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THE HISTORY OF IRELAND.

may here say, that William was forced to give up all his old loving and affectionate Dutch auxiliaries. It is said, that the violence done to the king's feelings by this act of the British parliament, made an impression on his mind and spirits from which he never rallied to the hour of his death. Much has been said of the spirit of toleration which governed the conduct and characterised the disposition of King William. We shall put the legislative acts of his reign against the conjectures or the assertions of his panegyrists. We shall open the Irish statute book, where every Irishman may read the charac ter of this monarch of "immortal memory" written in the blood of our country. We should therefore consider his Irish admirers as the enemies of Ireland, and estimate their abhorrence of every liberal and enlightened principle in proportion to the degree of enthusiasm with which they revive the memory of King William, when considered as monarch of Ireland. As the indefatigable opponent of foreign despotism, we will join in general admiration of William's memory, but as the sovereign of our country, whose rights, civil and religious, he basely trampled on, after giving his solemn pledge to support and protect them, we must, in common with nineteen-twentieths of our country, lament that he ever existed.

THE

HISTORY OF IRELAND.

ANNE.

A.D. THE reader of the preceding reign would 1702. be inclined to conclude, that sufficient zeal had been manifested by the advocates of what was now denominated "protestant ascendancy," to destroy the religion and violate the rights, as well as insult the feelings, of their catholic countrymen. The pages which are to follow, will display the eccentric ingenuity of malice and cowardice-of malice to torture, and cowardice to triumph over an innocent and unoffending nation, which had won, by the sacrifice of its best blood, the enjoyment of those privileges that the confiscating spirit of monopoly had dared to withhold. He who is acquainted with the splendid events which distinguished the reign of Anne-who has followed the rapid and astonishing progress of English arms, under the directing genius of Marlborough-who has stopped to reflect on that constellation of talent

and learning which illuminated the Augustan period of British history, will turn with wonder and astonishment from the vandal scene of infamous oppression under which our people were then doomed to suffer. He will no longer wonder at the feeling which prompts the honest Irish heart to repine at the fluctuation of England's fortune; nor will he in future join in that hypocritical exultation which the sycophants of power would pretend to feel at the victories and glory of the nation who persecutes them. There can be no better evidence of the successful debasement of the public mind by the perpetual infliction of ignominy, than the hollow and affected loyalty which too often distinguished the class of the unprivileged Irish, who were nearest to the seat of power; whose humiliation was conspicuous in proportion to their rank and fortune among their oppressed fellow citizens; who fawned, and flattered, and professed, though the public eye turned from the scene with indignation, and talked of loyalty, and content, and satisfaction, under the chains whose clanking still rung in the ear of every Irishman. Nothing can be more contemptible, nor more destructive to the fair ho nest claims of the people, than this aristocratic insincerity, which Ireland too often witnesses. The government of the country are deceived by an ap pearance of attachment and of loyalty, where such feeling neither cau nor ought to exist. The people are abused by the specious display of a spirit which only covers the wound that ought to be probed and examined. The catholic aristocrat, who talked of

his loyalty under the laws of William or of Anne, deceived the prince as well as the people. His hypocrisy was rewarded by additional degradation, and his exclamations of loyalty were answered by the ferocious denunciations of monopoly. The people, who reflected on the meanness of such duplicity, triumphed in the ignominious repulsion of the sycophant, and the pride of the monopolist was fed and nourished by the precious incense of his noble slave. We are now come to that period when the integrity of nations to each other was fully and unequivocally developed; when national liberality might have been practised with magnanimity; when England, if inclined to administer Ireland with justice, might have ruled with dignity and with safety; when the hostile arm was in the grave, and the susceptible and affectionate heart of Ire land could have been gained by kindness and protection; when England might boast of having reached the highest climax of human greatness; when she presented her firm and undaunted countenance, and shook to the foundation the only power which menaced the liberties of Europe; when every breeze which could disturb her prosperity was hushed to silence, and the mind of her monarch reposed in the victories which astonished and intimidated the world. This surely might have been the period of concession to Ireland; yet this was the period which England chose to select, when Ireland could be put to the torture with impunity; insulted for her unthinking confidence in a nation's honour, and stript of the last sad remnant of that covering which

sheltered her from the scorn and contempt of nations.

Let no Irishman ever forget that this proud day, when England raised her forehead to the skies, Ireland, bathed in tears, sunk in despondency to the earth, the sport of every fool, the subject of every ruffian hand to practise its tricks of torture, and the melancholy spectacle of a confiding, innocent and betrayed country. No wonder that the voice of every muse, on the sad subject of Ireland, should be that of sorrow and despair; no wonder that the Irish harp should sound its deep and melancholy tone, when the sufferings of such a people are the subject of its strain. Our poetry and our music make their powerful appeals to the heart, and the dark mournful hue of oppression increases the interest, and adds to the beauties, of the finest productions of Irish genius. In the reign of William, the sword of oppression and violence was sometimes suspended. Unschooled in the arts of persecution, that illustrious monarch sometimes retreated from the task which national prejudice assigned him. He required some time to reconcile him to the work of intolerance, but was at length a successful pupil to the instructions of monopoly. But the reign we are now recording, commenced in despotism, and ended as it began. The oppressor is generally systematic in the work of torture; he is delighted with the capabilities of suffering which his victim may possess, and if the latter can survive the experiment, he would prefer his gradual destruction to immediate annihilation. The laws

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