and exasperated both by seizing upon the subject of their mutual contention.

Another proceeding of James's added still more to the misfortunes of the Irish. The estates of Connaught, which were surrendered in Elizabeth's time, for the purpose of being re-granted under letters patent, had remained without the necessary security of title, and were afterwards re-conveyed to the proprietors by James under the great seal; but by neglect or design, the enrolment of the patents in Chancery had not been effected, although three thousand pounds had been paid for that purpose. A commission was issued by the king to scrutinize the titles of all estates in Leinster and Connaught; and by the active researches made under this commission, his majesty found himself entitled to make a new distribution of nearly four hundred thousand acres in those districts. Remonstrance and complaint, however humbly or earnestly urged, were useless. At length a new confirmation of the patents was agreed on, the proprietors paying to the King a sum double of what would arise from a new plantation of the lands in question.

The "terror and sharp penalties," which Spencer deprecated in the reign of Elizabeth, as a means of promoting the Reformation, were, by the Irish parliament of James, again resorted to with an obstinate absurdity which neither prudence nor policy could justify. To disarm the hostility of the Irish chieftains by depriving them of all territorial power, in order to lay down a system of civilized polity and national amendment, was most wise and praiseworthy; but to take from the people the salutary check of religion, to force upon them doctrines to which they felt a decided aversion, to banish their priests by proclamation, and forbid the mass, was, to say the least, not consistent

with prudence and the declaration of pacific intent so frequently and solemnly made known. Feelings of hostility, more fatally dangerous to the public repose than existed. amidst any of the preceding ages of warfare, a keen sense of insult, and the mutual apprehension attendant upon injustice and visionary zeal, conjured up a demon similar to that which had long desolated England; and the meek spirit of Christian forbearance fled before the odious presence of bigotry.

The state of Ireland in the end of James's reign was much more tranquil than might be expected from the baseness of that monarch's measures; his successor found it far otherwise. The fanatical extravagance in matters of religious opinion which followed the agitation of the Reformation in England, was nearly at its height when Charles ascended the throne; and had extended itself, in the shape of severe intolerance, into Ireland, already in the most dangerous ferment from the recent troubles. Happily for the Catholics their circumstances were too much reduced to embroil them in the confusion of the reformers, and these, however divided among themselves, (for Episcopalians and Presbyterians were both contending for superiority,) agreed in a common desire to keep them still further off by a more marked exclusion.

On occasion of a threatened war with Spain, and the apprehension of domestic agitations, the Catholic gentry of Ireland came forward unanimously with offers of men and money in support of the government. The return

Alluding to the conduct of Charles, whom the Catholics idly supposed partial to their religion, and consequently expected from him protection and favour, Mr. Parnell, in his Historical Apology, thus speaks of a scheme of that monarch's for the purpose of raising supplies : — " The first important injustice which tended to alienate the

ARBITRARY MEASURES.

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they experienced was an order of the Governor-in-chief, forbidding the exercise of their religious rites; in the same manner were the Catholic Irish, who filled the victorious ranks of Elizabeth, treated by the cold-hearted Mountjoy. But the Catholics were not the only sufferers, for their Protestant countrymen, who made offers somewhat similar, experienced an ungracious reception.

Lord Viscount Wentworth, who entered on the office of chief-governor with a persuasion that all in Ireland were alike intractable, without weighing the existing differences, and regardless of the mutual prejudices which prevailed, made no merit of voluntary support from either, but commanded their obedience with a harshness of dictation that might at any other time have driven all into rebellion, for all had cause to be offended. The deputy gained his purpose, and raised the necessary supplies with the most insulting arrogance; and such was the awe with which he inspired parliament, that they ordered the sheriff to inflict corporal punishment on one of their members, who happened to displease the chief-governor.

Previously to the time of this arbitrary magistrate, a successful endeavour had been made to extend the woollen manufacture in the southern parts of Ireland, which, from the mildness of the climate, and other circumstances, was

minds of the Roman Catholics, was the perfidy of Charles with regard to the celebrated graces. The Catholics had offered to pay one hundred and twenty thousand pounds for the enactment of certain laws, for the security of toleration, property, and justice; the king accepted their offer, and gave his royal promise that these laws should be passed. He took their money and broke his word in the most cruel and insulting manner; and not one of these graces, though they were so reasonable and wise that the monarch ought to have been obliged to the subject for suggesting them, was ever granted."

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LINEN MANUFACTURE.

well adapted for the purpose; this was suppressed by Wentworth, earl of Strafford, from political motives, lest Ireland should rise to competition in that respect with England; but to make amends for the monopoly thus established, he employed his accustomed energy to encourage the fabrication of linens in its stead, to effect which he even took a personal concern in its advancement. This last was for Ireland one of the wisest acts of the violent and unfortunate Strafford. After his departure to England, whither he was summoned to the aid of his ill-fated master, Ireland again became a prey to discontent, intolerance, and tumult. The rebellion of 1641, with its odious details, probable and improbable, — equally disgusting and appalling, followed; so also followed the downfall of the ungrateful Charles* and the kingly form of government.

The puritanical party having succeeded in their designs for the subversion of constitutional liberty in England, turned their black anger against the royal adherents in Ireland; and the scourge of Providence was placed in the hands of Oliver Cromwell, who made all parties in that devoted country feel to the last point of endurance the weight of the visitation. The progress of that sanguinary fanatic spread desolation in every quarter; and the efforts of the marquis of Ormond, although directed with singular skill and perseverance, were found unequal to resist the destructive ravager. The Catholics, who, from their num

"It is no small unequivocal mark of the eminent loyalty and fidelity of the Irish Catholics, that at Charles's execution they formed the only compact national body throughout the extent of the British empire who had preserved untainted and unshaken their faith and attachment to the royal cause, although they had been throughout his reign more oppressed, persecuted, and aggrieved by their sovereign, than any other description of his subjects whatsoever."

PLOWDEN'S Hist. vol. i. p. 393.

ber as well as inclination, supplied the chief material for the royalist ranks, particularly experienced the vengeance of the conqueror; and the five days' incessant carnage in Drogheda, after the town was taken, and the subsequent cold-blooded butchery at Wexford, of the Catholic soldiers who formed the garrisons of both these places, are sad proofs of what that loyal class was then compelled to suffer.

Cromwell, who had scriptural authority ready to shelter bis boldest and most atrocious crimes, used to urge his soldiery to treat the Irish Catholics " as the Canaanites had been treated in the time of Joshua." Their extirpation seems to have been one of his main objects in following the war into Ireland, for not less than forty thousand of the natives, who had submitted or were made prisoners, were transported from the shores of their country, their sole crime being faithfulness to their king, for which they were branded with the stigma of rebellion; and their efforts repaid with proscription. The remainder were compelled to renounce whatever property they possessed in the more fertile parts of the kingdom, and were driven into the desolate wastes of the west, or in the words of the late earl of Clare: "After a fierce and bloody contest for eleven years, in which the face of the whole island was desolated, and its population nearly extinguished by war, pestilence, and famine, the insurgents were subdued, and suffered all the calamities which could be inflicted on the vanquished party in a long-contested civil war. This was a civil war of extirpation. Cromwell's first act was to collect all the native Irish, who had survived the general desolation and remained in the country, and to transplant them into the province of Connaught, which had been depopulated and laid waste in the progress of the rebellion. They were