expended large sums of money of his private property in the undertaking. It is true, that he also did all in his power to injure and destroy the woollen trade of Ireland, then beginning to flourish. But it was the genius of the man to mingle good and evil; and he had become apprehensive that the woollen manufacture of Ireland might arrive at a degree of prosperity injurious to the trade of England; and it was the notion of the day, to consider that the pre-eminence of the latter country was to be promoted by the depression of all others. The discontent occasioned by the insincerity of the king, on the subject of the Graces; the terror of Strafford's violent proceedings; the menaces of the puritans (a party then rising into power) against the Catholics; the decline of the royal authority, and the approaching commotions in England,-all these circumstances furnished ground of hope to the dispossessed Irish of the late reign, that the time was arrived for making a struggle, with fair prospect of success, for the recovery of their ancient inheritances. The higher classes of the expelled Irish had been received with distinction in France, Spain, Germany, and Italy. Many of them held high rank in the armies of the three former powers. Those were now in close and frequent communication with each other, and with the continental courts. Ireland was full of their vassals and connexions, with whom they held constant intercourse, and who endured with impatience the neighbourhood of the strangers who held possession of their lands.

The expelled tenantry of these counties had continued pent up in the mountains, till the disorders of the government in England afforded them the opportunity of combining with their exiled chiefs, in one great effort, for their mutual restoration. The time was now arrived, and in the winter of 1641, in the month of October, they descended in vast torrents from the mountains, swept the new plantations from the face of the land, and obtained full possession of their ancient settlements. This great change was accomplished without bloodshed. The plan of the insurrection prescribed, that the English settlers should be dispossessed peaceably, and that the Scotch should not be at all disturbed or molested. The latter were, many of them, connected in the country, and some of their settlements had been made with the sanction of the Irish chiefs. But this wise and humane principle of the insurrection did not endure long, nor perhaps was it in the nature of the case that it should do so. The first military movements were directed by Sir Phelim O'Neil; and though successful from the overwhelming nature of the force collected, and the total absence of any effectual opposition, yet when at length a vigorous resistance was made, and the incapacity of the leader began to display itself, the fury of the collision produced its natural effect upon the tumultuous mass now in movement, on both sides. Both parties shed blood freely. The rage of the Irish exhausted itself upon the intruders upon their lands. The British and Scotch retaliated in the massacre at Island Magee, and wherever else an opportunity presented itself. Nor ought we to be surprised that the slaughter committed by the Irish in the first burst of the rebellion was grossly exaggerated. It is in the

nature of fear to exaggerate; but in this case there was even a greater exaggerator than fear. The cause of the quarrel was property; and it was the interest of the party whose claim was opposed to that of the old Irish proprietors, to represent them as monsters, who could not be satiated with blood. Accordingly, the Irish were represented as having put to death thirty thousand Protestant inhabitants of the north. It was, however, admitted, that a great proportion of the northern Protestants were saved and protected, for this fact could not be denied. And it is also ascertained, that the entire Protestant population of the north of Ireland did not then amount to twenty thou sand. Cromwell's commission of inquiry estimated the number killed at six thousand; and this also was probably an exaggeration, as Cromwell's commissioners were neither inclined to underrate, nor very strict observers of the truth,'

The following view of the state of parties at this momentous crisis, appears also to be conceived with great vigour, and unfolded with much perspicuity.

There were now four great parties in Ireland, all actuated by different motives; that of the ancient, or pure Irish; that of the AngloIrish, both of which formed the great body of the CONFEDERATES; that of the king's party, as it was called; and that of the puritans, or parliament party.

These four apparently composed but two great divisions; the king's party and the parliament party affecting to acknowledge but one interest; and the Irish and Anglo-Irish parties seeming to be bound by one principle, and to act together for one object. But they were all really distinct. The separation between the two latter, however, was much broader and more decisive than between the former.

