"Nec lex æquior ulla eft,

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Quam necis artifices arte perire fua."

OVID.

However, the Irish Catholics can never fufficiently thank him, for not punishing with halter, gibbet, and exenteration, a requiescat in расе,

To this long train of Stuart hoftilities James the Second is the only exception. As Diffenters and Roman Catholics were equally difqualified, he removed all penal reftraints. Religion influenced him, doubtless. But did not his favours and indulgence, extend to Scotch Diffenters, as well as to Irish Catholics? Did not the good of the state, ftrengthened by the affections and power of its fubjects, ever and always weakened by their tepidity and indigence, require then, as it does now, a relaxation of oppreffive laws? And was it not the king's intereft to endeavour to render all his fubjects. profperous and happy? Did he but proceed on a legal plan with the confent of his parliament, without arrogating to himself a difpenf ing power, which the nation vefts in the aggregate body of king, lords, and commons? But can the conduct of James the Second stand the teft? Or must not an Irishman be blind in not perceiving the partiality of this cherished twig of the Stuart ftem?

Ambition,

Ambition, or love for their fubjects, induces kings to exchange the gaieties of a palace for the fatigues of the field, and to fly into the arms of death, from the bofom of fenfuality and voluptuoufnefs. But more especially in thofe critical junctures, when the crown is at stake, and the majefty of the monarch on the point of finking into the fubject, the fprings of nature play with an extraordinary elasticity; the radiancy of the throne, glistening in the monarch's eyes, abforbs and eclipses the perception of danger: pride fupplies the place of valour, and despair metamorphofes the coward into the hero.

In the vicinity of an army of thirty thousand men, master of the strong holds and garrisons of his realms, at the first report of the Prince of Orange's arrival in England, James the Second, with the apathy of a Stoic, or the timidity of an old woman, throws the royal feals into the Thames, disappears, leaves three kingdoms in the utmost anarchy and confufion, the reigns of government without a hand to manage them, and his subjects uncertain to whom they are to transfer their allegiance.

Inftances of the kind are fcarce to be met with in the chronicles of kings; a hand that would not unfheath a fword in defence of three realms

is better calculated for a muff than a fceptre. Queen Elizabeth almost in fight of an army of fifty thoufand Spaniards, reviews her troops, rides through the ranks, animates, incites, encourages her men: "Behold your queen! Vic❝torious, I fhall reward you: defeated, I will

die with you." But Buchanan's contraft of

James the Firft to queen Elizabeth, is applicable to James the Second.,

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Rex fuit Elizabeth, nunc veroregina Jacobus. Error naturæ par in utroque fuit.

In English:"Nature was mistaken in thofe two extraordinary productions: Elizabeth was a man James a woman."

Recalled by Tyrconnel from France to Ireland, our Alexander lays fiege to Londonderry, from whence he is repelled by a Proteftant minifter, at the head of a handful of men half famifhed. This was a glorious conteft between a king and a prieft: the fword and the gown. Cedant arma togæ.

The banks of the Boyne are quite as inaufpicious to his laurels. Here, contrary to the advice of his officers, he compels them to encounter a formidable army of fifty thousand veterans, "commanded by the ableft generals of

that

that age. Remark his orders and difpofitions. With a felect party of his army he places himfelf on Dunmore hill, out of cannon reach; and gives a strict charge to Sarsfield, (lord Lucan) not to fire at his fon, who was come fword in hand to deprive him of his crown. A boding omen of future victory! In battle, let a general ride up and down to animate his troops, never fire into his quarters: you will gain the field. Seeing the Irifh, though difpirited by his partial commands, and unanimated by his example, repel the enemy, and keep the battle in fufpence, he cries out "Spare my

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English fubjects, fpare my English subjects." Lo, the most beloved king of the Stuart race! Pious, and tender-hearted, he would not have fcrupled to repoffefs himself of the throne at the expence of Irish blood, but the purchase would have been too dear, when acquired with the lofs of English subjects.

His daughter, queen Mary, during her hufband's abfence, ordered all Papifts and reputed Papifts, to depart ten miles from London. Her reign would have fwelled the code of penal laws, and expanded the ten miles into a wider circuit, had not king William controuled the fpirit of oppreffion, fo co-natural to the Stuarts. Expofed to the power of Lewis the fourteenth, ready to back the claims of an abdicated

H

t

cated king, ftill grafping at the remains of expiring royalty, William the third never deprived the Catholics of their property. He even allowed the most part of the Catholic gentry, the ufe of fuch arms as were neceffary for their defence and diverfion: a fword and a gun. Their total deftruction was completed by the laft fovereign of the Stuart line.

Queen Anne, by reducing the leafes to 31 years, and introducing the bills of difcovery, threw the nation into a convulfion, from whence it can never recover, until more lenient' hands flacken the ftiff chain of penal reftraints. Under the happiest of constitutions, fhe has made Ottoman flaves, and impreffed. one of her kingdoms with the traces of Turkish mifery.

"Under this fort of government," fays Montefquieu, fpeaking of the Ottoman empire, "nothing is repaired or improved. Houses are "built only for the neceffity of habitation:

“.

every thing is drawn from, but nothing re"ftored to, the earth: the ground lies untilled, "and the whole country becomes a defert." Whoever travels over the most part of Ireland, can fee the defcription realized. One of her laws whereby it is decreed, "that where the

fon and heir of a Papist, shall become a Pro

"teftant,