mirably expert in cutting down the unarmed peasantry, or the stragglers who from fatigue were unable to keep pace with their several divisions. If they were not adepts in a more manly warfare, they were at least familiar with the excesses which the generous soldier deplores; and, being acquainted with the political sentiments of their neighbours, they had frequent opportunities of singling out such as they either feared or disliked.*

To those who are not acquainted with the local situation of Ulster, its population, wealth, and intelligence, it may not be improper to observe, that a considerable portion of that province is distinguished by manners and habits differing widely from those which mark the character of others. The Scotch and English settlers, from the period of Elizabeth to the accession of Queen Ann, though not confined to Ulster, were principally concentrated there, and the native inhabitants, who were either expelled the province or driven to the mountains, remained altogether a distinct and separate people.

* From the trial of Woolaghan, and the marked censure of Lord Cornwallis on the president and members of the court martial (as in Appendix, No. III.,) we may form an idea of the feeling under which some of the yeomanry corps acted at that period.

The line of separation had been carefully drawn, and the policy of England was not to obliterate the mark; and after a lapse of so many years we are still enabled to distinguish the descendants of the settlers of the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. But in the expanded system of union, from the year 1795, all distinctions of country and descent were forgotten, and the calculating prudence of the settlers had so far tempered the native warmth of the original inhabitants, that modern Ulster, patient under wrongs, preferred a pacific mode of redress, while one single act of injustice would have roused ancient Ulster to arms, and thousands have bled to revenge a national insult.

The history of Ulster is one of the deepest interest-a mournful lesson of instruction; and the fate of her chiefs a melancholy monument of human greatness. The reign of Elizabeth had consummated the atrocities which her father had commenced, and the cup of Ireland's misery overflowed under the next regal successor, the degenerate and cold hearted James. The fairest province of Ireland had been despoiled, the noblest blood attainted, and the princely inheritance sequestered to enrich the paramour or favourite of a virgin queen; and the inhabitants of that unhappy province, which has been desig

nated the birth-place of heroes and the tomb of the brave, with exile or poverty for their portion, had no intermission of suffering. The barbarity of Essex, the brutality of Cromwell, the perfidy of the first* and the cowardice of the second James, though their pretexts were different, all were alike fatal in their consequences.

Amid the misfortunes which it has been the lot of Ireland to sustain, Ulster was doomed to the most overwhelming share. Other provinces have been scourged by the lash of oppression, and bent to the earth by the most iniquitous code which the inventive tyranny of man could devise, yet they still retain some monuments of former greatness, whilst to Ulster scarce a vestige remains. O'Nial, O'Donnell, Iveagh, M'Kenna, M'Mahon, Macguire, whose arms once formed a rampart of steel, from the Irish sea to the Atlantic, all are sunk in the desolating current, and the only inheritance of their sons is the former fame of their sires. We trace them on the mountain's top, we find them in the sequestered valley below, or we

* James the First stirred up the chiefs of Ulster to oppose the authority of Elizabeth, and after his accession to the British throne rewarded them by the confiscation of their estates; six entire counties were sequestrated.

follow them to distant climes, where glory marks their course; but the pride of the Clan-de-boy, and the lofty soul of Tyrconnell's chief, have long ceased to be objects of jealousy or alarm to Britain; and even the reflection to the minds of their countrymen, is as the last faint ray of a brilliant sun, sunk below our sensible horizon, contending for a moment with the sable cloud of night, then lost to our vision for ever.

If I have dwelt too long on the present or past state of Ulster, it is because every scene connected with my native province is deeply interwoven with the liveliest feelings of my heart, and associated with local attachments of early remembrance, which no time. can efface. Those who have been forced from early connexions by the arm of oppression, will feel with me, that power, though it may sever us from the object of regard, can never estrange our affections or obliterate the remembrance of the past.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Effects of an organized system on the population of Ulster-Lowry and Magenis-their exertions to promote internal tranquillity-Barbarous pastimes of the soldiery.

ULSTER had the command of a powerful force; her people were impatient for action, waiting orders from their superior officers, but in too high a state of organization to act without them. Two of the most active and influential leaders of the province were at this moment absent, Lowry and Magenis. Whether they are to be considered for their moral worth, their high sense of honour, their inflexible integrity and disinterested patriotism, or the purity of the feelings which influenced the best and noblest of hearts, it has not been the fortune of the writer to encounter through life two men more worthy of public confidence and personal esteem. Early intercourse and similarity of feeling had given birth to a friendship, which was cemented by misfortune and only terminated in death. Both