puritan, and was chiefly indebted to the support of the parliament for his continuance in power. On this party his expectations were founded, and it is therefore not a mere conjecture, that he was the instrument of their views. It was their principal object by every means to distress the king, and the disturbance in Ireland was no slight assistance. Parsons faithfully pursued the turnings of their policy to the utmost extent of his efforts.

The earl of Ormonde at once urged a decided attack upon the confederates: he represented how easy it would be to suppress them before their people could be armed or fully disciplined. He therefore proposed to march against them with the small body of troops at the time under his command, with a few of the new levies which had been raised on the discovery of the danger. To the great surprise of the earl, the lords-justices refused, on the ground of want of arms for the troops which were to take the field. The earl knew that there was no such want, as there was at the time laid up in the castle a store of arms and ammunition for 10,000 men, besides a fine train of artillery. He was thus therefore reduced to the mortification of finding his commission nugatory, and seeing the time for action pass, while in Dublin he was witness to the frivolous proceedings and the absurd and fraudulent councils, in which nothing was sincere but mischievous proceedings against all such as were not of the faction, and had the ill-fortune to be within the circle of their authority. Carte relates a circumstance which took place about this period of our narrative. A council was sitting in the castle on 13th December, at which the earl of Ormonde was present—when Parsons proposed a court-martial on captain Wingfield, and was steadily resisted by the earl. Parsons lost his temper, and in violent language insisted upon it, assuring him that it should be done for common safety; and that if he did not do it, he should be responsible for losing the kingdom. The earl of Ormonde, who says Carte was never at a loss in his days for an answer equally decent and appropriate, replied, 'I believe, Sir, you will do as much towards losing the kingdom as I, and, I am sure, I will do as much as you for saving it.'"

The English parliament for a little time affected great zeal for the tranquillization of Ireland: their object was to obtain the entire authority, and as much as possible to set aside all efforts on the part of the king. They appointed a committee of the members of both houses, which sat daily on the affairs of Ireland. Their real object was favoured by the zealous co-operation of the Irish lord's-justices, and the inadvertence of the king, who, still anxious to conciliate and to leave no room for complaint, recognized their authority by his communications: he was under the delusive notion that their professed object was genuine, and hoped that something might thus at last be done to restore the peace of Ireland. With the same view he exerted himself to obtain some aid in men from the Scottish parliament, which listened to his urgent applications with cool indifference, while the English parliament, having secured their object, let the affairs of Ireland take their course, and pursued the deeper game upon which their leaders were intent. They asserted the power of the sword and treasury, by liberal votes of men and money, which they took care not to send:

large supplies were ordered, but, in the little that was sent, they contrived to make the act subsidiary to the purpose of further weakening the king, by ordering for the Irish service whatever stores lay at his disposal.

Meanwhile, the rebellion was rapidly spreading in Ireland, and though much retarded by the Boyles and St Leger in Munster, and by the influence and activity of Clanricarde in Connaught, every country was in a state of fear and disturbance. The plunders and massacres of Sir Phelim O'Neile, and the first insurgent bodies which were mainly composed of the lowest classes, followed: and many months had not elapsed till the impolicy and oppression of the lords-justices transferred a numerous and respectable party of the best Irish nobility and gentry to the ranks of rebellion. Of these facts, we have already entered into considerable details. The lords-justices in their first terror, were willing to trust these noblemen with arms; but when prematurely elated by the liberal votes of the English parliament, they thought they might safely treat them with suspicion and insult. The accession of these persons to the rebellion had the beneficial effect of considerably mitigating its savage character; and the evil consequence of giving it for a time concert, military talent, resource, and all the formidable attendants of a regular war, conducted by regular means and skill.

