to the vice-regency of Ireland. James's instructions to this nobleman were liberal and enlightened. He resolved to break the chains of intolerance, and ordered that his catholic subjects should not be excluded from the advantages of the constitution. He introduced them into corpora

tions, and invested them with magistracies and judicial offices. Mr Leland says, that this extraordinary indulgence to the Irish catholics, exposed their protestant fellow countrymen to perpetual hazard and inquietude; that they were left naked to the fury of their most relentless enemies. Lord Clarendon, the lord lieutenant at that period, on the contrary, in his speech to the Irish parliament, felicitates the country on the universal concord which such measures of conciliation, as were recommended by his master, promised to produce in this country; and he frequently bears testimony to the tranquillity which the nation experienced when he assumed the reins of administration. It was now reasonable that the thousands of the Irish people who were reduced to beggary by the infamous arrangement called the act of settlement, should at this period appeal to a monarch who was disposed to protect them—at least to make them some compensation for the distress and injustice, which they experienced from that disastrous measure. Almost twenty years had elapsed since the passing of the act of settlement, and the evils attending the repeal, might now have in a great measure counterbalanced the advantages. The protestants might have been drawn into a rebellion, and the catholics might again be exposed to the horrors of another convulsion; for the present, therefore, the repeal of this act was not pressed, but the army and corporations were new modelled. It appears, that the instructions of James went no farther, than, that all subjects indiscriminately, should be admitted to

serve him, without regard to their religious principles; but the Earl of Tyrconnel gave full swing to his attachments, and excluded the protestants from the Irish army. The expectations of the people naturally rose with the protection they received, and they flattered themselves with the restoration of those properties of which they were so cruelly deprived. Such a revolution could not easily take place during the administration of Clarendon. It was therefore resolved that he should surrender his situation to a man who would follow the wishes of the people and the sovereign with less reluctance. Were the readers of Mr Leland to give implicit credit to every accusation he has brought against the violence of the catholics during this administration, he would be inclined to agree with this most fanatical persecutor of that great body, that there should be no relaxation to the controul of protestant ascendancy. But Mr Leland (who copies all his statements from Archbishop King, and who has forgotten to give any part of the triumphant refutation written by Mr · Leslie, a distinguished protestant divine, in 1692, which the archbishop never had the confidence to reply to,) seems to have employed all his industry to represent the conduct of the catholics during the reign of James II., in such a light as would vindicate that infamous penal code which was soon after imposed on the unoffending catholics of Ireland. Archbishop King, whose narration is as absurd as it is false, determined to atone, by the profligacy of his falsehoods against the Irish, for the principles he

maintained, when he considered James secure in the seat of sovereignty. Mr Leslie, in his reply to

* We have set forth many instances in which the pious and honest archbishop has been directly contradicted by the highest, and most respectable authority: but as the great majority of the readers of this compendium may never have had an opportunity, of seeing this very precious compilation of lies, which Mr Leland has thought proper to make the principal source of his information during the reign of James II. we shall here set down two passages which will enable the intelligent reader to form his conclusions respecting either the religion or the integrity of the reverend bishop. To those who have perused the vicious absurdities of poor Sir Richard Musgrave, who wrote an account of all the murders, rapes, and robberies committed by the Irish in the year 1798, and from whose production Lord Cornwallis, when lord lieutenant of Ireland, peremptorily and indignantly ordered the author to take his name, lest the world should conclude that his Lordship was the patron of such destructive nonsense ;-to those also, who had witnessed the steady going, trading, political gait of Dr Patrick Duigenan, and who have read that sweet and pious doctor's anathemas against his countrymen, the quotations we shall make from the pages of Archbishop King, will not perhaps be matter of great surprise. It is more than probable that the fancy of either Musgrave or Duigenan may have outrun even the inflamed imagination of King; if so, certainly Duigenan and Musgrave are objects of greater curiosity, when we consider the enlightened days in which it has been their good or ill fortune to live. The dissenters of the present day from the religion of the catholic, join with the latter in the general laugh at the comical credulity of these polemics; and the British parliament, who are sometimes put to the torture by Duigenan, are obliged, in self-defence, to quit the house when the doctor rises. If Archbishop King commits an outrage on the feelings or the common sense of his reader of the present day, the latter should make some allowance for the period in which the bishop wrote his calumnics. He himself, according to Dr Leslie, was once the ardent advocate of James II. and passive obedience. The scene changed; and William being in possession, the learned

Archbishop King, has the following anecdote of the archbishop, which this libeller of the Irish catholic never thought proper to contradict:

doctor had no protection against his past errors, but the fury of his denunciations against his old friends. It was, therefore, in his opinion, most prudent to represent the catholics of Ireland, who were the leading and ascendant party during James's government in Ireland, as monsters, cut-throats, murderers, perjurers, robbers and worse, if the English language could produce more opprobrious denominations. Like Musgrave, Archbishop King estimates the truth of his facts by their atrocity, and, as has been often said of our modern retailers of murders, he would give little thanks for any story in which one or two murders at least, were not there committed. Archbishop King gives to his reader an account of the various expedients adopted by James II. and the Irish catholics, to destroy the property of their protestant countrymen. It was an ingenious contrivance, no doubt: but one which, Archbishop King says, would have never been thought of, were it not for the diabolical but fertile fancy of the abandoned Irish catholic priests. We do not want the authority of Mr Leslie or Lord Clarendon to contradict the silly statement we are now about to extract from Archbishop King; but the reader will not forget that even this is moderation, compared with many pages which we would not excite his disgust by quoting.

"During the reign of James II. in Ireland, estates, both in city and country, were rendered fruitless to protestants; but yet, whilst the cattle and the great manufactories and staple commodities of the kingdom were in their hands; whilst they had the wool and the hides, the tallow and the butter, which bring in all the money that is in the kingdom, all the former arts would not have undone them; and therefore some means must be used to get their stocks from them. It seemed not decent for the government to seize on them as they seized on our houses and arms. It was not thought prudent to give a positive order for doing it the truth is, there was no need of it; it was sufficient to connive at the new raised men to have it done. The priests had every man that came to mass to get a skean and half pike,