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This inference further follows, from the strong and unequivocal circumstance, that of three thousand persons indicted, as above stated, by Sir Philip Percival, there were two-thirds who did not appear, and were prosecuted to outlawry in their absence.* Thus, for those two thousand men, there was no more use of a traverse jury than if no such body ever existed.

Would that I had the tongue of a Demosthenes, or a Curran, or a Henry, or the pen of a Burke or a Dickinson, to spread this truth before an astounded world, that, on this species of evidence, one foul, bloated mass of fraud and perjury, rests the thousand-times-told story of "the execrable Irish Rebellion." The man who, knowing these

out to entrust with a commission of martial law, to put to death rebels and traitors, that is, all such as he should deem to be so; which he performed with delight, and a wanton kind of cruelty and yet, all this while, the justices sat in council; and the judges, in the usual season, sat in their respective courts, spectators of, and countenancing, so extravagant a tribunal as Sir Charles Coote's, and so illegal an execution of justice."110

*"Whatever difficulties there were in the case, the lords justices were equal to them all; and carried on the prosecution with great vigour, causing indictments to be preferred not only against open and declared rebels, but also against others who were barely suspected: and, as there was nobody to make defence, nor any great delicacy used, either in the choice of the jury, or in the character and credit of the witnesses, and one witness sufficed, such indictments were readily found."

119 Castlehaven, apud Carte, I. 279. 111 Carte, I. 277.

things, gives credit to the fable, ought to be confined for life to the edifying perusal of the voyages and travels of Sir John Mandeville, of Baron Munchausen, and their illustrious compeer, Sir John Temple.

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CHAPTER IV.

Three civil wars. Different degrees of provocation. Different results.

"Dat veniam corvis; vexat censura columbas."

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HE must be a superficial reader or observer, who requires to be informed how very different the reception the world affords to, how different the rewards and punishments it bestows on, acts absolutely similar. Instances occur daily, in public and private life: and among the extraordinary circumstances of the economy of human affairs, this is the most difficult to account for, or to reconcile to our ideas of eternal justice.

The three kingdoms subject to the crown of England, were the theatres of civil war, almost cotemporaneously. The consequences to the actors during their existence, and to their fame with posterity, were as different as light and darkness. Those who had every possible justification,-on whom had been perpetrated almost every species of outrage, paid the heaviest forfeit in fortune and in cotemporaneous and posthumous fame whilst those whose grievances were comparatively insignificant, attained, living and dead, the highest honours, and many of them

112 Juvenal.

aggrandized themselves to the full extent of their utmost wishes. This is not exactly as it should be: and though it is almost too late to correct the prevalent errors on the subject, to wash away the foul stains which avarice, religious bigotry, and national rancour, impressed on the sufferers, and though I may not therefore fully succeed, yet the attempt to effect these great objects can hardly be otherwise than useful.

Charles I. a bigot and a despot by education, wickedly endeavoured to force a new religion on the Scotch. In this, he only followed the examples of his predecessors, Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth, who had successively either forced or persuaded their servile parliaments four times, in the course of about thirty years, to change the established religion.

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Let it be observed, however, that the new religion was not the antipodes of the old one, as had been the case with the changes of Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth. The new religion bore many kindred features of the old: in points of doctrine they were nearly sisters, although there was the most marked difference in the church government. But I repeat, the difference between the religion that Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth found "by law established," and that they "established by law," was incalculably greater than between the religion of Scotland at the accession of Charles I. and the religion he attempted to force on his subjects.

An important consideration must not be passed over here. The Scotch laboured under hardly any other grievance than the contemplated innovation in their religion: their persons and property were sacred.

They resisted the despotic and wicked interference between them and their God: they were in the right their cause was good. It is not given by the living God to any of the sons of men to force the religious worship of his fellowmen; and the attempt to change their religious opinions, is as transcendently absurd as would be the effort to "change the hue of the dusky Ethiop." Brutal force, as has been long since observed, may coerce men into apparent conformity; but it never made a convert yet,—and never will: it is fated to produce only martyrs or hypocrites.

The evil destiny of Charles induced him to raise forces to subdue the refractory Scotch. They obeyed the first law of human nature,-the law of self-preservation. They raised forces to defend themselves; and finally triumphed over the aggressor, and extorted from him a grant of every demand they chose to make. He was totally foiled; and retired from the contest, overwhelmed with shame and disgrace.

What has been the result, as respects the Scotch? They were honoured during their lives; were rewarded by the English Parliament with three hundred thousand pounds, and twenty-five thousand pounds monthly, for "their brotherly

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