The parliament was called, and allowed to sit for two days in Dublin: the Irish gentry who had assembled there had seen and felt the horrors of the rebellion, they would have entered with an exclusive unity of purpose into the necessary measures for its suppression. The lords-justices were, with the utmost difficulty, prevailed upon to allow them a second day's existence, and they could only vote a representation of the means necessary for the pacification of the country: their representation was transmitted by the justices to the English committee who suppressed it. They offered to vote a large supply, but, before this could be done, they were dissolved, and sent away to abide as they might the storm that raged round their houses. Before their departure from town, the principal members of both houses met, and agreed upon an address to the king, in which they expressed their loyalty, and recommended that the government of the kingdom should be committed to the earl of Ormonde-a circumstance soon after productive of some annoyance to the earl. While he was engaged on his expedition against the rebels at Naas, and was pursuing them with such effect that they were loud in their complaints against his severity, a person named Wishart, who had been a prisoner in the rebel encampment, assured lord Blayney and captain Perkins at Chester, that the earl of Ormonde was in secret correspondence with the rebels. The secret instructions of the Irish members, sent through Sir James Dillon to England, and there taken on his person by the parliamentary agents, gave an unlucky colour to this scandal. The character of the earl stood too high for these low missiles to have any effect further than the moment's irritation. The representation was easily shown to be the act of the parties, without the presence or privity of the earl. The calumny of Wishart was brought forward by the earl himself, and

the calumnious charge refuted by the confession of the accuser, who, having for a while absconded, was discovered and arrested by Sir Philip Percival, and brought before the lords at Westminster, on which he denied having ever spoken to the purpose alleged. He acknowledged that he had said to lord Blaney and others at Chester, that the rebels had always notice of the earl of Ormonde's and of Sir C. Coote's military operations: but the rest of the charge, "that his lordship was the means of advertising the enemy, was the mere invention of some persons who maligned the earl's honour and his own reputation."

In the course of 1642, the rebellion became universally diffused; but with its diffusion, it did not gather strength: the efforts of the several leaders and parties of which it was composed, were little directed or invigorated by any pervading unity of aim. The objects of both leaders were mainly directed by their private ambition-those of the people terminated in plunder. They were however resisted, with still more inefficient means, and less consistency of purpose and effort. The lord's-justices wavered between fear and vindictive animosity, and relaxed their efforts, or adopted measures of severity, according to the pressure of motives which seldom find their way into the light. They looked anxiously to their patrons, the puritans of England, for the aid which was insincerely promised; and, in the mean time, thought it enough to keep Dublin from the rebels. A suppression of the rebellion by the friends of the king was far from their wish, but they were not the less alarmed and vindictive when the approach of rebel parties awakened their own apprehensions and cut off their resources by seizing upon the neighbouring districts. Thus it was that while they sent out their troops with orders to ruin, waste, and kill, with indiscriminate ravage, in the disaffected districts immediately surrounding Dublin, they restrained the earl of Ormonde from any vigorous and systematic effort to reduce an insurrection ready to fall to pieces of itself, and only requiring a slight exertion of strength to dispel it. We have already noticed the earl's expedition to Naas, and the signal success with which it was attended: we have also had occasion to advert to his short and successful march to Kilsalaghan, within seven miles of Dublin. At this time the garrison in Dublin had been reduced to great distress, as there was a grievous want of means for their support; the lords-justices, contrary to every precedent of military prudence, had not only exhausted entirely the surrounding district by exorbitant exaction, but by burnings and ravages, ordered on the least provocation. A small reinforcement was sent over, without money or provision, to aggravate their distress, and it was more to employ the discontented troops than to check the operations of a disorderly and marauding army of 3000 rebels, which were posted at Kilsalaghan, that the earl was sent out to meet them. He was accompanied by Lambert, Coote, and other commanders, with 2500 English foot, and 300 horse. The position of the enemy was strong: a country still intersected with ditches of unusual depth, breadth, and strength of old fence, attests the description of Carte, of "a castle called Kilsalaghan, a place of very great strength, in regard of woods, and many high ditches and strong

"

enclosures and barricadoes there made, and other fastnesses." The orders given to the earl were, "not only to kill and destroy the rebels, their adherents, and relievers, and to burn, waste, consume, and demolish all the places, towns, and houses, where they had been relieved and harboured, and all the corn and hay there, but also to kill and destroy all the men there inhabiting able to bear arms.” It was fortunate that the power of this ignorant administration was not equal to its will; and that the sword was committed to one who was as just and merciful in the discharge of his duty as he was prompt and successful. The earl of Ormonde, with as little injury to the surrounding country as the duty in which he was engaged permitted, attacked the difficult and guarded position in which the O'Briens and Mac Thomases had intrenched themselves, formidable alike in their numbers, position, and the fierce undisciplined bravery of their men; and after a rough and sanguinary contest, drove them from their ditches, and scattered them in rout and confusion over the country.

