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the Irish chieftains in taking up arms. "Certain it is," says Morrison, "that upon Mac Mahon's execution, heart-burnings and loathings of the English government began to grow in the northern lords against the state, and they shunned, as much as they could, to admit any sheriffs, or any English to live among them.".

The minds of the Irish princes had already been sufficiently inflamed. English garrisons were forced on them under different pretences, which removed from any responsibility, pillaged and laid waste the surrounding country. The English sheriffs were a yoke no less grievous: established under pretence of introducing a more equitable administration of justice, as soon as they were firm in their seats, their extortions, and exactions, with less appearance fright, became more intolerable than those of the native dynasts. In the instructions to Lord Grey and Sir John Perrot, the abuses committed by the English garrisons appear to have been notorious.. The dread of an English sheriff had become so great in the Irish territories, though at first they were thankfully accepted, that his life was

not secure. When Fitzwilliam proposed to Mac Guire, Prince of Fermanagh, to send a sheriff into his district, Mac Guire replied: "Your sheriff shall be welcome, but let me know his Erick, that if my people cut off his head, I may levy it on the country."

A creature of the Lord Deputy, named Willis, was sent as sheriff, who according to Morrison and Lee, "harassed the country with three hundred of the very rascal and scum of the kingdom, which did rob and spoil that people, ravish their wives and daughters, and make havoc of all."

Morrison himself particularises the tyranny of English sheriffs as a leading cause of the succeeding confederation of the Irish dynasts; and in their remonstrance to Wallop and Gardiner, who were appointed to confer with them, they insi upon being exempted from garrisons and sheriffs. Even had the English garrisons and sheriffs committed no abuses, the eagerness with which the English government seized every pretence to introduce them, must have worn a very equivocal appearance to the Irish chieftains; it might

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have proceeded from a wish to promote tranquillity and law, but it might also proceed from a design of subverting the prerogatives of the Irish dynasts, and seizing on their territories.

This being the fact, it was difficult for men so immediately interested, to be entirely unaware of their danger, and the period fast approached when it became necessary for them to forget their mutual feuds in their common peril, and make a last struggle for their independence, their power, and their property.

The period was favourable, as far as com→ mon injuries could give union and vigour to their exertions.

The sept of Mac Mahon, equally regretting their murdered chieftain, and abhorring the seneschal set over them, were ripe for action. Mac Guire roused to arms, by the indignity he had suffered from sheriff Willis, was only repressed by Hugh O'Neil, who had not yet thrown off the mask.

The O'Connors and O'Moores had bravely contested the possession of their native territories, Leix and Offalia, and were now in great force.

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The chieftains of the De Burghes, originally English, but who had long enjoyed the independence and absolute prerogatives of Irish princes, had resisted the attempt of Sir Richard Bingham, to reduce them to the state of subjects; alarmed for their independence, and grievously harassed (as we are told) by Wallop, by the late introduction of sheriffs, their defeat was only productive of forced submission.

O'Rorke, who had been driven from his petty principality by Sir Richard Bingham, had taken possession of Leitrim, and bid defiance to the Lord Deputy.

Shane M'Brian O'Neil had taken arms to recover an island and a barony wrested from him by the Earl of Essex, who had imprisoned him till he surrendered them.

The inhabitants of Munster, driven from their possessions by the English undertakers, had collected in force, and only waited an opportunity to recover their properties; they soon after elected James Fitzthomas, commonly called the sugan earl of Desmond, for their chieftain. He had the command of eight thousand men, as we learn from the Paccata Hibernia; he was

elected agreeable to the law of tanistry, on condition of doing homage to O'Neil, and was in every respect, a prince contending for power, and not a bigot striving to establish a domineering religion.

But the most formidable support of the Irish war, (for it is quite impossible to call

a rébellion, where there were more than sixty kings of acknowledged right, though possessed of trivial territory, fighting for the existence of their power) were. the talents and courage of two principal chieftains, O'Donnel and O'Neil.* O'Donnel was a hero. O'Neil was something still better. With equal courage and perseverance, he knew how to bend to circumstances, and to supply by address, the immense inferiority of force, which did not deter him from the daring attempt to release his country from a foreign yoke.

These men, whose characters have been basely traduced by historians, too bigoted to be generous; wanted only a more splendid sphere of action, to have ranked

The kings in Ireland were sixty and more. Holland's insertion in the text of Camden.

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