the peace of the kingdom, that this dangerous delusion should be removed by some examples. Bills were found against five of the prisoners, who were tried and found guilty, upon the evidence of several, most of whom had been engaged in the same conspiracy. These persons were executed.

The people of Ireland were in every quarter deeply anxious for quiet, there existed among them not the slightest tendency to disaffected feeling: and there was moreover a sincere and universal sense of affection and respect for the duke of Ormonde diffused among every class, with the slight yet dangerous exception of the remains of the republican party. This, most unhappily indeed, still composed the chief material of the army in both countries. The duke was anxious to adopt the only direct remedy, which was the purgation of the army; but money was wanting, and he was thus involved in great embarrassments. He made a progress into Ulster, by his presence to awe the disaffected, revive loyal feelings, and give confidence to the apprehensions of the peaceable; and felt himself also under the necessity of employing agents to watch the proceedings of those parties who were suspected of any dangerous design.

Among the embarrassments to which the duke was at this period subject, not the least perplexing or eventually pernicious to his personal interest, arose from the enmities excited by his straight and unswerving integrity in the employment of his patronage. The cour tiers of Charles, who grasped at every office of emolument or trust, resented the refusals of the duke to mix himself in their low intrigues for preferment, and his disposal of the commands under his own appointment, to individuals whose claims were those only of fair and meritorious service. Among the enemies which he thus made for himself, the most conspicuous for talent, station, and court favour, was Sir H. Bennet, who had first to no purpose endeavoured to draw the duke into a cabal to make him secretary of state. While he was digesting his discontent at the duke's neutrality in this affair, the death of lord Falkland left a troop of horse at the disposal of the duke, and it was applied for by Bennet, for his brother, who had never been in Ireland. The king expressed great anxiety that the duke should take the opportunity thus afforded of conciliating Bennet: but the duke gave the troop to lord Callan, whose claim was that of long and active service. He had already refused it to his own son, the lord John Butler, and wrote to his friend, Daniel O'Neile, at the English court, a letter on the subject, in which among other thing he says "I think I told him (I am sure I might have done it truly) that many who had been deservedly officers of the field amongst the horse, and some colonels, were, with great industry and earnestness, desiring to be lieutenants of horse, and that he who was lieutenant of that (Sir T. Armstrong's) troop, had long, faithfully, and stoutly, served as major of horse. Figure to yourself how he and the rest would take it, to have a man never heard of, and who never was more than a captain of foot, made captain of horse over their heads; and then consider, if my part he not hard, that must lose a friendship, because I will not countenance so disobliging a pretension; and all the while, what is my con

cernment or advantage, but the discharge of my duty? If Mr Secretary's brother were near upon a level with other pretenders, and I should not supply what were wanting in consideration of him, he had reason to reproach me with want of friendship; but sure it will be hard to live well with him, if the frankness of my proceeding with him shall be esteemed injurious, to be remembered upon all occasions, and retributed by crossing my desires, when they aim at just things, and such as tend to the king's service."

The countess of Castlemaine-whose unworthy interest with the libertine king, gave her a power which fortunately she had not understanding to exert as perniciously as she might-contrived to obtain a letter for passing to herself a grant of the Phoenix Park and Lodge. The duke refused to pass the warrant, and stopped the grant. By a strong remonstrance he changed the king's purpose, and persuaded him to enlarge the park by a purchase of 450 acres, and assign the house for the accommodation of the lords-lieutenant of Ireland. When the duke next visited England, the lady who was thus disappointed, assailed him at court with torrents of the most pestiferous abuse, and concluded by expressing her hope to see him hanged: the duke listened to her invective without showing any appearance of concern, and in reply to the concluding compliment, told her, that he "did not feel the same wish to put an end to her days, and only wished he might live to see her an old woman."