The arming of the northern Irish, which had been concerted by the Irish officers on the continent, had for its object the recovery of their ancient estates, and some few went the length of a separation of Ireland from the crown of Great Britain. The views of the AngloIrish went no further than a confirmation of the Charter of Graces, and protection against the designs of the puritans. They were opposed to any restoration of property to the ancient Irish, and still more hostile to every scheme of Irish independence. They feared that if Ireland were severed from the British crown, it would give such a preponderance to the old Irish interest, as would endanger their own possessions, or at least affect the rank and station they then held in the country. Instead of being the first in power and importance, they could only, after such an event, look to a second place in the nation. Nothing, therefore, was more sound and sincere than the loyalty of the Anglo-Irish lords. They were united with the ancient Irish in the insurrection, by force of circumstances, not by choice. A community of religion was the chief bond, as it was the pretext of a common persecution; next the necessity of self-defence; and in some instances, the force of kindred and relationship.

The third party was a small one; but it was one of great importance, as well from the persons composing it, as from the part they

had to perform. The party of the confederates, in its two great branches of Irish and Anglo-Irish, were all Catholics. The king's party were Catholic and Protestant: it consisted of Catholic lords, whose horror of Irishry was too strong for any fears on the score of religion to compel them into even a temporary union with that interest, or whose loyalty could not be shaken by any delinquencies of the crown, or made to yield to the safety of the nation.'

We give these passages as specimens merely of the spirit and temper in which the work is composed. For we cannot now pretend to give even the slightest abstract of the substance of the story. The whole details, however, of this sanguinary contest, of the Kilkenny convention in 1642, and of the King's secret treaty with Glamorgan in 1645, and his subsequent most disreputable disavowal of it, are here given with a degree of fulness, clearness, and moderation, which, we have no difficulty in saying, are not to be paralleled in any other account of the same transaction. Soon after the establishment of the Commonwealth, the Protector came himself to Ireland, to extinguish, if possible, the power of the Catholic confederation; but he accomplished nothing by his campaign at all answerable to his reputation. He besieged a few towns, and met with a brave and obstinate resistance, which he resented by the greatest cruelties ;-and Mr O'Driscol holds it to be clear, that his ultimate success was entirely owing to the internal dissensions of the confederates, and those jealousies and animosities among their leaders, that deprived them at last of all means of co-operation, and condemned them to see their great force moulder away and dissolve, before the face of a far inferior enemy.

The old Irish of the confederacy, hopeless now of achieving any thing for their country, and weary of the eternal and absurd negotiations of the convention lords, entered into terms with the Cromwellians. Many laid down their arms and submitted; but far the greater number made conditions to be sent at the cost of the parliament to France or Spain, and were furnished with stores and shipping for that purpose. The military were gladly received into the service of those two powers; and in the course of three years about forty thousand men, chiefly of the Irish army, left their country in this manner, and were conveyed abroad at the cost of the new government of England. The whole number, however, of Irish who quitted their country in the course of the Cromwellian wars, is estimated at about two hundred thousand. A dispersion which formed a remarkable event of the time; and which is still to be traced in France, Spain, and various other parts of Europe.

The Ormond party was extinct. The party of the convention was in a state of utter decay. Their own army, which was of necessity composed of mere Irish, followed the example of the northern battalions, and disbanded, or retired by regiments into foreign service.

The Cromwellians found themselves in quiet possession of the kingdom almost without firing a shot, and to their own great amazement. They proceeded without a moment's delay to appropriate to themselves the great estates of the lords and gentlemen of the confederation.

The Irish war was now concluded. Cromwell sent over his son Henry to superintend a settlement of the kingdom. This was soon effected in Cromwell's usual style of decision and despatch. Connaught was set apart for the Irish who had not made terms. Ulster was already disposed of to the London companies and the Scotch: these were to remain undisturbed. The other two provinces were allotted almost entirely to the Cromwellian soldiers and adventurers, in satisfaction of their arrears of pay and advances towards the expenses of the war. In this partition of the land, which was as complete as that of Canaan to the children of Israel, the Anglo-Irish nobility and gentry were the chief sufferers.

