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musqueteers. The lords of the pale rode out to meet them, and lord Gormanston asked why they thus entered the pale in arms? Roger Moore replied-They came, he said, to vindicate their liberty of conscience: that they were armed in defence of the king's prerogative which had been invaded; and also with the design to make the Irish as free as the people of England. On this lord Gormanston asked if these were their genuine designs?-whether they had not some other private ends of their own? This Moore denied: on which lord Gormanston rejoined that these were their common interests, and that they would join them. And all present having agreed, a warrant was thereupon drawn up and issued to the sheriff, to summon all the lords and gentry of the county, to a general meeting in the next week upon Tara hill.

We shall have again to enter into a minute detail of the incidents here briefly noticed. As the insurrection thus mainly raised by the instrumentality of Roger Moore, acquired more numerous and powerful leaders, his instrumentality becomes less apparent. Colder hearts and wiser heads-motives more profound, long-sighted, and corrupt-more exasperated passions took their usual places in the council of interested and angry spirits. As they gather in numbers and authority, dissension and divided counsels rose up among them; and the power, influence, and personal ambition of individuals, became ruling springs of the conduct of the party. We may then shortly pass to the end of Moore's

career.

The rebellion had, as we have already said, as it extended, yielded to the common law of all unorganized and irregular movements; it lost power as it gathered numerical weight, and was weakened by the varied opinions, principles, and objects, of its influential movers. The English commons, though little disposed to waste their strength upon this country's tumults, and misled by opposite representations, began to supply the means of opposition, men, money, and stores, though with a parsimony ill suited to the state of affairs. However, by the skill, promptness, and bravery, of many distinguished officers, the tide began to be turned, and the rebels became considerably distressed. The Irish chiefs were on the point of abandoning a cause which they began to think hopeless, when their courage was rallied and their hopes revived by the long desired arrival of colonel Owen O'Neile. To increase it still further, several vessels from France landed abundant supplies of arms and ammunition, and a considerable Irish force, with numerous officers who had acquired experience and reputation in foreign service.

Of this advantage, the first use made by the Irish was an effort to give authority and method to their proceedings. The details of this change we are compelled to reserve for a memoir yet to come in its order. The clergy saw their time: they also saw the necessity of infusing order into confused movements, of establishing some source of civil rule, of directing desultory efforts, and of controlling the fierceness of fanaticism. They convened a synod in Kilkenny, and framed a body of acts, among which the principal provided for a national convention of deputies to meet for the government of the country. This

assembly met, and gave form, and for a time vigorous instrumentality to the proceedings of the rebellion. They made declarations, constituted authorities, appointed councils, and distributed commands.

In the division of commands, the first movers were passed by:persons of desperate fortune and active spirit may be permitted to embrace a desperate cause. But they must be set aside, when the appearance of success brings forward more wary and prudent observers, whose means and authority enable them to give weight to the cause, and render the declaration of their sentiments desired.

Moore began to sink in spirits and health as he fell in estimation and influence. His enthusiasm had been damped by the disapprobation of the conduct and slow progress of a war of which he now began to discern the true course. His humanity and gallantry had been shocked by the savage and brutal spirit which began to manifest itself among the rebels, and which neither his zealous opposition, nor that of other commanders, men of honour and humanity, had the power to control. He had been discontented and disgusted; and after the siege of Drogheda, withdrew to Flanders. At that affair he had been, attacked by his own party for attempting to control their brutality. After the convention, which established a supreme council at Kilkenny, he returned only to find himself wholly set aside by inferior persons, who dreaded his energy, and were jealous of his commanding character. They thought it necessary to soothe his bitterness and appease his wounded pride by empty show of respect. He soon fell ill, and died in Kilkenny, and his death is not without reason attributed to mortification.

"He was," writes Carte, "a man of a fair character, highly esteemed by all that knew him, and had so great a reputation for his abilities among the Irish in general, that he was celebrated in their songs; and it was a phrase among them, 'God and our Lady be our assistance, and Roger Moore.' He exceedingly detested the cruelties committed by the Irish in Ulster; and when he afterwards got to Sir Phelim O'Neile, he did all he could to stop them, and to establish a regular discipline among his mobbish army?'

