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return of the seceding members, who being most of them favourable to the king, the order above cited was revoked, and the marquess was thus enabled to communicate with the king. He was joined by several members of the council in a letter, stating the distress of the army, the great difficulties to which they had been reduced by the want of money, the miserable exhaustion of the kingdom, and the dangerous consequences to be speedily apprehended in case they should be left in the same condition any longer, and praying for his majesty's directions how they were to act under the circumstances.* This letter was sent

by Sir P. Wemyss. In the mean time the marquess had much to do, to prevent all his officers from throwing up their commissions and returning to England. They had long borne the absolute privations to which they were subjected by the want of their pay, as evils not to be remedied; but their resentment was excited by petty attempts to defraud them in the small instalments, which the government were seldom able to pay. They sent in a petition to the Irish parliament, full of strong and true complaints, both of the misapplication of the remittances made for their support, and of the imposition effected by means of a light coin; and desiring their lordships "to call Mr vice-treasurer, his ministers, and all others employed about the receipts and disbursements aforesaid, to a present strict account of all moneys sent out of England and issued here since October 23d, 1641, and also to take notice of other of his majesty's rights misapplied to private uses; and out of the estates of the persons offending, to enforce a present satisfaction, that may in some measure relieve the distressed army which now groans under the burden of these wrongs, and extreme wants; and further to take into your considerations the necessities of the said officers and soldiers, which if there may not be subsistence for them in this kingdom, your lordships cannot but know, will consequently enforce them to quit the same, and abandon this service."†

The lords-justices met the embarrassment which the discussion of this petition would have occasioned, by the prorogation of parliament, just as it was entering upon the consideration of the subject. The parliament desired to have the prorogation suspended, which was refused; they next desired to be informed of the reasons for the prorogation; to this an answer was also refused. The lords therefore ordered a letter to be written by the lord-chancellor to be laid before the king, and directed the draught of this to be first submitted to the marquess of Ormonde, the lord Roscommon, and lord Lambart, in order that they might see that a full statement was made of their endeavours to discuss the petition, their reasons, their sense of the state of the army and the necessity of some immediate interposition for their relief. But in reality the king had no means to remedy the evil, and the English parliament no will. The lords-justices who, with all their acquiescence in the policy of the English commons, had begun to fear the full extent to which that policy would be carried, or the full effects which might recoil on their own government, were at this moment in the deepest perplexity. They had paralyzed the military operations of the marquess, until it was too late; they had roused all parties into a union to resist

VOL. III.

*Carte I. p. 414.

K

+ Carte.

them. They now saw themselves in the midst of a disturbed and irritated country, without men, money or food. In this condition they, too, made the most earnest appeals to the parliament in letters, which gave the most appalling and heart-rending pictures of the ruinous condition of Dublin, and of the abject condition of helplessness to which they were reduced. They also vindicated their own conduct, by one of those partial statements of facts so familiar to all who know the common arts of faction: omitting their own previous errors, which were the entire cause of all the existing evils, they exhibited the true facts of their unavailing and not very laudable efforts to retard the ruin they had blindly drawn down, by turning it upon the merchants and citizens of Dublin, whom, in good set terms they acknowledge themselves to have plundered freely and unreservedly, for the support of the government. The parliament of England which had gone on amusing them, and urging them on their purblind courses with high promises which were never kept, now saw that their purpose was gained for the present, and turned a deaf ear to all their complaints. The application here mentioned was the last official act of Parsons. The king who had repeatedly been irritated by his conduct and felt all through that he was betraying him to his implacable and bitter enemies, was at last made aware of acts of more unequivocal treachery, of which he had hitherto been kept in ignorance. He had not been acquainted with the fact that Sir W. Parsons, in all his official acts had looked solely to the authority of the parliament, with which he kept up a direct, constant and confidential communication, while his communications with his majesty were but formal and for the most part partial and illusory; being in fact framed on the suggestion of the commons, and to forward their aims. On receiving certain intimations of this fact, the king without further delay, ordered a commission to be made out appointing Sir H. Tichburne in his place.