The Cromwellians thus established in Ireland were a bold and hardy race of men ; and superior, perhaps, to any of the swarms which had passed the Channel from time to time, and settled on the rich lands of Ireland. They were not like the crafty land-jobbers, who came over avowedly to traffic in forfeited estates, many of whom laid the foundations of wealthy families; neither did they belong to the class of needy and dissolute adventurers, whose object was to rebuild a fortune, which vice and depravity had destroyed; nor were they of the low and unprincipled stock of official and military speculators in confiscations, whose determination was to make a fortune, no matter how.

The Cromwellian soldiers came to Ireland unwillingly. They were for the most part men who had engaged from principle in the cause of the parliament; or, as they believed, the cause of civil and religious liberty. They were enthusiasts, with somewhat of the dignity of enthusiasm about them. They had not deprived, by personal management or contrivance, any man of his estate in Ireland. The lands were vacant. The events of the war had swept away the late possessors; and the Protector, assuming a right over those lands, assigned them to his soldiers in lieu of pay.

The conduct of the Cromwellian army and of their great leader, in Ireland, is abundant proof that there is no tyranny like the tyranny of republicans. All the despotism of corrupt courts, unprincipled monarchs, and profligate courtiers, had been exhausted upon Ireland; and all which these instruments could accomplish in a course of ages, fell infinitely short of what was effected in as many years by the army of the Commonwealth. Nothing in history is more dreadful than the slaughter committed by the Cromwellians when the country fell into their power. They spared neither age, nor sex, nor infancy. But there is little doubt that these gloomy fanatics imagined they would have sinned in sparing. When they became weary of slaughter, they transported the people in thousands to the West Indies, and to all parts of the Continent; and it is probable that, like the Jews when they spared a remnant of the people of Canaan, they considered this

lenity to popery as an offence that would be visited upon their children. Like all fanatics, they were more conversant with the horrors of the Old Testament than the mild precepts of the New.

Cromwell's plan for the settlement of Ireland consisted of a legislative union of the three nations, incorporated now into one great republic. By an order, called an INSTRUMENT OF GOVERNMENT, he directed that thirty Irish members should be elected to represent Ireland in the united parliament. His plan of representation seems to have been very crude and defective but it was worthy of his bold and commanding intellect to furnish the first outline of the only scheme, consistent with the connexion with Great Britain, which could supply a remedy for the enormous abuses then prevailing in Ireland. The Restoration put an end to this plan of union; which, if it had been adopted by Charles II., would probably have prevented the two years' war of the Revolution.

But Cromwell's plans of improvement were not confined to his scheme of union: he directed that particular attention should be paid to the advancement of learning; and that a second college should be erected in the neighbourhood of Dublin, or some other part of Ireland. Cromwell had always paid marked attention to learning and learned men, and was well aware how much the glory and prosperity of nations depend upon their degree of knowledge and reputation in the world.'

On the Restoration, the claims of the Anglo-Irish Catholics, who had stood out so manfully for the royal cause, were urged with great force on the returning king.

He and his father had repeatedly treated with them, and confirmed the terms of their treaties. They had both been in incessant intercourse with them. The Catholics had powerfully assisted the royal cause in England, Scotland, and on the Continent, with liberal supplies of men and money. They had continued the war against Cromwell in Ireland to the last extremity; and their loyalty had been such that they had rejected the most favourable terms from the parliament; had quarrelled with the nuncio and the clergy; and broken with O'Neil and the northern Irish, whose loyalty was too much mixed with common motive. And finally, to crown their merits, they were abandoned by the old Irish, subdued by the new English, and had lost their estates, property, power, everything.

، They had, in fact, done too much to expect any recompense. The king might have remunerated ordinary services, but when such a mass of obligation as this was cast upon him, there was no way of treating it but by throwing it off in a lump. Charles had already decided the point with his conscience, upon the arguments of state which Ormond had suggested. But he had the grace to make a show of looking into the matter. The claims of the Irish were debated before the English privy council, at which the King attended regularly. The matter in dispute respected the states which the confederates had lost, and the Cromwellians had gained. The council first decided as a preliminary