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We shall have but too many occasions to present many and varied details of the disgusting and flagitious atrocities of this long rebellion, of the commencement of which we have given a slight sketch. But we cannot forbear taking this occasion to offer one observation as to the cause of these revolting enormities, which our perusal of the history of Irish rebellions has strongly suggested. The laws which make the rebel a criminal amenable to a species of summary justice, not extended to ordinary crimes, or executed by the laws of the land, are perhaps quite defensible on the ground of abstract theory, nor can we object to their strict justice. But they answer no good or expedient purpose; and fearfully aggravate the horrors and calamities of civil

war.

They do no good; the rebel marches to the field in defiance of death, and in anticipation of a different result: the law which makes a traitor of him is simply vindictive, it never deterred a single rebel from the field. Its real effects are twofold: to the rebel's discontent it

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The evil is increased by the want of prudence and vigour on the part of governments, which so often has been observed to precede rebellion. In their first alarm, the civil powers give way too far, and instead of meeting the evil in its commencement, rather oppose the loyal parties than those whom they have most reason to fear. Among the most common and dangerous errors thus committed, that which most aggravates the ills here noticed, is the mistake of disarming those who are the persons mainly to be defended, and who are sure to be the first objects of attack. This has been too frequently done, by regulations which bear unequally, on the peaceful and disorderly; no precaution of an Irish government has ever extended so far as spoil the equipments of a rebel army.

Sir Phelim O'Neile.

Born a. d. 1604.-EXECUTED A. d. 1641.

SIR PHELIM O'NEILE, of Kinard, in Tyrone, was, at the time which brings him into historic notice, the principal person of his name in Ireland. He was grandson of Sir Henry O'Neile, who was slain in the action against Sir Cahir O'Doherty, in 1608. The services of Sir

Henry had been acceptable to the government, and he had received a grant of the district called Sir Henry Gage's country.* On his death Sir Phelim was found to be his next heir. On coming of age, he applied to have a new grant, specially naming the lands which were comprised in more general designations in his grandfather's grant; on which, in 1629, a new instrument was made out according to his desire.

He entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn, and while in England professed the protestant religion; he is, however, believed to have changed on his return. Having entered on his property, he soon launched into a career of waste and dissipation, and did not cease until he had nearly wasted his ample property; which he was compelled to encumber nearly to its full value. In consequence, he was for some years exposed to embarrassments, which seldom fail to corrupt and harden persons of strong passions and weak understanding, and add no small amount of vice to those follies of which they were the result.

Hugh, earl of Tyrone, died in 1616, leaving a son, who was married, but had no children. Sir Phelim, who was considered next heir, had thereby a new and vast prospect opened to his ambition. Roger Moore found him thus prepared to listen with eager avidity to proposals which were gilded in perspective, with the title and princely possessions of Tyrone. Such were the hopes with which Sir Phelim became the most active partisan of the proceedings of 1641, and entered on a course which soon led him to the scaffold.

In the first movements of 1641, while the insurrection was yet but in its projection, Sir Phelim's house was a central resort for the meetings of the conspirators; thither Moore, and Plunket, and lord Maguire used to come; and from thence messengers were soon observed to be dispatched to all quarters of the compass. Such was the information given by Sir Wm. Cole, in a letter to the lords-justices, on the 11th October, 1641; and we find it confirmed in lord Maguire's narrative, who mentions that he was asked to attend the funeral of Sir Phelim's wife, with a view to "confer with Sir Phelim touching all these proceedings." Sir Phelim next appears as one of the five who met in Dublin to plan the seizure of the castle; on which occasion Maguire and a few more were seized, while the main conspirators escaped.

Some time in the same month, Sir Phelim achieved an exploit which exhibits his character in no honourable point of view. It has been already mentioned, that on the first meetings of Sir Phelim with Moore and his associates, it was planned, on the same day that the castle was to be surprised, to obtain by similar means, possession of all the forts and garrisons in the provinces. It was allotted to Sir Phelim to secure the forts and garrisons of Ulster. Of these, Charlemont fort was under the command of Sir Tobias Caulfield, lord Charlemont, then a very old man. Sir Phelim was his neighbour, and as such was on the most intimate footing of hospitable intercourse, as hospitality was

* Carte.

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