It was under the general state of affairs here related, that the king began very clearly to see that it was full time to put an end to a war which could not be maintained, and which must terminate in the ruin of every party. He therefore sent to the marquess of Ormonde a commission to conclude a cessation with the rebels. The preamble of this commission is a correct statement of the question, as between himself and his enemies. "Since his two houses of parliament (to whose care at their instance he had left it to provide for the support of the army in Ireland, and the relief of his good subjects there,) had so long failed his expectation, whereby his said army and subjects were reduced to great extremities; he had thought good for their preservation, to resume the care of them himself; and that he might the better understand as well the state of that kingdom as the cause of the insurrection, he had thought fit to command and authorise the marquess of Ormonde lieutenant-general of his army there, with all secrecy and convenient expedition, to treat with his subjects in arms, and agree with them for a present cessation of arms for one year, in as beneficial a manner as his wisdom and good affection for his majesty should conceive to be most for his honour and service; and as through the want of a full information of the true state of the army and condition of the country, he could not himself fix a judgment in the case, so as to be able to

prescribe the particulars thereof, he referred the same entirely to the lieutenant-general, promising to ratify whatsoever he upon such treaty should conclude and subscribe with his own hand in that business."*

This step was indeed anxiously looked for by all whose passions were not strongly engaged in this ruinous conflict. The provinces were harassed by desultory but destructive war between leaders, who on either side maintained themselves by resources destructive to the country. The new government endeavoured in vain to restore the trade which the old one had destroyed. A proclamation informed the trading part of the community that they might expect to be paid for their goods; but there were little goods to be had from a wasted and impoverished land, and on these an excise amounting to half the value, amounted to a species of partnership not much to the encouragement of trade.

We have already had occasion† to give some account of the negotiations for the cessation, and to advert as fully as we consider desirable, to the conduct of the several parties while it was carried on with much interruption, and many difficulties. It may be enough here summarily to mention, that it was mainly rendered difficult by the unwillingness of two great sections of the rebel party, who threw every obstacle in the way of any conclusion between the government and the rebels, short of the entire concession of their own several objects; these were the ecclesiastical party, who were under the control of the Roman cabinet, and of whom the majority either from inclination or compulsion entered into its policy; and the old Irish chiefs, of whom Owen O'Neile was now the leader, whose object was the recovery of certain supposed rights, and the resumption of their ancient state and authority. In consequence of these divisions, it so happened that while one party was engaged in treaty, another was actively pursuing hostilities, and many of the principal battles which we have had to notice, took place while the confederates were actually engaged in negotiation with the marquess, and other noblemen who co-operated with him for the purpose of restoring peace to the country. Much delay also arose from the effect of the successes of those who were continuing the war, which caused the confederates to raise their demands and assume a tone of insolence not to be submitted to in prudence. The marquess in his turn was reluctant to allow the enemy to gain advantages unresisted, and was occasionally compelled to defer the treaty for the purpose of defeating manœuvres, which the rebels were assiduous in practising under every pretence. The difficulties which arose in the council, were not less than those among the confederacy; entirely overlooking the utter prostration of their own military force and the increased armies of the rebels, and mainly engaged in a miserable attempt to induce the English commons, by the most absurd misrepresentations, to some active effort to carry on the war, they wasted the time in opposition, and were met on the part of the marquess by demands for means to carry on the war: he asked for soldiers and money, and silenced their reasons without conquering their obstinacy. And thus the first commission for a treaty, sent over in April, came to nothing.

*Carte.

† Life of Owen O'Neile.

On August 31st, another commission was sent over; and the commissioners on the part of the confederates met the marquess with more moderate demands, insomuch that the only obstacle which prevented their full agreement, arose from the difficulty of settling the quarters of the parties. During the discussion of this point, the prospect of any amicable conclusion was much endangered by the ignorant interference of the council which opposed the temporary cessation of hostilities. Notwithstanding this interruption, the parties came to an agreement by which the king was to receive £30,000 from the confederates, in money and beeves, to be paid in several instalments during that year. The treaty was signed September 15th, and publicly proclaimed through the kingdom.

