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edious, by a series of fraud, cruelty and rapacity. They sold common justice for money; they screened the guilty, and oppressed the innocent. To render their proceedings summary, to clothe their authority with more terror, and with most expedition to enrich themselves, they chose to exert their power in the military way. The corruption at the source extended itself to every channel of government; the subordinate magistrates, the justices of peace, as if all law was at an end, made their own will and pleasure the rule of their conduct. Presuming on their power in the country, they deprived, under colour of their authority, many persons of their effects; they dispos sessed many of their lands. Coningsby, created a baron by the same name, with his colleague Porter, continued in the government till the arrival of Sydney, on the 25th of August, 1693; in the intermediate time, they presided in the court of claims for adjusting the demands of those comprehended in the articles of Limerick; and the obvious road to their justice, was said to lie through their avarice."

sets forth, "that they were extremely surprised at the frequent complaints they received from all parts of the kingdom, notwithstanding their proclamation to the contrary, of the ill treatment of the Irish, who were in arms against their majesties, and have either submitted, and are under their majesties protection, or are included in the articles granted upon the surrender of some of their garrisons, or submission of their army. That this proceeding has so extremely terrified them with the apprehensions of the continuance of this sort of usage, that they found experimentally, some thousands who quitted the Irish army, and went home with a resolution not to go for France, are now come back again, and press earnestly to go thither, rather than stay here; where, contrary to the public faith, as well as against law and justice, they are robbed of their substance, and abused in their persons, &c."-From an attested MSS. Copy of that Order, communicated to me by Mr. James Laffan, of Kilkenny.

* King Willlam's army, in want of pay from the crown, raised money by military distress from the subject, to the incredible amount of two hundred thousand pounds. The stores left by king James in the kingdom, to the value, it was said, of eighty thousand pounds, were embezzled or applied to his own use by Coningsby. The lord lieutenant himself, and Ginckle, who had been created earl of Athlone, were accused of possessing themselves of almost all the forfeitures. But one of the most flagrant inroads upon the constitution, was depriving the citizens of Dublin of the right to choose their own magistrates.-Macphers. Hist, Gr. Brit. vol. ii. p. 28-9.

CHAP. XIX.

A short sketch of the cruelties inflicted on the Irish prisoners in this war; and also on those even under protection.

MR. LESLEY, after having shewn, that the foregoing charge of breach of articles made by Dr. King against king James's officers, was groundless and wicked; has, by way of contract, produced several notorious and uncontroverted instances of the perfidy and cruelty of king William's officers, towards their Irish prisoners, in the course of this war. Out of these instances, I shall select the few following; and with them conclude this tedious and melancholy narrative of the state of the Irish at different periods, for the space of more than one hundred and fifty years.

"When Drogheda surrendered to king William, after the defeat at the Boyne, the sick and wounded soldiers were, by the capitulations, to be taken care of, and to be sent with passes to their own army, as they recovered. But they were not only neglected, and might have starved but for the charity of some of their own poor countrymen, who sold their beds and cloaths to relieve them, but they were also kept as prisoners after they recovered, contrary to their articles."

Upon the surrender of Cork, the Irish army, though prisoners of war, were by the conditions to be well used. Notwithstanding which, even those protestants who were most zealous for king William, owned, that the Irish general narrowly escaped being murdered by the inhabitants; that he had no justice done him, nor any satisfaction, upon his complaint to the English general; and that the garrison, after laying down their arms, were stripped; and marched to a marshy wet ground, where they were kept with guards four or five days; and not being sustained, were forced by hunger to eat dead

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General M'Carthy, of whom when colonel, lord Clarendon, lørd lieutenant of Ireland, reported to the English ministry," that he was a man of quality, and a soldier; and that he behaved himself extreme'y well, wherever he was quartered, with great easiness and moderation.”— State Lett. vol. i. p. 45.

His excellency soon after recommended him to the king to be made a major general.-Ib. p. 47.

horses, that lay about them; and several of them died, for want even of that, when they were removed from thence. That they were afterwards so crouded in houses, jails, and churches, that they could not all lie down at once, and had, nothing but the bare floor to lie upon; where the want of sus tenance, and the lying in their own excrements, with dead car casses lying whole weeks in the same place with them, caused. such infection that they died in great numbers daily. The Roman catholics of Cork, though promised safety and protection, had, on this surrender, their goods seized, and themselves stripped and turned out of the town soon after.".

"In December 1690,3 one captain Lauder, of colonel Hale's regiment, being ordered with a lieutenant, ensign, and fifty men, to guard about two hundred of the Cork prisoners to Clonmell, as they fainted on the road with the above said bad usage, shot them to the number of sixteen, between Cork and Clonmell; and upon major Dorington's having demanded jus tice against this officer from general Ginckle, Lauder got a pardon for the murder, and was continued in his post."

"King William's army,+ after being entire masters of Athlone,* killed in cold blood an hundred men in the castle, and * Id. ib.

3 Answ. to King.

"Douglas, in his expedition to Athlone, marched as through an enemy's country, his men plundering, and even murdering, with impunity, in defiance of the royal proclamation, or the formal orders of their gene ral. As he advanced, the Irish peasantry appeared, successively, in considerable bodies, to claim the benefit of king William's declaration; and were successively ensnared by assurance of protection, and exposed to all the violences of the soldiers."-Lel. Hist. of Irel. vol. iii. p. 576.

