partizan of the royal cause, the Earl of Glamorgan, empowering this nobleman, (who being married to the sister of the Earl of Thomond, was allied to the most powerful families in Ireland), to adopt such arrangements as he thought best calculated to bring his differences with his Irish subjects to a speedy termination. The Earl of Glamorgan impressed Charles with the opinion, that so extensive was his influence among the Irish, that he would be shortly able to lead ten thousand men from Ireland to the assistance of his sovereign. Charles armed the Earl of Glamorgan with full powers, and the latter proceeded to negociate with the Irish confederacy. This important assembly had now occupied the serious attention, and excited the interest, of all the crowned heads of Europe. The sufferers in the cause of the catholic religion naturally attracted the sympathy, and commanded the regard of the Roman pontiff, Innocent X. He received the sacred ambassador of the Irish confederacy, with all the respect due to the spirit and fidelity with which the people who sent him ad hered to the religion of the catholic church. He sent forward his envoy, John Baptista Rinuccini, a noble Florentine, to the Irish confederacy; who was eminently gifted with all those qualities best calculated to command and to conciliate. Eloquent, graceful, and ambitious; zealously anxious for the unlimited independence of the people to whom he was delegated, he attached to his interests every Irish heart which honestly glowed with the love of country, Mr Leland charges the ambassador from

Rome with an extravagance of spiritual pride. Perhaps it would be more just to attribute to Rinuccini the same enthusiastic zeal for the ascendancy of his religion, which so peculiarly distinguishes Mr Leland himself; and that in all his efforts to procure for the Irish the splendid and permanent establishment of the catholic church in Ireland, he was only performing those duties which every sincere and honest sectarian feels it incumbent on him to perform. Whatever were the errors in point of prudence and expediency committed by the pope's nuncio, in his various negociations between the Irish and the Marquis of Ormond, it must not be forgotten, that he always made the oath of association, by which the Irish confederate assembly of Kilkenny were bound to each other, the perpetual rule of his conduct, without ever bending to the suggestions of expediency, or yielding to the dictates of a temporary policy. The oath of association, taken by the convention of Kilkenny, particularly declared, "that those who subscribed it would not consent to lay down their arms until all the laws and statutes made since the time of king Henry VIII., whereby any restraint, penalty, mulct, or incapacity, or any other restriction whatsoever, is or may be laid on any of the Roman catholic religion, within this kingdom, and of their several functions, should be repealed, revoked, and declared void in the next parliament, by one or more acts of parliament to be passed therein." This was the oath by which the Irish confederates were bound to each other; and it remains to the impartial ob

server of those times, to decide whether the Irish party, who insisted upon the performance of the conditions for which they first took up arms, are deserving of those severe animadversions in which every Anglo-Irish writer has thought proper to indulge. There is no doubt that if the spirit which actuated Rinuccini and Owen O'Neal, had not been opposed by the artful machinations of Ormond, and the wretched compromising policy of some of the members of the council of Kilkenny, the fair and honest claims of Ireland would have been conceded, and religious and civil liberty completely established. The double dealing conduct of Ormond towards the Irish, is demonstrated by the necessity he imposed on the king to set on foot a secret negociation with the Irish confederacy, through the medium of the Earl of Glamorgan. From this effort on the part of Charles, it is manifest either that he suspected the truth and sincerity of Ormond, with regard to his Irish subjects, or that he contemplated the possibility of obtaining a large force from Ireland on the faith of a mock treaty, which he could disclaim whenever it might be his conveniente; thus balancing his Irish against his English subjects, making Ormond the instrument of his purposes against the latter, while the credulous Glamorgan would be struggling to conciliate the Irish confederacy. The dissimulation and insincerity of Ormond, however, are most obvious through every stage of this miserable struggle; and the unfortunate king seems to be the victim which this hypocritical servant willingly offers up to the fury of

English democracy. The battle of Naseby, in which the royal forces were defeated, developed the true character of Ormond; for it appears that the private instructions of Charles, which were discovered in the king's cabinet at Naseby, empowered Ormond to conclude a peace with the Irish on whatever terms the Irish might please to dictate, con. sistent with their allegiance to his majesty. The letter of instructions was published, with such observations as laid open the deep and designing plans of Ormond.

The state of parties in Ireland and England at this period is well described by Mr Taaffe; a description which satisfactorily accounts for that duplicity which Ormond so successfully practised for his friends in the English parliament, to the ruin of the Irish and his unfortunate sovereign, to whom he affected such incorruptible fidelity. It also vindicates those Irishmen who had the sagacity to sound the real objects of Ormond, and the spirit to resist them. Unfortunately for Ireland, the owners of the estates forfeited from the ancient Irish, sat in the assembly of Kilkenny, who clung to English connection on any terms of humiliation and bondage as their fancied security for retaining possession; little foreseeing that they were only keepers on them, until swarms of Irish would come to demand and seize them. It was the misfortune of the Irish, that the liberties of their country depended upon the firmness of those, whose immediate interests were entwined with the security of that government which had so long oppressed them.

The gold of England effected what its physical power had in vain attempted; and in the assem. bly of Kilkenny, the richest and the most ennobled catholics were to be found, who basely ministered to the designs of the common enemy. Their ser vility and want of spirit assumed the titles of pru dence and expediency, and the men who had the integrity and the courage to insist upon the unqualified emancipation of their countrymen, were branded by the degraded supporters of Ormond, with an unthinking violence, and an unreflecting intempe rance. Ormond, artful and corrupt, well knew the nature and quality of the materials he had to work upon. He flattered the vain, he bullied the timid, and deceived the honest and undesigning. The artifices of Ormond, the oscillations between his sovereign and the English parliament; his insincerity to the Irish, and his studied watchfulness for his own immediate aggrandizement, are well remarked upon by Mr Taaffe. "Before we pursue Ormond," (says this writer)," through all the labyrinth of his tortuous politics, now negociating with the Irish, then with the covenanters of Ulster; acting ostensibly as the king's deputy, but in true earnest as the cringing slave of his enemies, until he surrendered Ireland naked and divided into their hands; we must review the conduct of the loyalists, and how far they contributed by their divisions, their consequent tardiness, and half measures, to their own country's ruin. To have a conception of their proceedings and their effects, it will be necessary to take a concise view of the different parties in the