influence of bigotry, selfishness, and strong prejudice. We therefore proceed to produce facts, to establish these important positions.

A proclamation, of an ambiguous character, was published in January, 1642, which appeared to proínise pardon to such of the insurgents as laid down their arms, and submitted themselves to the government. Numbers of the lords of the Pale, who had been reluctantly goaded into the war by the brutal ferocity of Sir Charles Coote, acting under the desolating orders of the lords justices, gladly availed themselves of this invitation; laid down their arms; surrendered to the duke of Ormond; claimed his protection; and flattered themselves with the fond, but alas! delusive hope of being restored to peace and safety. Had they been received with the indulgence and forgiveness the proclamation appeared to offer, their example would have been generally, if not universally, followed, and the horrors of war brought to an early close; or if any number rejected the proffered mercy, they could have been readily crushed.

The lords justices were as dreadfully alarmed as a fell tiger, whose prey has nearly escaped his ravenous jaws. All their hopes of plunder were likely to be defeated, and their golden harvest of confiscation to be snatched out of their hands, at the moment when they regarded it secure beyond the power of fate. They adopted a most daring and profligate measure, which relieved

them from a result that would have defeated all their schemes, but which blasts their character for ever, and exposes them to infamy and abhorrence. They ordered Ormond to admit of no more submissions; to receive those that offered to surrender themselves, merely as prisoners of war;* and, in order to avoid the danger of

"They who had not engaged in actual hostilities, they who were only accused of harbouring, or paying contributions to the rebels, crowded to the earl of Ormond, and claimed the advantage of the royal proclamation. The lords justices, who not only favoured the designs of their friends in England, but expected to have their own services rewarded by a large portion of forfeitures, resolved to discourage these pacific dispositions. Ormond was directed to make no distinction between noblemen and other rebels; to receive those who should surrender only as prisoners of war; and to contrive that they should be seized by the soldiers, without admitting them to his presence. They who were sent, in custody, to Dublin, though men of respectable characters, and families engaged in no action with the rebels, some, sufferers by their rapine, averse to their proceedings, known protectors of the English, were all indiscriminately denied access to the justices; closely imprisoned; and threatened with the utmost severity of the law."384

“

"A cessation was recommended by Clanricarde, as a means of giving them some leisure to reflect 'on their precipitate conduct; to recall them to their allegiance; and to prevent the desolation of the kingdom: but the chief governors were actuated by different motives. They severely condemned the protection granted to Galway: their orders were express and peremptory, that the earl should RECEIVE NO MORE SUBMISSIONS: every commander of every garrison was ordered not to presume to hold any correspondence with the Irish, or Papists; to give no protections; but to prosecute all rebels and their harbourers with fire and sword."385

384 Leland, III. 188.

385 Idem, 198.

being forced to pardon any of the repentant insurgents, who might induce the duke to pledge his honour for their safety, they directed him to contrive, as far as practicable, that they should be seized by the soldiers, and thus debarred of access to his person. These orders were given to all their other officers, and produced the horrible effects the wretched miscreants intended, to prolong and extend the horrors of war, and multiply confiscations to their utmost wish.

They had subsequently instructions from the Parliament of England to issue a proclamation, offering a pardon, on certain conditions, to such as would submit to their authority, and abandon the cause of the insurgents. With these instructions, they did not comply; and assigned the futile reason, that their former proclamation had been unavailing, although they had themselves, by their sinister policy, rendered it nugatory.*

"In another instance, the conduct of these wretched governors was still more suspicious. The parliament of England had recommended the offer of a general pardon to such rebels as should submit within a certain time, to be limited by the lords justices. No proclamation was published, no pardon offered, in consequence of these instructions. To palliate this omission, they pleaded the inefficacy of their former proclamations the first of which only called on the king's subjects to abandon the rebels, without any positive assurance of mercy: the other offered a pardon, not to the rebels of Ulster, where the insurrection chiefly raged, but to those of Longford and Louth, Meath, and Westmeath. In the two last counties no body of rebels had appeared. And if any outrages or insurrections were to be suppressed, the lords justices contrived

:

A cessation of hostilities had been an object ardently desired by the king, and by the leaders of the Irish insurgents: by the former, in the hope of deriving aid from his forces in Ireland, towards subduing the armies of the Parliament; and by the latter, to be restored once more to the blessings of peace. The bigotry of Charles, and the sinister policy of Ormond, procrastinated this desirable event, and aided the views of the lords justices and their party, who had thrown every possible difficulty in the way of an accommodation. It was, nevertheless, at length concluded, in despite of all the obstacles that folly and wickedness had devised. It is at this time hardly credible, but it is sacredly true, that this act, at which all good men must have rejoiced; which did not compromit an iota of the honour, interest,

to defeat the effect of their pardon, by exceptions and conditions. All freeholders of these four counties; all who had shed blood in any action; all who were in prison for spoil or robbery, were expressly excluded from mercy. To others, it was tendered on condition of their submitting within ten days after the proclamation, and restoring all the property they had seized, which had quickly been dispersed through various hands. Such a proclamation was evidently absurd and insidious. A pardon offered in the name of the English parliament, must have had greater influence than any act of an Irish ministry, despised and suspected by the body of the nation. But the chief governours and their creatures were confident of support, and experienced in the art of converting forfeitures to their own advantage."386

386 Leland, III. 160.

or advantage of the ruling powers in either England or Ireland; and which took place at a time when the Irish had manifestly the advantage over their enemies, in point of military force and resources, excited as much uproar, horror, and indignation, in both islands, as if it had totally overthrown the existing order of things, extirpated the Protestant religion, and given a complete ascendency to the Roman Catholics.* It affords a most important addition to the various proofs we have

*“The heads of that faction, who, by their measures, directions, and creatures, had used as much skill and industry to improve and continue the rebellion, as ever the first conspirators did to begin it, were enraged to see a stop put to the further effusion of blood, and a foundation laid for a pacification, which would defeat their schemes of extirpation.

They protested against all peace with the rebels, without regard to the terms of any; which must have entailed a perpetual war on the kingdom of Ireland, till the nation itself was in a manner extirpated."387

"In the northern province, the Scottish general, Monroe, disclaimed 'the cessation. And though, when he had first slaughtered some unoffending Irish peasants, he consented to wait the orders of the state of Scotland, or Parliament of England, before he should proceed to further acts of hostility, yet he soon received instructions to carry on the war, without regard to the king's chief governor."388

"The rebellion had been suppressed without any of their assistance, were it not for their violent measures and threats of extirpation, which terrifying and making the nobility and gentry of English race desperate, hurried them in spite of their animosity against the Old Irish, into an insurrection. For the like detestable purposes, they had starved the war all the time

387 Carte, I. 453.

388 Leland, III. 250.