Nine of them, who had taken a leading part, were condemned to death, and the remainder sent to Dublin, from whence they were transported to the colonies. The duke broke the four companies in which the mutiny had arisen, and left two companies of his guards at Carrickfergus.

These disturbances, with the alarm of a French invasion, were in one respect useful, as they had the salutary effect of drawing £15,000 from the treasury, which enabled the duke to appease the violent and not unreasonable discontent of the army. He had long conceived a plan for the organization of a militia for the defence of the provinces. With this view he made a progress into the south, to fortify the coast against the menaced invasion. It had been reported that 20,000 men had assembled at Brest, under the duke of Beaufort, in readiness to embark for Ireland, and already many of their ships had been seen off Bantry Bay, Crookhaven, and other near roads. The duke was received by the nobility and gentry on the borders of their several counties on his way. He had already sent round his orders, and transmitted a supply of arms and accoutrements, and now reviewed the corps which were assembled for his orders, to the amount of two thousand foot and three thousand horse.

The duke's efforts for the benefit of Ireland were much impeded by the entire disregard which prevailed upon the subject in the English council and parliament; while the influence of the duke, which had in some measure tended to counteract this neglect was fast diminishing under the zealous animosity of the powerful faction of his enemy, Buckingham, seconded by all the most leading and influential persons of that intriguing and profligate court, the seat of all dishonour and corruption. There the duke was feared by the king and detested by the base and underplotting courtiers who surrounded him; and among their favourite aims, the principal was an unremitting cabal against one who could not be other than an enemy to all their wishes. No occasion was lost to thwart his measures, to defeat his proposals, to calumniate his conduct, and misrepresent his character: all this the king, whose defect was not that of just observation, saw; but he was too indolent and remiss, and too much alive to the influence of his worthless creatures, to resist being carried away by the falsehood and baseness which was the atmosphere in which he breathed; and the further he departed from the paths of discretion and prudence, the more he became impatient of the awe which the duke's character impressed, and anxious to throw it off. Such was the undercurrent which was steadily resisting and preventing the policy of the duke's administration in Ireland. The progress of the national prosperity, which must necessarily be dependent upon the growth of its resources, was arrested in its infancy, and just at the trying moment, when the country had emerged from the very jaws of ruin, by a most unprincipled and ignorant measure. stagnation of trade was general; the blow received by the landed interest was but the propagation of the same stroke; and the duke, making efforts the most strenuous ever made by an Irish lord-lieutenant, and sacrifices far beyond any recorded in British history, was doomed to struggle vainly against the profligate indifference and corruption of the court, the ignorance of the English commons, the disaffection of the

The

army, and entire want of the necessary resources for the execution of the necessary duties of a governor.

Some great and permanent results could not fail to follow from the combination of so much wisdom and determination. Through good and ill report, through obstacles and hostility, the duke held on his steady and courageous course. He awakened a spirit of commercial concert and intelligence which was the nucleus of industry and future progress: he organized a better system of national defence: the spirit of the people was quieted and conciliated without the sacrifice of any principle. It was next the duke's great ambition to remedy the commercial injury which he had failed to prevent, by finding new channels for the industry and fertility of the country. Having received a memorial from Sir Peter Pett, on the manufacture of cloth, the duke resolved to give all the encouragement in his power to the proposal for the introduction of such a manufacture as might not only employ the industry of Ireland, but also under favourable circumstances, be the means of opening an advantageous foreign trade. He immediately set up an extensive manufactory of cloth in Clonmel, giving the undertakers long leases, in which he reserved "only an acknowledgment instead of rent," and employed captain Grant to engage five hundred Walloon protestant families about Canterbury to remove into Ireland, where he settled them to advantage.

Still more early and more successful were the duke's efforts for the re-establishment of the linen manufacture, first set on foot by lord Strafford, but totally arrested by the rebellion. On his first coming over, the duke sent competent persons into the Low Countries to make inquiries, and to ascertain all the best methods, as well as the laws and regulations, by which this trade was governed and promoted. He procured five hundred manufacturers from Brabant; and considerable numbers more from other places on the continent, known for their success in the linen trade. He built houses for numbers of these in Chapel Izod, where cordage, sail-cloth, and excellent linen began to be produced in abundance: at the head of this establishment he placed colonel Richard Lawrence, who also set up an extensive woollen manufacture. The duke planted another colony of manufacturers in his town of Carrick-on-Suir; and thus by great exertion and expenditure, was permanently established the greatest benefit Ireland ever received from the hand of any individual.