"Douglas, in the mean time, pursued his destructive route to Athlone; his men plundered the country; they murdered many unfortunate wretches, who relied on the king's declaration; the peasantry came in numerous bodies to claim protection; but they were exposed to all the insolence, crueity, and tyranny of a licentious army. Detested, abhorred and feared, Douglas sat down with his cruel followers before Athlone, he carried on his works with vigor; but he soon was forced to abandon the siege, The unfortunate persons who had declared for William upon his approach, found themselves obliged to attend him (in his retreat), to avoid the fury of their former friends, but they were robbed and plundered by those from whom they expected protection, Nothing but misery, distress, and even death were scen; the harvest was trodden down by the troops, the

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little out-work on the river. And at Aughrim above two thousand, who threw down their arms and asked quarter; and several who had quarter given them, were afterwards killed in cold blood; in which number were the lord Galway and colonel Charles Moore. The major of colonel Epingham's dragoons owned to major general Dorington, that lord Galway was killed after quarter, and when the battle was over. More vouchers," adds Mr. Lesley, "might be produced if needful.”

"In short, many hundreds of the poor Irish prisoners were sent at a time into Lambay, a waste deserted island in the sea near Dublin; where their allowance for four days might, without excess, be eaten at a meal; and being thus out of the reach of their friends, (all persons being prohibited to pass into it with boat, or other vessel, under the penalty of forfeiting the same) they died there miserably, and in heaps."

Thus publicly were these, and many other facts, attested by Mr. Lesley, in his answer to Dr. King's State of the Protestants of Ireland under king James, in refutation of the numerous falsehoods contained in that book. The truth of which

wretched cabins of the unfortunate peasantry were consumed with fire, and the cattle driven as booty away."-Macpherson's Hist. vol. i. p. 595.

On king William's retreat, after his first attempt upon Limerick, “ the protestants attended him to avoid the resentment of the Irish; but they found enemies in their supposed friends; they were plundered of their effects and cattle; the army ranged at large after booty; they knew no discipline; they owned no authority. The king either winked at their irregularities, or he yielded to a stream which he could not oppose; his declaration was infringed; his protections disregarded; his route covered with devastations, and all the other miseries of war. Excesses of a savage barbarity, but upon questionable authority (Lel. vol. iii.)-have been ascribed to the king himself, on his retreat from Limerick. Disappointmen: might have raised his resentment; the outrages committed by his troops stain the annals of the times.”—Macpherson's Hist. of Gr, Brit. vol. i. p. 596-7.

* In the battle of Aughrim, and in a bloody pursuit of three hours (stopped only by the night's coming on), seven thousand of an Irish army were slain. The unrelenting fury of the victors, appeared in the number of their prisoners, which amounted only to four hundred and fifty.—Lel. Hist. of Irel. vol. iii.p. 606.

"Gingle gained reputation by the defeat of the Irish at Aughrim; but his army lost every claim to humanity, by giving no quarter.”—Masphert. ib. p. 621.

For "archbishop Tillotson recommended this book to (king William

answer is still further confirmed, by the doctor's conscious si lence* under such heavy accusation, for more than thirty years. that he survived the publication of it; being most of that time, in the exalted stations of bishop of Derry, and archbishop of Dublin; to which successive dignities, he was thought to have been raised, chiefly on account of the great merit and service of that performance.

CHAP. XX.

Surrender of Limerick, with the Articles of capitulation.

On the 3d of October, 1691, was surrendered to general Ginckle, and the lords justices of Ireland, upon the articles of capitulation here following, freely and solemnly entered into, the city of Limerick,† together with all the other garrisons then held by the catholics of that kingdom, for king James. These articles were afterwards ratified, and exemplified, by their to justify the revolution), as the most serviceable treatise that could have been published at such a juncture.”—Swift's Letter concerning the Sacramentat Test.

Though Mr. Lesley, in his answer, fervently prayed, “that God might give Dr, King grace, before he died, to repent sincerely, and confess honestly, all the errors, wilful or malicious representations in this book of his."-p. 173.

One can't help smiling to find an assertion in Dr. King's life, lately prefixed to Dean Swift's letters to his grace, that, notwithstanding this long silence both of his lordship and friends, "his grace had by him at his death attested vouchers of every particular fact alleged in his State of the Protessants of Ireland, which are now in the hands of his relations." Swift's Works, vol. viii.-If this be not a ridiculous boast of his biographer, as most probably it is, these relations of his grace are now again thus publicly called upon to produce those attested vouchers.

"The particulars of the second siege of Limerick (says Macpherson) are neither important nor distinctly known. Six weeks were spent before the place, without any decisive effect. The garrison was well supplied with provisions. They were provided with a means of defence. The season was now far advanced. The rains had set in. The winter itself was near. Ginckle had received orders to finish the war upon any terms. The English general offered conditions, which the Irish, had they even been victors, could scarce refuse with prudence."-Macphers. Hist. Gr. Brit. vol. i. p. 620.

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