upon

The cessation now concluded was in a high degree unacceptable to the popular portion of the confederacy. It was still more so to the rebel parliament of England; a fact deserving of notice for the side light which it throws upon this period of English history, which is also a standing theme of party misrepresentation. The general view which the foregoing narrative has been mainly framed, as well as our particular sentiments as to the conduct and policy of this flagitious parliament, derive much valuable confirmation from an able and authoritative document from the hand of Sir Philip Perceval, who was himself appointed under the authority of that very parliament by lord Leicester, commissary-general of Ireland; and who had therefore the more intimate means of knowing the most minute particulars, both of the condition of the Irish army, with its means of subsistence and operative efficiency, and of the actual conduct of the parliament compared with their pretensions to the conduct of Irish affairs. This body was as violent in its denunciations of any overture towards peace, as it was remiss in support of the war: its members were content that every process of extirpation should destroy every sect and party, popular, aristocratic, priestly, royal and parliamentarian, provided only that a peace favourable to the king might be obstructed. And as they were as harsh, summary and absolute in vindicating their authority as they were prompt to assume the language of constitutional principle, when complaints were to be maintained against the prerogative of the crown, it became necessary for one of their own officers a man of virtue and ability to defend the conduct of himself and his colleagues in the Irish parliamentary government, for their assent to the Cessation. In Sir Philip Perceval's vindication of this measure, a plain irrefragable and uncontradicted statement of the main facts is to be found, which we have noticed directly, or taken into account in our general commentary. Sir Philip commenced by adverting to the charges against him as a consenting party to the cessation; he regretted "that it was necessary for the vindication of the truth of his injured reputation, ingenuously to offer to their honours' consideration, that nothing but want and necessity, not feigned, but imminent, real, and extreme necessity, and the exceedingly great discontents of the army, to the apparent danger of the sudden and inevitable ruin and destruction of the remnant of our nation and religion, there did or could compel his consent to the cessation." He then begins at March 23d, 1641, and by a historical series of private statements down to the end of the treaty of the cessation, he makes

good these facts, viz: that the parliament voted large supplies for the conduct of the war in Ireland; that the sums thus raised did not come to Ireland; that the Irish army was without clothes, shoes and food, in a condition of the lowest exhaustion, ill health and discontent, arising from continued and unmitigated hardships and privation, and only preserved in a languishing and wretched existence by occasional acts of robbery and piracy on the authority of government. Of this Perceval's various statements would occupy ten pages of this volume; we extract a few facts which lie within the least compass. He first mentions two large votes of £10,000 and £5000, one of which ended in a miserable remittance of £500 and the second of £200. He mentions also that the Dublin merchants were stripped of their property by the consent of the parliamentary committee, who he observes, "knew the extremity which had obliged the state with their privity to seize by force the goods of merchants, without paying for them." It is also made plain from several statements of the relief actually sent, that the larger proportion was supplied by Sir P. Perceval and other officers engaged in the commissariat department themselves, by incurring large debts on the faith of parliamentary promises never redeemed. On the condition of the army he mentions, that the "state" had for the six months previous to the cessation, frequently represented to the parliament of England through its committee, the "frequent mutinies of the army for want of pay, the impossibility of keeping up discipline; that divers captains being commanded to march with their soldiers, declared their disability to march, and that their soldiers would not move without money, shoes and stockings, for want of which many had marched barefooted, had bled much on the road, had been forced to be carried in cars; and others through unwholesome food, having no money to buy better, had become diseased, and died; yet no competent supplies came, and very few answers were returned." ""*

On the condition of the rebel armies he mentions, "the Irish all this while subsisted very well, carrying their cattle (especially their milch cows) with their armies for their relief into the field, and there at harvest cutting down the corn, burning (as their manner is), grinding, baking, and eating it in one day."

He also mentions that the confederates had three armies on foot, “well furnished with every thing" even in Leinster, while at the same time, the want in Dublin was so great, "that upon several searches made in Dublin, and the suburbs thereof, from house to house, by warrants from the state, as well by the church-wardens as by particular persons intrusted for that purpose, there could not be found fourteen days' provision for the inhabitants and the soldiers; a circumstance of great weight, considering that both the parliament ships, and the Irish privateers interrupted all commerce and importation to that port and these quarters."

Concerning the efforts made by the marquess of Ormonde and other loyalists, to remedy this grievous state of things he states, "that the marquess of Ormonde would have prosecuted the war, if £10,000, half in money and half in victual, could have been raised to have fur

* Sir P. Perceval's Statement: Carte.

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