The heavy blow which had been inflicted upon Ireland by the prohibition act, produced its effect to the full extent that was anticipated by the duke. To relieve in some measure the great depression which it occasioned, there was little in his power-that little he performed. He purchased provisions for the government stores to the largest extent that was possible, and, in doing so, endeavoured to relieve the largest amount of distress. He also applied to the king to enlarge the commercial liberties of the Irish, by a free allowance to trade with such foreign ports as were not specially interdicted, such as the foreign plantations, appropriated by certain charters, or such as the East India, Turkey, and Canary companies. The Scotch having followed the example of England in prohibiting the importation of Irish produce, the Irish council was allowed to prohibit all importation of every article

of trade from Scotland, from which a large amount of goods had been annually imported to the great detriment of Irish manufacture. Even in the conduct of this transaction, a most miserable and paltry attempt was made by the duke of Buckingham's faction, to lay a snare for the duke of Ormonde, against whom they were at the time endeavouring to hatch an impeachment. They proposed to the king, that no special allowance for the exportation of Irish wool should be inserted in the king's proclamation, but that "it would be best to let wools go out by licence, which his Grace would resolve of;"* by which, if the duke should inadvertently be led to give such unauthorized licence, he would become subject to be impeached upon a penal statute. The duke wrote to the earl of Anglesey, noticing the impossibility of his acting upon the mere understanding of the council, which not being matter of record, would easily be forgotten and present no justification for him. Against such a mode of effecting the pretended intentions of the council he remonstrated however in vain: no further notice was taken of the matter.

The duke of Buckingham was at the head of the duke of Ormonde's enemies at court. The cause of his enmity was the firm refusal of Ormonde to be concerned in the promotion of his plans, which were neither wise nor honourable. This refusal was the more resented, as the earl of Arran was married to the niece and heir-at-law to the duke of Buckingham, who had also made a will in her favour, which he cancelled upon being disobliged by the duke of Ormonde.

The increased profligacy of the English court at this time began to have its full effect in removing all sane council from the king, who fell entirely under the corrupt influence of advisers, who carried every point by the favour of his mistresses. The earl of Clarendon was the first victim of an infamous conspiracy, and having been impeached upon accusations so false that they were even without any specious foundation in fact, he was insidiously persuaded by the king to leave the country, by which the malignity or the craft of his enemies, who merely desired to get him out of the way, was served. Clarendon was the fast friend of the duke of Ormonde, with whom he had no reserve, and his departure was therefore inauspicious for the duke's continuance in favour. "He seems," observes Carte, "to have fallen into the very mistake (which he remarks in the character of archbishop Laud,) of imagining that a man's own integrity will support him." A common error, itself the result of integrity which finds it difficult to conceive the length to which baseness can be carried. The earl of Clarendon was also the victim of the secret intrigues of Buckingham: there was an attempt made to conciliate the duke of Ormonde's assent to the sacrifice, and the king wrote him a letter, in which he told him, "This is an arrangment too big for a letter; so that I will add but this word to assure you, that your former friendship to the chancellor shall not do you any prejudice with me, and, that I have not in the least degree diminished that value and kindness I ever had for you, which I thought fit to say to you upon this occasion, because it is very possible malicious people may suggest the contrary to you."

See a letter from lord Arlingtou to the duke, Carte, II. 352.

The earl of Clarendon retired into France, and an attempt to carry the proceedings to an attainder, was defeated by the firmness of the House of Lords, always more slow to be warped to the purposes of either court-intrigue or popular faction, than the lower house, of which the mixed and uncertain composition has always rendered it the field of all the veering winds of influence from every quarter.

