grace of an illustrious descent, having revolted from the king to the parliament, vied with the covenanters in barbarous cruelties. Leland, either through inattention or design, classes this nobleman with the royalists. When relating the petty battle of Liscarrol, he says, that the rebels fled before the royalists; and when he mentions his having succeeded his father-in-law, William St. Leger, in the presidency of Munster, without informing his reader by whose authority he was appointed. The industry and candour of Dr. Curry have left a fairer account, both of his defection from the royalists, his cruelties and persecutions of popery, which he had professed, and it seems deserted, in adopting the conduct, if not the oath, of the covenanters.

"About this time died Sir William St. Leger, lord president of Munster; and the king having appointed the earl of Portland to succeed him in that charge, lord Inchiquin, who was married to Sir William's daughter, and had solicited and expected that presidentship after his father-inlaw's decease, was now so much incensed by the disappointment, that he was easily persuaded by lord Broghill to reject the cessation, and to receive the English parliament's commission for the presidentship of Munster, in opposition to the king's appointment. "In this capacity, he performed many considerable services for that parliament, taking great store of plunder from the Irish, and not sparing," says Ludlow, "his own kindred; but if he found them faulty, hanging them up without distinction."

But one of his most memorable services on this occasion was, his barbarous exploit at Cashel; "where, having brought together an army, and hearing that many priests and gentry thereabouts had retired with their goods into the church of that city, he stormed it, and put three thousand of them to the sword, taking the priests even from under the altar."*

"At the same time that he himself deserted the king's service, he persuaded his brother, lieutenant-colonel Henry O'Brien, to deliver up Wareham to the English parliament, and to come away with his whole regiment to Ireland. This lieutenant colonel was afterwards taken prisoner by the confederates, and in great danger of an unhappy end, in revenge for a Roman catholic dean, whom his brother had lately caused to be hanged, and for his own crime in delivering Wareham to the parliament. But lord Castlehaven, alleging, "that for this very reason he ought, for a testimony of their own loyalty, and of their detestation of his breach of trust, to be sent as a present to the king, to be punished as his majesty should see fit; he was saved from present execution, and afterwards exchanged."

Though Inchiquin's disappointment was the real cause of his defection, yet he pretended another, and more extraordinary reason for it, to the marquis of Ormond, viz. "an information he had received from the English women, of a common talk of some of the Irish, that they de

*Carte's Ormond.

signed to seize Cork;" and upon this frivolous pretence, he drove all the magistrates and catholic inhabitants out of that city; as also out of Youghal and Kinsale, " allowing them to take no more of their goods with them, than what they could carry on their backs, seizing all the provisions and effects in their houses." Lord Digby, by his majesty's command, recommended these distressed people to the marquis of Ormond's "The king," says he, " is very sensible of their sad condition, and will not soon forget the inhumanity of that lord."

care.

But Inchiquin, in order to engage his officers and soldiers in the same measures he had embraced himself, caused an oath to be administered to them, by which they obliged themselves to endeavor the extirpation of popery, to carry on the war against the Irish, notwithstanding any command, proclamation, or agreement to the contrary; and to submit to no peace or conditions with them, but by consent and allowance of king and parliament. This was then a favorite mode of expression with those who fought, in the king's pame, against his person."*

The Irish were treated by their English masters in a most extraordinary manner. War was waged against them in the king's name, by the Irish government; and another war, in the name and by authority of parliament, conducted by Monroe and Inchiquin! Nor did the cessation terminate these disorders; for which, and several

Curry's Rev. Civil Wars in Irel,

1

other reasons, great numbers were displeased with it, as untimely, and unfavourable to the Irish interest. It was urged, that no pledge had been obtained for their civil rights, and liberty of conscience, not even for the observance of the treaty itself. That supplies, given to the Irish government, would be a free gift to the rebel English parliament; who, by solemn public engagements, were bound to support the English army in Ireland, which by their own declaration they were unable to do. They, who had declared to the Irish agents, sent to sollicit relief, that "if five hundred pounds could save their kingdom, it could not be spared." That to act the part of loyal subjects, and fight the battles of a king, who qualified them odious and detestable rebels against his crown and dignity, were to betray their own cause, and put arms into the hands of an avowed enemy, whose enormous appetite for Irish forfeitures was long experienced, from his piratical inquisition into defective titles. That to stop the career of victory, and allay the ardour of their forces, in their triumphant progress, was a measure most desirable to their enemy, and of most disastrous consequences to this kingdom. That, as it was apparent, whichsoever party prevailed, whether king or parliament, they would be considered and treated as rebels, the most probable chance of security lay, in a separation from England, and the erection of Ireland into an independent state. That the natural resources of the country, for agriculture, pasturage, mines, manufactures

and commerce, were so great and manifest, as to open a fair prospect of a speedy progress in population, industry, riches and power; and that, if England attempted to recover her abused dominion here, the Irish, under a good constitution, and a well supported executive, were able to defend themselves; nor would foreign alliances fail any nation found worthy thereof. These were the sentiments of many of the clergy, and the best informed among the laity, especially those supplanted and plundered by the Stuarts; not the vain desire of establishing their religion in all its former pomp and opulence, as Leland insinuates.

That these opinions were not ill grounded, appears from the distress of their enemies, the Irish government, and the partizans of parliament here, related from authorities beyond any suspicion of exaggeration. "The melancholy plea of necessity never could be urged with greater force than on the present occasion.

Dublin, from whence all Leinster and Connaught were to be supplied, as well as Derry and Colerain, had long since been reduced to the most miserable extremities; the inhabitants plundered to supply the soldiery; the soldiery impatient of their distresses: the officers repeatedly threatening to recur to the first principle of nature, that of self-preservation. The province of Connaught was reduced to almost total desperation. The integrity and activity of the earl of Clanricarde had the virulence of the Roman clergy to encounter, (who denounced all their