and every principle of honour, honesty, good faith, justice, and sound policy, violated.

Many of these prejudices have been transplanted from their native soil by emigrants, and have taken root in this country, notwithstanding the general liberality of the age. It is true, however, that their range is confined, and their influence inconsiderable. Nevertheless, the erroneous impressions respecting Irish affairs, are, we repeat, universal here, from the corrupt sources whence her heart-rending story is derived.

Should it, therefore, be asked, why I have taken the trouble to explore the musty volumes whence I have drawn the materials for this work? I reply, I have had three motives: the pleasure of detecting and exposing fraud and imposture; the vindication of my native country; and the fond hope, that there are in the United States thousands and tens of thousands of liberal and enlightened men, who only require to have the fair and holy form of Truth placed before their eyes, properly authenticated, to induce them to clasp her to their bosoms. For such I write and there is a large fund of consolation and encouragement to be derived from the consideration, that I address a public which has not any sordid motives of self-interest to impel it to uphold the cause of imposture. There is here no Protestant, nor Presbyterian, nor Quaker, nor Catholic, nor Universalist ascendency, whose power is built on the pestiferous basis of fraud, perjury, and misrepresentation.

This is an inestimable advantage, which writers on this subject, in the British dominions, cannot enjoy to the same extent. The power, influence, and ascendency of the "sacred cast," the Irish oligarchs who uphold the despotism of a dominant and domineering ecclesiastical establishment, which, to compensate them for their services, ensures them the undisturbed possession of all the honours and emoluments of society, would fall prostrate at the touch of the talisman of truth, as the gorgeous fabric of Aladdin's palace fell at the touch of the wand of the genius: and therefore, how disgraceful soever it may be to human nature, it is not wonderful, considering the weakness, the wickedness, and the selfishness of mankind, that so much pains should have been and are taken to stifle the voice of injurious truth, and to perpetuate the reign of productive and lucrative imposture.

Some gentlemen have exclaimed against this undertaking, as highly pernicious, and calculated to revive ancient prejudices and excite hostility between different denominations of Christians, and between the natives of the two British islands. Charity induces me to hope, that those who raise these objections are deceived, not deceivers,that they believe what they profess. But that their impressions, if ingenuous, arise from a very contracted view of the subject, may be made as clear as any axiom in morals or politics.

There might be some plausibility in these objections, had the frauds and falsehoods I have

undertaken to expose and refute, sunk into oblivion, and their influence wholly ceased to operate. But they have unfortunately survived the causes which gave them birth; become engrafted in history; taken complete possession of the public mind; and are almost as thoroughly and as universally believed, as the best established facts in the annals of the world. Can the man, then, who honestly endeavours to demolish the fabric of deception, and, by this demolition, eradicate the angry passions which it has engendered, be regarded otherwise than as engaged in a laudable warfare,—the warfare of holy truth against impious imposture? Do not those who labour to prevent the success of such an undertaking, uphold the cause of fraud and delusion?

Having stated the motives to this undertaking, I submit to the consideration of the reader the several points which I have laboured, and I trust successfully, to establish. That they are of vital importance, and that, if proved, they invalidate a large portion of the history of Ireland, as narrated by Temple, Borlase, Carte, Warner, Leland, Hume, and others, will appear obvious, on a slight perusal. This consideration entitles them to a sober, serious examination.

It is not, by any means, pretended that they are discussed systematically, in the order in which they are here arranged. The proofs are dispersed throughout the work, and, notwithstanding their want of arrangement, cannot, I hope, fail to satisfy every candid mind,

I. That the statement given by Temple, Clarendon, Warner, Leland, and all the other writers on the affairs of Ireland, that the Irish, for forty years previous to the insurrection of 1641, enjoyed a high degree of peace, security, happiness, and toleration, is as base and shameful a falsehood as ever disgraced the pages of history, and is no more like the real state of the case, than the history of St. George and the dragon is like the true history of England. For

II. That, during this period, there was hardly a Catholic in the kingdom who was secure in the possession of his property, or in the exercise of his religion.

And

III. That, during the same period, the Irish were plundered by the government of nearly a million of acres of their lands, in the most wicked, unjust and perfidious manner; and by rapacious individuals, to an extent beyond calculation.

IV. That O'Conally's pretended discovery of a conspiracy, is one unvaried strain of perjury.

V. That there was no conspiracy for a general insurrection in Ireland, on the 23d October, 1641.

VI. That the basis on which rests the story of the pretended bloody massacre by the Irish, is a tissue of the most gross and palpable falsehood and perjury. On the contrary,

VII. That the massacres perpetrated on the Irish, by St. Leger, Monroe, Tichbourne, Hamilton, Grenville, Ireton, and Cromwell, were as savage, as ferocious, as brutal, and as bloody, as the horrible feats of Cortes or Pizarro, Attila or

Genghis Khan; and particularly, that history presents nothing more shocking or detestable than Ireton's butchery in the cathedral of Cashell, and Cromwell's in Drogheda.

VIII. That the Irish government issued a bloodthirsty and detestable order to slaughter “all men able to bear arms, in places where the insurgents were harboured," without any discrimination between the innocent and guilty; that the Long Parliament enacted an ordinance, "forbidding quarter to be given to any Irishman taken prisoner in England;" and that those cruel and wicked edicts were carried into operation.

IX. That the scheme of a general extirpation of the Irish, as general a confiscation of their estates, and a new plantation of the country, was most seriously entertained, and for some time acted upon, by the Irish rulers and their officers.

X. That the idea of a cessation of hostilities, whereby the Irish might escape from this projected plan of extirpation, excited as universal an alarm in England and Ireland, as if the established religion and government were to be wholly overturned.

XI. That the Irish government left nothing barbarous, cruel, or wicked, undone, to goad the Irish to resistance, and to extend the insurrection throughout the kingdom, for the purpose of enriching themselves and their friends by confiscations.