with the greatest characters that great events have produced. However, granting it otherwise, it does not affect the present argument, which tends to shew, not that the Irish chieftains were heroes, but simply that they were not bigots.

Hugh O'Neil was the son of the bastard Matthew, and in opposition to the Irish usage of tanistry (as we have already shewn) the dynasty and foe of Ulster was vested in him on his father's death, by letters patent under the great seal. He committed no act to forfeit his right, but because Shane O'Neil rebelled, to whom in the eye of the English law Ulster did not belong, it was confiscated to the queen's use; and Hugh O'Neil suffered the penalty for another person's treason, and that person his opponent. The queen, however, was not then sufficiently powerful to take possession; and to complete the inconsistency, she acquiesced in the election of another chieftain, Tyrlogh Lynogh.

On his death, Hugh O'Neil was inaugurated by a better title than the queen had to bestow, the free election of the whole sept, who from time immemorial had ap

pointed their chieftains. O'Neil was too well acquainted with the English court, and knew he could only maintain his rights by force. After he had endeavoured to supply his inadequacy in military strength by that policy which can alone give the weak the advantage against the strong, he took the field, and gained a decisive victory at Blackwater.

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Hugh O'Donnel shared with him in the glory of the day; their ancestors had always been enemies; it was an O'Neil who in Henry VII.'s reign, wrote to Hugh Roe O'Donnel. Cur hoom mi keesh no -monna Curhir!" i. e." Send me my tribute, or if you don't!" To which O'Donnel replied, " Neel keesh a gut urm, agus da beh!" i. e." I owe you no tribute, and if I did!"

We have seen in the reign of Henry VIII. the Lord Deputy declaring O'Donnel independent of O'Neil; but when the Lord Deputy proceeded to declare O'Donnel's dependants also independent, it seems to have opened his eyes, for we hear of no more disputes between the O'Donnels and the O'Neils.

The wrongs of Hugh O'Neil, a worldly and politic man, are not calculated to excite interest, but those of the open, generous, and spirited O'Donnel, will move any feelings but those of a bigot. The father of Hugh O'Donnel, the powerful Prince of Tyrconnel, refused to admit an English sheriff in his territory. The English government were too conscious of the villainy of the attempt, and their want of any plea of right, to enforce it by arms. They had recourse to means which would appear incredible, if the truth of the fact was not well authenticated. What must have been the general conduct of the English, when Sir John Perrot, who was accused of favouring the Irish, and who was beloved by the Irish, as comparatively a just and humane Deputy, when he contrived and boasted of the following project :

A merchant of Dublin was instructed to feign himself a Spaniard, and to sail up by Donegal into the territory of Tyrconnel, to shew an extraordinary courtesy to the natives, to invite and feast them in his ship.---If the old chieftain or his son came on board, to intoxicate them, secure them

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under the hatches, and convey them to Dublin. The stratagem succeeded, and Hugh O'Donnel was the victim. And what was his treatment afterwards, when policy could not point out any reason for farther cruelty? Take the account from Lee's memorial to the Queen:

"After the obtaining of him, his manner of usage was most dishonourable and discommendable, and neither allowable before God nor man. My reasons are these: He being young, and being taken by this stratagem, having never offended, was imprisoned with great severity, and many irons laid upon him, as if he had been a notable traitor and malefactor."

His imprisonment would have lasted for life, had he not found means to make his escape with the two sons of Shane O'Neil and O'Reily. Hugh O'Donnel and Arthur O'Neil were hotly pursued; they were obliged to conceal themselves in a fastness without food, and exposed to the cold of a severe winter. In this situation they remained four days, when they were discovered by their friends. Young O'Neil was expiring. Hugh O'Donnel, deprived of the

use of his limbs by the severity of the cold, was weeping bitterly over his friend, and endeavouring to preserve his life by sheltering him with his own body. Arthur O'Neil died. O'Donnel regained Tyrconnel, and swore eternal enmity to the English. His father resigned his power to him, and he was solemnly invested with the principality of Tyrconnel by the suf frages of his sept.

Upon the defeat of the English at Blackwater, every Irish chieftain took arms. Morrison gives a list of them and of their forces, which is alone sufficient to prove that the English government could not,. with any propriety, consider them as subjects. Directed by O'Neil and O'Donnel, they defeated the best appointed army which had ever been sent from England; and Essex, who commanded it, returned to England disgraced. This was the only time that the fortune of Ireland seemed to gain the ascendant. O'Neil, with an inferior force, had baffled the English by address; he had now the superiority, and his success appeared certain. Every chieftain, whether of Irish or English extraction, saw that