Another remarkable instance in which the duke drew upon himself a heavy discharge of court enmity, was the case of the marquess of Antrim; but the particulars would demand far more space than we can here afford. This marquess was making suit at court for the restoration of his large estates which were forfeited in the recent rebellion, and in the hands of adventurers. The queen mother was his zealous friend, and determined to support his suit. The interest of the duke was looked for, or at least the weight of his sanction was thought a necessary corroboration of such a claim. The duke was reluctant to oppose the queen, or to take upon himself the invidious office of pressing the unworthiness of the marquess; yet it was still more repugnant to his sense of honour, to be brought into a court intrigue for the perversion of justice, and he represented that their object could be easily effected without his mediation, which he could not offer without compromising his regard for truth. He was charged by the marquess' friends with enmity, and by his own enemies it was imputed to him, that he was privately using his influence in favour of the marquess, though he publicly affected to oppose him. The duke defended himself from both of these charges; an extract from his letter to a friend, expressing his own sentiment, is the most we can here afford to add upon the subject:"I am still really persuaded of my lord St Alban's friendship to me, and that belief receives no abatement by his endeavours for the saving of my lord Antrim's estate. For it were as unreasonable to expect a friend should think always as I do, as that he should have the same voice, or coloured beard. I confess I cannot find any obligation, that was upon the late king, or that is upon this, to do extraordinary things for my lord of Antrim; and I am sure there neither were nor

are any upon me, but the queen mother's commands, and my lord St Alban's interposition, upon both which I set the value I ought. In this particular, and in that of the bill,* people take me to be more concerned than I am. They know me not, and traduce me that say I interiourly wish his restitution; and that though publickly I oppose it, yet privately I assist him. On the other side they as much mistake me, that believe I affect his ruin, and an enmity with him. The first were unchristian, and the other a very pitiable ambition. I have been civil, as I ought to be, to his lady, when she made applications to me; and this must be taken for helping her lord. In my dispatches I have freely spoken truth concerning him and his business; and that is taken for hatred of him; but neither truly. My lord chancellor Bacon says in one of his essays, that there are men will set their houses on fire to roast their eggs. They are dangerous cattle, if they can disguise themselves under plausible pretences. I have done all I conceive belongs to me to do in the business of my lord Antrim. cannot unsay what I have said in it till I am convinced of error: but if I be asked no more questions about him, I can and will hold my peace."

The act of settlement was unattended by the expected result, and only gave rise to endless clamour and litigation. An explanation bill was ordered to be prepared, and was rejected by the king, who referred the subject to the consideration of the lord-lieutenant and his council, to whom he gave orders to frame a new bill, so as to give the utmost attainable satisfaction to all who had any reasonable claim. The duke proceeded with his characteristic impartiality and caution, excluding the expectations of those who might not unreasonably have looked upon him as the head of their party, and only contemplating the claims of justice limited by the consideration of what was practicable and expedient for the general welfare of the country. It was endeavoured to secure the "forty-nine" officers-to lower the claims of adventurers -and to increase the fund for the redress of those whom the late court of claims had left unprovided for. A new bill on these principles was framed and transmitted; the several parties interested once more sent their advocates to London; and the presence of the duke being considered necessary, he committed the government to lord Ossory and also went over.

On his arrival, an order of council was made, that he should call to his aid such of the Irish privy council as were in London, with the commissioners for claims, &c., and with them carefully review the deliberations which had been entered into on Irish affairs, and advise what corrections or additions should appear expedient and just. This council met in August, and so considerable was the mass of papers, and representations, and petitions, of parties concerned, which they had to investigate, that their task was not ended till 26th May following. The several parties concerned made their proposals, in which, while all seem to have taken for a basis, the same general view of their tive rights, each still proposed such an adjustment as best appeared to favour their separate demands: the main proposers were the Roman catholics, the soldiers and adventurers; and in looking closely into the

The bill of explanation then transmitted into England.

respec.