The lords-justices were at this period strongly urged by the earl and others equally zealous for the termination of a state of affairs so disastrous, to permit them to march to the relief of Drogheda, at that time besieged by the army of Sir Phelim O'Neile. To this they refused their consent; but still feeling the necessity of sending away on some expedition a body of men whom they could not maintain in Dublin, they ordered an expedition towards the river Boyne, alleging the probability that a diversion might be thus created, so as to induce the rebels to raise the siege. On this occasion there seems to have been a resistance to some parts of their order, to waste, kill, and burn, on the part of the earl, who with some difficulty extorted permission to use his own more temperate discretion in the execution of this order. And shortly after, before the departure of the force under his command, he received an intimation from the castle, that the lordsjustices having considered the matter, made it their earnest request that he would "stay at home, and let them send away the force now prepared, under the conduct of Sir Simon Harcourt, wherein they desired his lordship's approbation." The earl understood the design of this artful and slighting application, and felt no disposition to suffer his office to be thus set aside for purposes so opposed to his own political principles. He was resolved not to let the cause of the king go by default, and the violence and vindictive temper of Sir W. Parsons find scope for indiscriminate and mischievous oppression, by a compliant desertion of his post. He firmly refused to let the army which the king had confided to him, march under any command but his

own.

He accordingly marched on the 5th March, with such troops as could be prepared in time, and when he had reached a sufficient distance from town, put the orders of the lords-justices into a course of moderate execution, according to the more merciful terms, which on first receiving their orders he had with difficulty extorted. Instead of spreading indiscriminate destruction and massacre, which if executed according to the will of the castle would have degraded his name

to the level of Sir Phelim O'Neile's; he wasted the villages only which had been in known concert with the rebels. Even this, it must be admitted, would according to the principles now recognized be still an excess, revolting to policy and justice; but when referred to the warfare of the age, to its opinion, practice, and to the then existing state of the country, it will appear in its own true light, as a mild and indispensable measure of severity. One remark is to be made, that such is the nature of popular insurrection, in which the struggle on the part of the insurgents is necessarily carried on by plunders, murders, and civil crimes, for which their previous habits have prepared them, rather than by military demonstrations, for which they are undisciplined; and it too often occurs that the only resource left for the protection of the social system, requires the adoption of means partaking of the same lamentable character. The spirit of insurrection rising from the lowest ranks, spreads out like a malaria upon the face of the country, felt not seen; tracked by fires and the bloody steps of the prowling and assassinating marauder; to the charge or battery of regular war it offers no resistance, and but too often was only to be met by the dreadful justice, which visited the homes of the offending peasantry with the retaliation which is not so much to be excused by the strictness of justice, as by the essential necessity of a resource, which has the effect of turning the torrent upon its fountain; and carrying the just, but fearful lesson, that the secrecy of the midnight crimes, or the mistlike gatherings and dispersions of these freebooting mobs, such as then assumed the much abused pretence of a national cause, though they save their bodies from the crows on some inglorious field, cannot fail to involve their homes in the ruin, which they in their ignorance and wickedness would inflict upon the unoffending and respectable classes—against whom such hostilities are ever directed.

The earl was not interrupted by the rebel parties which he had expected to meet upon his march, but ere long he received an account that the rebels had raised the siege of Drogheda, and were then in full retreat towards Ulster. It was his opinion and that of his officers that they should be pursued as far as Newry; and as a large force could be spared from Drogheda, it appeared to be a favourable occasion to disperse the insurgents by a decided system of operations, with a force which might not so easily be collected again. The possession of Ulster, once obtained, would leave the rebellion little spirit or power to proceed further. The earl wrote to the lords-justices, stating his plan, and the means of effecting it. They, it is said, were in a "terrible fume" on the receipt of his letter, and without a moment's delay returned an answer forbidding him to cross the Boyne; and reiterating their commands to waste, burn, and destroy, without any distinction of rank or consideration of merit. In the mean time the earl pursued his way to Drogheda, where he consulted with lord Moore and Sir H. Tichburne, who concurred in his opinion and joined in another letter to the lords-justices. But the plan of enterprise which they had concerted, was broken by the arrival of the letter from the lords-justices, already mentioned. The earl's indignation was strongly excited, he did not think fit to resist the orders of government, but in reply he