myself, in presenting the work to the public in such an imperfect state, is of little importance. This might lower the sails of my vanity but it could affect me alone. But, having undertaken the delightful task of vindicating the country of Swift, Parnell, Goldsmith, Sterne, Farquhar, Burke, Flood, Curran, Grattan, Montgomery, and a long and bright galaxy of such illustrious characters; a country whose natives, notwithstanding the countless blessings bestowed on them by Nature, in local situation, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate, have been for ages doomed to pine in the most abject poverty, wretchedness, and idleness, at home; but abroad, in every region and every clime of the known world, have displayed the brightest energies of the human character, in all the varied walks of life; a country which has furnished almost every nation in Christendom with statesmen and warriors, driven from their native soil by lordly despotism, rampant injustice, and religious intolerance ;* a country

*Extract from an unanimous Address, agreed to by the Federal members of the legislature of Maryland, published in consequence of the Baltimore riots.

"A dependency of Great Britain, Ireland has long languished under oppressions reprobated by humanity, and discountenanced by just policy. It would argue penury of human feeling, and ignorance of human rights, to submit patiently to those oppres sions. Centuries have witnessed the struggles of Ireland, but with only partial success. Rebellions and insurrections have continued, with but short intervals of tranquillity. Many of the Irish, like the French, are the hereditary foes of Great

which has produced the men on whom the destinies of Europe have recently depended, in the field and in the cabinet; a country the most calumniated, and among the most oppressed, in the world; having as fair a field to explore as ever courted the exertions of any writer, in any age or any country, I most deeply regret, and sincerely apologize for, the want of judgment which led me to appear precipitately before the public, without that degree of elaboration which the importance of the subject demanded.

Having candidly avowed thus much with respect to the execution of the work, I trust I shall not be censured for expressing a hope, that there is, in the object I have had in view; the glorious cause I have undertaken; and the impregnable basis on which this vindication rests, a redeeming virtue, that would atone for defects and imperfections infinitely greater than those to be found in these pages. He must be a most fastidious epicure, who, when hungry, would turn in scorn from excellent viands, merely because the traiteur had been injudicious or inexpert in the cookery and the reader would be equally injudicious, who should reject a work which

Britain. America has opened her arms to the oppressed of all nations. No people have availed themselves of the asylum with more alacrity, or in greater numbers, than the Irish. High is the meed of praise, rich the reward, which Irishmen have merited from the gratitude of America. AS HEROES AND STATESMEN, THEY HONOUR THEIR ADOPTED COUNTRY."

shed the broad glare of truth on an important and much-misrepresented period of history, merely because, from want of skill, or want of leisure, or perhaps both, the writer had failed in the arrangement of his materials.

Some readers may complain, that the quotations are too numerous; that they disfigure the appearance of the work; and unnecessarily enhance its volume and some may be unjust enough to believe that the latter is one of the objects of the writer.

Whoever entertains this idea must be grossly ignorant of the nature of writing. He has never tried the experiment. The search for some of those passages, which do not exceed three or four lines, has cost more time and labour than have been employed in writing five or six pages. In fact, the time wasted in examining the dry and dreary details of a soporific volume of Thurloe's State Papers, of eight or nine hundred pages, where hardly a single fact was to be gleaned, would have sufficed for writing a chapter of original matter.

In some cases, however, I have probably given more quotations than were necessary: but this error is venial. Those who are satisfied with one or two authorities, out of six or eight, may pass over the remainder: whereas the contrary and common error, of affording slender support to what we are ourselves, and suppose others, convinced of, is a vital one. A single

instance of the latter is productive of more injurious consequences than twenty of the former.

For the exuberance of quotations, an adequate reason can be given. In the gross adulteration of Irish history, which we have had occasion so often to present to the reader, it requires no ordinary weight of proof, to make an impression on the public mind, on points wherein error is so gross, truth so little known, means of correct information so limited, and prejudice so inve

terate.

Of what avail would it be, had I written a narrative of the events discussed in this work, even with a long series of references to my authorities? Who, to verify the facts, would take the pains to explore Temple, and Borlase, and Rushworth, and Baker, and Clarendon, and Carte, and Leland, and Warner, and so many other writers whom I have quoted? Not one in a hundred. The facts would be regarded as resting on the writer's mere ipse dixit; and would wholly fail to produce the effect intended, and which I trust the work will produce. But lives there a man who will dare to refuse his assent, when I quote Ludlow, for the butchery at Cashel; the marquis of Ormond, and Cromwell himself, for that at Drogheda; Borlase, for the starvation of "7,000 of the vulgar sort," by one regiment; Rushworth, for the bloodthirsty decree of the Long Parliament, "to give no quarter to Irish prisoners ;" and the lords justices them

selves, for the murderous order to "kill every man able to bear arms, in those places where rebels were harboured?"

On this subject I desire to be distinctly understood. Though literary reputation, to every man who employs his pen for the public, must be a desirable object; yet I should be more highly gratified, were this vindication a mere collection of "shreds and patches," without a single page of my own composition, and in which my sole merit would arise from the research for, and arrangement of, facts, forcing conviction on the reader's mind, than if it united the manly boldness of Tacitus with the elaborate elegance of Gibbon, (if those qualities be not incompatible) but were as deceptious and fraudulent as Clarendon's account of the state of Ireland previous to 1641, or Hume's of the insurrection of that year. Wretched, indeed, and meriting pity and contempt, must be the man who could hesitate for a moment between the two results of his labours.

In following the track of such an indefatigable writer as Curry, who has almost exhausted the sickening subject, it would be hardly possible to avoid using the same materials, and frequently making analogous dispositions of, and deductions from, them. This is the fate of every writer who travels over ground already beaten. A man who writes history, or discusses historical subjects, of remote periods, is no further worthy of credit,