detailed statement of their proposals, we are not prepared to assert that there was not on every side manifested as much fairness and regard to the fair claims of the others, as can be expected in every case of human opposition.* The contention was decided by the offer of the Roman catholics, who proposed that if the soldiers and adventurers would consent to part with one-third of the lands respectively enjoyed by them, on the claim of adventures and service on May 7, 1659, they were ready to agree to their general proposal. The proposal was accepted by all parties, and on the 18th May, 1665, in conformity with this general consent, it was ordered, "that the adventurers and soldiers should have two-thirds of the lands whereof they stood possessed, on May 7, 1659; that the Connaught purchasers should have two-thirds of what was in their possession, in September, 1663; that what any person wanted of his two-thirds should be supplied, and whatever he had more should be taken from him; and the adventurers and soldiers should make their election where the overplus should be retrenched, and the forty-nine men should be entirely established in their present possessions." On these resolutions the act was drawn up. The last step was the addition of a list of twenty nominees, whom the king was by name to restore to their estates. For this the lord-lieutenant presented several lists of persons held worthy of the king's favour by the earl of Clancarty, earl of Athenry, &c., &c. The king referred these back to the lord-lieutenant to select twenty such names as might seem to him most fit for that preference an invidious and disagreeable task to be performed against the following day. The duke made out his list, and though none of the names were objected against, there was much complaint among the numerous persons who thought it a hardship to be omitted. Among these, Sir Patrick Barne wall alone had some reason for complaint, his claim having been such, that his name was only left out, on the assurance that he would otherwise be restored. He was undoubtedly "an innocent," but the court of claims had first postponed the hearing of his case, and then by the explanatory act, all claims were taken away from those whom that court had not declared innocent: thus, by a concurrence of errors, a grievous injustice was committed. He now applied to the duke, who made so strong a representation to the king that he received a considerable pension for life. But the greatest sufferer by these arrangements was the duke himself, on whom the main weight of perplexity of Irish affairs always rested. With all his great ability as a statesman, he was utterly devoid of a prudent concern for his own affairs, and showed an improvidence in the care of his estate, and a readiness to abandon his own rights quite unparalleled in modern history. To supply the great deficiency of lands and the delay of ascertaining the extent of forfeiture, which perplexed the settlement, the duke consented to abandon large tracts of his property. The proposal was made that he should accept £5000 a-year in lieu of the whole of the forfeited parts of his estate: this offer was strongly objected to by Mr Walsh, his agent, on the ground that the lands were worth five times the sum: but the duke was reluctant to allow any delay of the settlement resulting from

any demur

on his part, and consented. This was not all,-for besides making this extraordinary sacrifice, a sum of £50,000, amounting not quite to double the annual rental of the property thus resigned, was secured to the duke, who allotted it for the payment of debts, chiefly incurred for the interests of the kingdom. Of these, the more considerable part of the securities, which had by forfeiture fallen to the crown, had been restored to the duke in reward of his services-with a stretch of generosity far beyond the ordinary conduct of the noblest men, the duke immediately wrote to Mr Walsh to pay off the whole. Such is but a cursory sketch of the history of these great and singular acts of disinterestedness, which seem to have made so little just impression upon the heated factions and unprincipled court-parties of his time. The neglect is indeed but seeming; for in the midst of all the injustice and rancour of those to whom the duke refused to be subservient, or the discontent of those whom it was impossible to content, the respect for his disinterestedness and integrity was universal. Nothing indeed more remarkably attests the truth of this than the style of censure adopted by those historians (for the most part recent,) whose political opinions incapacitate them from comprehending his real motives of actions. A tone of disparaging and captious insinuation wholly unsupported by even an attempt at direct statement, meets the careless reader and appeals to his prejudices, or conveys those of the writer, in some indirect form of language, hinting wrong motives for right acts, or a construction of intentions diametrically at variance with every plain indication both of conduct and profession; so that all the censures implied are uniformly in opposition to all the writer's facts. Such indeed is the proud test which history affords of the merits of this great statesman and still greater man: praise may be partial, but when the utmost reach of hostility can only extract material for a little timid inconsistency of language out of the history of a nobleman who stemmed the torrent of every faction, and attracted all the hostility of the rebels, the fanatics, and the unprincipled intriguers on every side; it surely speaks more for the duke than the language of panegyric can say.

The bill of explanation was next to be carried through the Irish parliament, a proceeding in which much difficulty was to be expected from the high and exclusive temper of that body, mainly composed of the adventurers, and generally of those parties which were in possession of titles to property which was liable to be rendered questionable by the bill. The duke left London, to prepare for this important affair: he was compelled to remain for some time in Bristol, to compose the disorders which had risen to a dangerous height in that city; and having succeeded in restoring quiet to the citizens, he passed over from Milford Haven, and landed at Duncannon fort, from which he proceeded to Kilkenny. The parliament was judiciously prorogued until the 26th October, to leave time for bringing round the more interested of the members, of whom the greater part were to lose a third of their claims: on the more moderate and public spirited of these the duke might hope to prevail, and lord Orrery was popular among the more violent, with whom he engaged to use his influence.

In the mean time the duke made his entry into Dublin, in a state of magnificence far surpassing any thing known in that city before,