194

people, against the English inhabitants, or any others, we, with the nobility and gentlemen, and fuch others of the feveral counties of this kingdom, are most willing and ready to use our, and their, best endeavours in caufing reftitution and fatisfaction to be made, as in part we have already done.

"An anfwer hereunto is most humbly defired, with fuch prefent expedition as may, by your lordships, be thought most convenient, for avoiding the inconvenience of the barbaroufnefs and incivility of the commonalty, who have committed many outrages, without any order, confenting, or privity of ours. which we leave to your lordships wifdom, and fhall humbly pray, &c."

All

On the 10th November 1641, the O'Farrells of the neighbouring county of Longford, fent up alfo to the lords juftices, a remonftrance of their grievances; which was of much the fame tenor with that from Cavan, "These intreating redress in a parliamentary way. gentlemen," fays Mr. Carte,'" had deferved well of the crown, and were on that account particularly provided for by king James, in his inftructions for planting of that country. But the commiffioners appointed for the diftribution of the lands, more, greedy of their own private profit, than tender of the king's honour, or the rights of the fubject, took little care to obferve thefe inftructions; and the O'Farrells were generally great fufferers by the plantations. Several fons were turned out of large eftates of profitable land, and had only a small pittance, less than a fourth part, affigned them for it in barren ground. Twentyfour proprietors, most of them O'Farrells, were dispoffeffed of their all; and nothing allotted them for compenfation.

per

3 Life of Orm. vol. i.

In a manufcript of Bifhop Stearne, we find that in the fmall county of Longford, twenty-five of one fept were all deprived of their eftates, without the least compensation, or ́any means of fubfiftence affigned to them." Lel. Hift. of Irel vol. ii. p. 467.

compenfation. They had complained, in vain, of this undeferved usage many years; and having now an opportunity afforded them of redrefs, by the infurrection of their neighbours, had readily embraced it, and followed their example (for it does not appear that any of them were antecedently concerned in the confpiracy), as they likewife did, in laying before the lords justices, a remonftrance of their grievances, and a petition for redress; which, like that from Cavan,* came to nothing.".

"THE

CHA P. III.

The maffacre in land-Magee.

2

HE report that his majesty's protestant subjects first fell upon, and murdered the Roman catholics, got credit and reputation, and was openly and frequently afferted," fays Jones, bifhop of Meath, in a letter to Dr. Borlafe, in 1679. And Sir Audley Mervin, fpeaker of the house of commons, in a public fpeech to the Duke of Ormond in 1662, confeffes, "that several pamphlets then fwarmed to fasten the rife of this rebellion upon the proteftants; and that they drew the firft blood." And, indeed, whatever cruelties may be charged upon the Irish in the profecution of this war, "their first intention, we fee," fays another proteftant voucher," "went no further than to ftrip the English and the proteftants of their power and poffeffions, and, unless forced to it by oppofition, not fhed any blood." Even Temple confeffes the fame; for mentioning what mifchiefs were done in the beginning of this infurrection, "certainly," fays he," that which these rebels mainly intended at first, O 2 and

+ Bishop Burnet's Life of Bishop Bedel.

See. Preface to Borlafe's Hift. of the Irish Rebellion.

* Com. Jour. vol. i. f. 258.

3 Dr. Warner's Hift. Irish Reb. p. 47. Temp. Ir. Reb. Hift. of the Irish Rebellion.

that this maffacre was perpetrated on thofe harmless people, in revenge of fome cruelties before committed by the rebels on the Scots in other parts of Ulster. But as I find this controverfy has been already taken up by two able proteftant hiftorians, who feem to differ about the time in which that dismal event happened, perhaps, by laying before the reader the accounts of both, with such animadverfions, as naturally arife from them, that time may be more clearly and pofitively ascertained.

A late learned and ingenious author of an history of Ireland, has fhifted off this fhocking incident from November 1641, (in which month, it has been generally placed) to January following, many weeks after horrible cruelties (as he tells us) had been committed by the infurgents on the Scots in the North." "The Scottish foldiers," fays he, "who had reinforced the garrifon of Carrickfergus, were poffeffed of an habitual hatred of popery, and enflamed to an implacable deteftation of the Irish, by multiplied accounts of their cruelties. In one fatal night, they iffued from Carrickfergus into an adjacent diftrict called Ifland-Magee, where a number of the poorer Irish refided, unoffending and untainted with the rebellion. If we may believe one of the leaders of this party, thirty families were affailed by them in their beds, and maffacred with calm and deliberate cruelty. As if," proceeds the historian, "the incident were not fufficiently hideous, popish writers have reprefented it with fhocking aggravation. They make the number of the flaughtered, in a small and thinly inhabited neck of land, to amount to three thoufand, a wildness and abfurdity, into which other writers of fuch tranfactions have been betrayed; they affert, that this butchery was committed in the beginning of November, 1641, that it was the first maffacre committed in Ulfter, and the great provocation to all the outrages of the Irifh in this quarter. Mr. Carte feems to favour this affertion: had he carefully perused the collection of original depofitions, now in the poffeflion of the univerfity of Dublin, he would have found his doubts of facts, and dates cleared moft fatisfactorily

"Lel. Hift. Irel. vol. ii,

rily; and that the maffacre of Ifland-Magee, as appears from several unfufpicious evidences, was really committed in the beginning of January, when the followers of O'Nial had almost exhausted their barbarous malice."