The same party which thus succeeded in removing the restraint of the earl of Clarendon's presence from the abandoned and profligate court of England, was as sedulously bent on getting the duke of Ormonde out of the way. Only anxious to watch over the sickly infancy of Irish prosperity, the duke took the utmost care to give no offence to any party of English politicians. But the duke of Buckingham was bent on the acquisition of the Lieutenancy of Ireland, and the place of steward of the household: and about the middle of October, in the same year, (1672) they contrived to draw up articles of impeachment against the duke of Ormonde, of which Sir Heneage Finch obtained a copy and sent it to him. The duke, however, had not only been upright, but being of an observing, cautious, and sagacious temper, and fully aware of the character and designs of Buckingham, he had ever preserved a guarded conduct, and, as in the instance already seen, kept himself within the letter of authority. Of the twelve articles which composed the impeachment there were but two open even to any specious doubt against him: of these, one was the trial by martial law, of the soldiers who mutinied at Carrickfergus; the other related to the quartering of soldiers in Dublin contrary to the statute 18 Henry VI. These charges are evidently too futile to be here entered upon, so as to explain their absurdity. The statute was manifestly misinterpreted, and the practice of quartering troops in Dublin followed by lord-lieutenant that had ever been there, without the least comment. As to the other articles, they manifested such utter ignorance, that the duke remarked, "that they were either put together by some friend of his, or by a very ignorant enemy:" as expressed in the articles, they were all entirely unfounded; and most of them, had they been true, were yet no offences; while others were impossible to have been committed. An attempt was at the same time made to support this attack by another, consisting of two petitions, both of which were thrown out by the House of Commons, notwithstanding the efforts of the duke of Buckingham and his party.

every

The mischief produced by these proceedings in Ireland was very considerable; a general sense was excited, that tortuous claimants might find strong support against the duke. The members of his government also, were so scared, that they hung back in the discharge of their duties, and shrunk from the responsibility attendant upon every exercise of the powers committed to them. The duke, with all his caution, shrunk from no legal exertion of his power, and was left to act alone, under circumstances of trying emergency. Among other things we find him at this time writing to lord Arlington:- "I have so much reason to fear this may be the aim of some, that for all I am threatened to be accused of treason, on account of giving warrants for the quartering of soldiers; yet I am so hopeful that I shall incur no such danger, and so apprehensive that, if the army should be much discour

aged or lessened, treason and rebellion would soon show themselves, that I continue to give the usual warrants, and to compel obedience to be given to them; and so I shall do, if his majesty vouchsafe to give it his approbation!"

Irritated by defeat, and urged by the ambitious cupidity of the duke of Buckingham, the enemies of the duke of Ormonde were incessant in their attacks upon him, and it soon became evident to all intelligent observers, that the restless animosity, and the great court-influence of that party, which appeared determined on his fall, could not fail to injure him at last. The weakness and uncertainty of the king, who had no affections but for those who were subservient to his humours or inclinations, left no hope from his firmness or justice; and the duke of Ormonde, received repeated letters from his friends in England, advising him to come over himself; among these, one warning alone had in some degree the effect of exciting a sense of danger. The earl of Anglesey, who was menaced with similar accusations, received an intimation that he should not be molested if he would lend his aid in the fabrication of an impeachment of the duke of Ormonde: the earl refused and laid the entire correspondence before the duke. Still more serious was a similar communication from lord Orrery. We shall enter more into the detail of this, both because it actually determined the movements of the duke, and because it is our opinion that lord Orrery was unjustly accused to the duke; though it is, at the same time, quite apparent that the conduct of lord Orrery was not at the same time such as to render the suspicion unfounded: and we have also little doubt in the belief that he was afterwards drawn into the intrigue of the duke's enemies.

The earl of Orrery having written to desire that the duke would give him a cypher, upon receiving this, wrote a letter to the duke, dated Nov. 13, 1667, acknowledging the receipt of a letter from his excellency, communicating the articles of impeachment, and mentioning that he had been already aware of them, and adding, "and possibly that it was not without my service that you had them;" and making several comments, with which we shall not trouble the reader's attention. On November the 19th, the following letter in cypher came from the earl of Orrery to the duke:

To the Duke of Ormonde.

"MAY IT PLEASE YOUR GRACE,

с h a

that a 31 12 29

Duke of Bucks

118 and

"November 19th, 1667.

Earl of Orrery

"A letter this day from a good hand tells

r g e

Duke of Ormonde

L i t

t 1 e

379,

21 11 57 against 278 is in the hands of

Lord Ashley

is to 5 7 24 22 9

112; that one 15 13 23 47 9 63 71 80 41

e Duke of Ormonde

give the rise for it.

Duke of Ormonde

adventurers

378 in 170; and that the 86 90 are to

"378 will do well to be watchful over the earl of 16 33 29 23 12 9.

"A friend this post writ to

VOL. III.

Earl of Orre: y

379, that he saw the petition of the