Before

b Sir Phelim O'Nial. This affertion has no other foundation but the depofitions now in the poffeffion of the university of Dublin; what credit is due to thefe, we shall just now fee; but if any regard at all is to be had to fuch of them as have been carefully felected from the reft, and published by Temple and Borlafe, in their hiftories of this rebellion, we shall find fome of them vouching the contrary of this relation, viz. that Sir Phelim O'Nial did not order the cruelties he is charged with ordering, till many weeks after January, 1641. For by Captain Parkin's examination, "Sir Phelim began his maffacres after his flight from Dundalk." Temple Irish Rebel. p. 85.

Now his flight from Dundalk did not happen till about the latter end of March following. Carte's Orm. vol. i. fol. 288. Sir Henry Tichbourne's hiftory of the fiege of Drogheda, Mr. Carte, and most other adverse writers "that it was Sir Phelim O'Nial that firft began and encouraged these imputed maffacres." Cart. ib. fol. 176.

agree,

And Temple himself owns it, "to be a truth, that those British whom the rebels fuffered to live among them, and fuch as they kept in prison, were not put to the fword by the Irish, until, in their feveral encounters they had with his majesty's forces, they fuffered lofs of their men, and fo were enraged." Ib. p. 126,

Sir Henry Tichbourne, who had the chief command in that driving of O'Nial from Dundalk, performed that service, and afterwards purfued it with fuch an amazing flaughter of the Irish, in them parts, that he himself boasts that for fome weeks after, "there was neither man nor beast to be found in fixteen miles, between the two towns of Drogheda and Dundalk; nor on the other fide of Dundalk, in the county of Monaghan, nearer than Carrickmacrofs, a strong pile twelve miles diftant." Ib.

It is, therefore, not ftrange, though abfolutely inexcufable, if this incenfed leader, or rather his favage followers, should be provoked to retaliate, in fome meafure, fuch cruelty and deftruction on the unhappy English, whom they had in their power. Sir Phelim himfelf, in his laft moments, declared, "that the feveral outrages committed by his officers and foldiers, in that war, contrary to his intention, then preffed his confcience very much." Dean Ker's teftimony. Nalfon's Hift. Collect.

12

Before I examine the feveral particulars of the foregoing account, I muft obferve, that the objection taken from the smallness of the place, as if it were incapable of containing three thousand inhabitants, is grounded on a misapprehenfion of fome circumftances in this event. For the Irish that were deftroyed, confifted not only of the inhabitants of the place, but also, and for the greatest part, of the country people refiding in its neighbourhood; who, upon the invitation of Colonel Chichester and Sir Arthur Tyrringham, had fled to Carrickfergus for protection, on the firft eruption of thefe tumults." The town of Carrickfergus," fays Mr. Carte," "was then the place of the greateft ftrength in the North; and as Colonel Chichefter and Sir Arthur Tyrringham had, on the evening of the 23d of October, received intelligence of the infurrection, they immediately, by beat of drum and kindling of fires, apprifed all the country people round them of their danger; fo that the poor country people, who had not yet ftirred, flocked to that place continually, with all they could carry of their fubftance, (another temptation to commit the maflacre) in fuch multitudes of men, women, and children, that the town was overthronged." The fame author alfo informs us," that Colonel Chichester and Sir Arthur Tyrringham, invited feveral of the moft eminent of the Irifh thereabouts, who yet remained quiet in their houses, to come to Carrickfergus for fecurity; who accordingly went thither, but were made prifoners on their arrival."

And because it is allowed, that Mr. Carte feems to favour the affertion, "that near three thousand innocent Irish were maffacred in Ifland-Magee, in the beginning of November, 1641," it is but just to produce the reafons which appear to have inclined

12 Cart. Orm. vol. i.

13 Ib.

14 Ib.

him

Dublin, Cork, Youghall, Kinfale, Londonderry, Colerain, and Carrickfergus, (fays Temple, upon the firft breaking out of this infurrection) were overpeftered with multitudes that flocked to them for fafety." Irish Rebel. p. 175.